Even as I wish for him to come, I know he can’t kill everyone for me. This is too big. These problems are too human.
The belt around my chest tightens another notch when I get home.
The entire place has been turned over. My mattress is ripped open by some kind of blade, my couch is flipped. I doubt the cops would be this messy.
A bright hot spark of fear ignites.
Oh God, no.
I run to the corner of my bedroom. My fingers find the edges of the loose floorboard, pulling it up. They wouldn’t think to look here. They couldn’t have found it.
Yet when I look under the plank, there’s an empty hole instead of the neatly stacked bills I’ve been hoarding from Shadow’s victims.
I had enough in my account to cover bail, but it drained me dry. The cash reserves in this secret hiding spot were all I had left.
Burying my palms into my eyes, I shake my head. The helplessness shudders through me. I don’t have Shadow, money, or an alibi to shelter me now.
I should have run. Why didn’t I take the money and run when I had the chance?
A surge of hope that Shadow will need a heart sparks in me.
I could take him to some expensive part of town, find someone rich but not important to kill, then I’d have money to?—
My thoughts grind to a halt with nauseating force.
What the fuck am I thinking? I can’t do that. No, I won’t do that.
I only lure people to Shadow who deserve it, and only because I have to protect him. The second I do that, I become like the scumbags I help Shadow hunt. I may be monstrous, but I’m not evil.
I sidle up to a window in my living room and push aside one of the cheap beige curtains. Toothpick Man is there in his car. He nods to a guy across the street, who sits on a bench, and then that guy glances up at my place before looking at his phone.
I’m being watched.
My chest hitches in jagged breaths I can’t control. The material of the drapes scratches my trembling fingers as I clutch at them, trying to stay upright.
If the cops don’t get me, these guys will.
Food loses its appeal, my stomach too knotted to accept more than a few bites.
I jump at every sound, every creak of the apartment. Voices from neighboring apartments send my heart racing.
The isolation is suffocating, but the alternative—venturing out, exposing myself —could be deadly. So I remain, trapped in my personal purgatory, waiting for the cops or Toothpick to make their move.
Days bleed together, marked only by the shifting light through the curtains.
Shadow's absence is a constant ache, but deep down, I know this is my battle. My choices, my consequences.
When the darkness moves in my bedroom, shifting in that familiar way, I am up on my feet and shaking in anticipation. I pluck at my fingers and bounce on my feet.
"Shadow," I breathe as he comes to full height in front of me. "The cops, they know. They may have evidence, and the guys outside, they’re watching. I don’t know what they are waiting for, but I have this terrible feeling?—"
A shadowy tendril wraps around my mouth, silencing me. It’s then I notice more hunks of flesh have been taken from him. Smoke furiously churns off him, filling the room.
His eyes are red with violence.
"I didn’t mean to lead them here," he rasps with desperation.
The air shifts around us and the temperature drops. The darkness of the room begins to undulate and twist in a strange way. A cold dread seizes me. The mood of the room is so intense and foreign that it makes my stomach churn. This isn’t Shadow’s doing. It feels... different. Oppressive.
