Then she frowned.
The shop was empty. No one replied to her greeting because no one was there.
There was a clear view of the front door from behind thecounter, and none of the shelves were high enough for a person to hide behind. But she’d definitely heard the bell ring.
If that fucking park creep found me at work, I swear to god I’ll make him regret it.
Nape prickling, she closed her laptop and slipped off the stool. She checked behind the shelves in the far corner. The shop was tiny; it wasn’t like she would miss someone if they were here. She went to the front door and looked out onto the street. The wind blew bits of garbage and dead leaves. Nothing was out of the ordinary.
Fuck, was she losing her mind?
She gave one last look at the deserted street, shaking her head and—
“Hello.”
Barely stifling a shout, she spun around and came face to face with another person.
Bloodshot eyes. A scorpion’s tail. A fiery pit. A glowing red seal—
Suyin blinked. A woman stood in front of her. Middle-aged, graying hair. “I’m looking for a gift for my niece,” she said with a wary smile. “Can you help me?”
“How’d you get in here?” Suyin demanded.
Tact had never been her strong suit. She was five-foot-two and weighed a hundred and thirty pounds. She’d learned a long time ago to be blunt or people would look right over her head.
The woman blinked. “I came in through the door, of course. I was just looking at the candles over there.”
Suyin looked at the candle display. It was directly beside the front desk, but it was blocked from view by a tall rack of jewelry on the counter. She closed her eyes and cursed inwardly. She’d been so caught up in her paranoia that she thought she was in a horror movie jump-scare scene.
Was this her life now? Dreaming of Hell and impendingdoom, dodging stalkers, and sinking farther into unsociability until she lost touch with reality?
There wasn’t anything she could do about it now. She focused back on her customer. “Right. Your niece. What does she like?”
EASYPREY
AHEAVY SHOULDER SLAMMED INTOSUYIN’S, SENDINGher flying until she crashed into another sweaty body. She shoved against the much larger man with two hands and launched back in another direction, only to be body-slammed right back the way she’d come. Another tall person crashed into her, their elbow cracking her on the side of the head.
Momentarily stunned, she stumbled and hit the ground.
With the mass of perspiring bodies undulating around her, one would expect her to be immediately trampled underfoot. Instead, a hand reached down. She grasped it, and with a tug, she was back on her feet.
The bearded metalhead raised his brows in question. She gave him a thumbs up, letting him know she was okay, and they both launched back into the melee. But her head was pounding now. The music was so loud her ears were numb.
She was fifty years old, damn it. Too old for mosh pits.
It didn’t make her enjoy them any less, though. Nor did her diminutive stature or the fact that she was female. Men weredicks everywhere in life, but there was an etiquette to a good mosh pit. You fell—especially when you were her size—but someone always helped you up.
Still, Suyin could only take such a beating for so long, and she’d left her companion for the night over by the bar. At the end of the song, she slipped off by the side stage and pushed through the tight pack of bodies. Dragging her sweaty hair off her face, she searched the crowd for the familiar flash of blue and followed it like a beacon.
When she arrived, the owner of that bright hair took one look at Suyin’s disheveled state and laughed. Not that it was audible over the start of the next song, as the blare of distorted guitar obliterated all else.
“You look like you got hit by a bus!” Iris shouted as Suyin hauled her weary body onto a barstool beside her. Iris handed over the beer she’d ordered while Suyin was gone.
It was Friday. Suyin had made it through the week without being killed by a stalker or taken to Hell, or whatever her constant sense of foreboding was trying to warn her about.
But her sense of dread hadn’t lessened. If anything, it had gotten worse.
As promised, Iris had come out. Neither of them brought up Iris’s sudden absence from the coven or why she was suddenly so cagey about her life. Just for tonight, Suyin wanted to pretend things were normal. That she had her best friend back. That her potentially endless future wasn’t looming ahead of her like a yawning pit of infinitude.
