He followed just as silently. Like he assumed, Shanna was beside his bed, raising a hand. He was about to say, “I’ve had it with pentacles,” when she shifted, bumped into something, and went, “Ouch! Shit, fuck!”
That wasn’t Shanna’s voice. And not Dolores’s, either.
Simon flicked the light on.
Next to the bed stood a slight, feminine figure in burglar garb straight out of a cartoon, complete with a thick black balaclava with hand-cut eye holes. In one hand—the one Simon thought had been hanging a pentacle—she held a knife, and in the other she nursed her foot, balancing only on the left leg.
She froze as the lights came on.
“What the hell,” Simon murmured.
The burglar looked to the empty bed—where Simon had left the pillow and blanket in a pile that vaguely resembled a sleeping person—and then to him. “Shit,” she repeated. Her voice sounded young, like a teenager’s.
“Hold on now,” he said.
She stood frozen for a moment more, then darted across the bed to the window on the other side. Or, she tried, only she got entangled in the mess of sheets and blankets, plopped down half on the bed, half on the floor, and somehow triggered the bedside lamp to fall on her head.
“Are you fucking kidding me,” she grumbled.
The hallway behind Simon lit up. “What’s going on?” Shanna’s sleepy voice came from further down.
“There’s a burglar,” Simon said, not sure why his voice came out so casual. She had been holding a knife! A knife that might have gone into him, had she not stubbed her toe.
Wait a second—
“Shanna,” he called, although she’d already approached. “I think you prevented a burglary.”
“What?” She peeked into the room, where the little burglar still groaned, splayed out on the bed like a discarded ragdoll.
“Your accident thing must have affected her.”
“We were about to getrobbed?”
“I wasn’t robbing you,” the burglar half-shouted. She twisted around, trying to untangle herself from the lamp’s cord.
“Hold on.” Shanna went to her, reaching for the cord.
“Careful, she had a knife,” Simon said.
“Does she—oh!” Shanna picked up the knife from the floor. “What did you need that for?”
The burglar grunted. Shanna proceeded to free her as Simon positioned as a guard. They sat the burglar down on the bed, and he removed her balaclava.
An unimpressed face of a teenage girl, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, stared back, the expression that of a kid caught sneaking out after curfew. She had short black hair with vivid blue tips, and a cloud of dark eye makeup stood out against her pale face. That was a veritable canvas for piercings: one in the eyebrow, nose, and lip each, at least two in the ears, and then Simon lost count because one, it wasn’t important, and two, Shanna went, “Hi, there.”
“You know her?” He whipped his head to Shanna.
“Oh, I’ve no clue who she is,” Shanna said. “I was just greeting her.”
“You know she tried to murder me, right?”
“You said she was a burglar.”
“But then I remembered she also had a knife. Above my head, ready to strike.”
“You weren’t even in bed,” the girl said.
“My hypothetical head.”
