“Get rid of them,” I shout as Kai goes to answer the door.
“That’s my plan.”
Isla glances down the hallway nervously.
“Hey, Sunbeam, come over here,” I say, and Isla hurries to my side, as if given a reprieve from something she really didn’t want to do. As she kneels by my feet, I notice her toenails are painted a cute pink.
The deadbolt scrapes as Kai unlocks it, and then, cool night air and familiar voices drift in.
“Your neighborhood creep has terrible camera etiquette,” Wren says when they appear in the kitchen.
“Translation,” Catfish says dryly, “there’s no clear image of him on anything, and Wren’s pissed.”
“You guys want a drink?” Kai asks.
“As fun as that would be, we’re on our way home from Willa’s,” Catfish says.
Wren shakes their head. “I never want to braid hair ever again. Maddie just wants me to do it over and over and over.”
“You doing okay?” Catfish asks Isla. He’s wearing his cut, and Isla scootches a little closer to the armchair. Shows we’re making progress with her that she sees us as safety, even if she has nothing to be scared of when it comes to Catfish and Wren.
I reach for her fingers and squeeze them, and if Catfish notices, his face doesn’t reveal anything.
“I’m fine. Just a little freaked out,” Isla says.
“Don’t be,” he says. “Grudge, Wraith, and a couple of prospects are scouting outside. There’ll be at least two people on the street all night.”
I jerk my chin to the chairs. “Sit. Tell us what you know before Kai paces a hole in the floor.”
Kai stops walking back and forth and sits on the chair arm. There is something very right about the three of us sitting so close, like we’re already a unit. I know the man has got to be struggling. Two seconds ago, he was moments away from getting in bed with me and Isla. Now, he’s itching to fuck and is faced with being polite to our guests, instead. But he’ll also want to know everything Wren and Catfish know.
Wren sits on the chair closest to me, then looks at Isla. “I pulled everything from all your cams since sundown.”
“You have access to my cameras?” Isla says.
Wren looks at me, and I wince. Yeah. I didn’t tell Isla I had access. Hope she doesn’t fucking hate me for it. “Might have remembered the password you set up for yours and gave it to Wren to help us look for patterns.”
Isla doesn’t say anything, but the way she purses her lips and folds her arms tells me she ain’t happy with this knowledge. I’ll talk to her about it when everyone is gone.
“I cleaned it up as much as I could, given I was at Willa’s. The night vision is decent, but unhelpful unless the person is somehow known well or has some instantly recognizablefeatures. In this case, they never got close to the cameras, so it’s a bit of a blur.”
Kai leans over Wren’s shoulder, as do I.
Wren taps on a clip. The street outside our houses fills the screen in shades of green and gray. Trees, the empty road, Isla’s house, all take on the same monochrome appearance.
“There,” Wren says, dragging a finger along the timeline.
A shape ghosts into view. A bike. Rolling slow. No plate is visible. Full-face helmet. Dressed in all black.
Given the timing, it’s when we were in the bathroom.
My cock stirs at the thought of what we were doing in there instead of focusing on the video, but I push the impulse away. Maybe if I’d still been in bed, I would have heard something or seen something.
It’s a reminder about not getting so lost in a person that you lose your vigilance.
“Pause,” Kai says.
Wren freezes the frame. It’s a smear of motion and shadow and pixels that are all blurred to shit.
