She threw her arms around me. “Be safe, okay? I need a shower hotter than Satan’s asshole and an exorcism right now, but be safe. I’ll talk to you later.” She squeezed me tight for a long minute before retreating to her apartment, shooting wary glances at the gouges in my doorframe.
The moment she disappeared inside, my shoulders sagged. Angel’s hand rested on my lower back, steadying me. Though even he couldn’t quell the worry that built in my gut.
“I’m still getting used to being variant,” I said, gesturing at the wreckage of my door. “Didn’t expect anything to follow me home. Guess I should’ve put up a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign.”
“Tested and thought I was nothing, just good intuition, but learned otherwise,” Hardy agreed. “It’s a kick in the balls to everything we thought we knew.” He studied the hall behind me where SED agents were arguing in hushed, tense voices. “Never seen something follow anyone home from the other side, but I’ve only been in SED six months. Congrats, Holt, you’re breaking new ground in workplace safety hazards.”
“Not in the OSHA handbook, right?” I said ruefully.
He laughed.
His gaze flipped up and down the hall behind me, a stir created arguments in the hall with the stationed SED. I glanced back to find Xavier and the murder twins headed our way, unfettered by anyone. Well, I guess it was time to pay the piper.
“He’s fine,” I said to the big man before he could reach my door. While he had his power locked down hard since it didn’t snap and spit, his narrowed glare could have frozen me to ice. I waved him inside; the door was wide open anyway. “You can check. He’s fine.”
The murder twins remained outside as Xavier headed into my apartment. Angel leaned against the wall beside me, looking tired and grumpy, but watchful. Neither of us had enough sleep, and Angel’s magic couldn’t soothe my anxiety when his own was on a tight wire. He kept touching me, and I knew it was for both our sanity.
Hardy’s gaze flicked between the scary pair like he was mentally calculating survival odds. Smart man. After a beat, he turned back to me, though his shoulders remained tense. “Friends of yours?”
“My brother is a shifter,” I offered. “Comes with creepy otherworldly stalkers, I guess. At least his don’t bleed shadows and tear up my door in the middle of the night.”
Hardy nodded. “I read the report about the changeling that escaped custody,” he said, nodding at the gouges. “This thing feel like that?”
“Yes, and no?” I rubbed my temple, trying to sift through the sleep-deprived, panic-blurred mess of my memory. “Mostly I just remember spindly legs and the overwhelming urge to set my own apartment on fire like some arachnophobia nightmare.”
“Happen to you often?”
“No, never.” I sighed. “I created a fast ward, and it vanished.”
“You been practicing long?”
“Literally copied it from a book on the fly. Boss wants me to learn some shielding basics and all that,” I explained, knowing how most SED disliked practitioners. Not that I ever planned to become one.
“Shielding is necessary for most non-shifter variants,” Hardy agreed. His gaze flicked to the murder twins again, who were now leaning against opposite walls like white and red bookends. “Especially if you’re gonna piss off things that leave that behind.” He toed one of the deeper gouges.
“Yeah, well, my talent for attracting chaos is the only thing about me that’s consistent.”
Angel laughed but swallowed it when I threw him a dirty look.
Ivan’s grumbling complaints from inside the apartment drew my attention. The murder twins sauntered to the door.
“It’s Ivan’s choice, not his,” I reminded them.
“Then let’s all hope he chooses correctly,” Sylas said.
“Might be a good idea to stay elsewhere a night or two,” Hardy said.
“You think it can’t find him if he moves?” Angel asked.
“Do you know what it was? You’ve been in SED longer than I have.”
Angel shook his head. “I don’t know.” But he suspected, much as I did, that this might be related to the shadow god who’d put a target on my back. Did that mean it was on this side? And why me specifically, just because we’d randomly met by accident on the other side?
“You two met before?” I asked.
“No, but heard of him,” Hardy said, holding out his hand. “Christopher Hardy.”
Angel took it. “Angel Mao. Holt is my new partner.”
