Officially, I was done. Turning away again, I stormed to my statue and handed it my scythe, which the effigy clamped its marble skeletal hand around. An instant later, with a low grinding of stone on stone, the sentinel shifted away to reveal the spiral staircase hiding beneath its plinth—stairs that led to my chambers.
“Grim,” called Johann again.
“What?”
“Cedric was looking for you earlier.”
Fuck. Notthisold argument.
“I’m tired of repeating myself, Johann,” I snapped. “There’s nothing Cedric and I need to discuss.”
“I’m not getting in the middle of things,” Johann said. “I’ve nearlylearned my lesson there. I’m just telling you he had something he wanted to discuss with you.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“You’d like me to tell him you said so?” asked Johann.
“Unless you’d rather tell him I said to fuck off,” I snarled, and past ready to be done with the night, I descended into the gloom.
3HELENA
“Oh, for the love of all paperbacks,” I cursed between my teeth, climbing down from one of the step stools that could be found within the stacks. Because even though the computer system listed the book I was looking for as “IN,” it wasn’t here. I didn’t see it mixed in with its immediate company, either. Probably—horribly—some overly helpful patron had misfiled it somewhere. Or else it had to be on one of the nearby carts, waiting to be shelved. I hadn’t checked the return date in the database. What if it came in yesterday? Or even this morning?
With renewed hope, I strolled out of the three hundreds and scanned the aisles until I found Hunter, one of our pages. When it came to library jobs, pages existed on the bottom rung, their central responsibilities being to collect returned books from all bins, organize them on the carts, shelve them, and perform other, random as-needed tasks. Hardly glamorous work, but for the antisocial sort, the position had the built-in perk of being solo and, for the most part, non-people-y. And so, perfect for someone like Hunter.
Soon to be eighteen, he’d just started his senior year at Delmont High. At six foot two, he could reach a lot of the higher shelves without a step stool, and he towered over most of the other employees—includingfive-foot-four me. Always dressed in some mixture of black, black, and black, he did a fair job of warding off patrons, too.
Today, he had on a baggy black My Chemical Romance T-shirt layered over a black-and-white-striped long-sleeved shirt and black jeans. Boots, piercings, rings, and floppy dyed black hair that obscured one eye completed his moody Tim Burton–enthusiast look.
Per usual, while shelving, he had his AirPods in, nodding along to the buzzing screaming of some band.
“Hunter?” I called. He didn’t respond.
I sidled up to the near-overflowing cart that stood between us, and flicking my gaze between him and its contents, I bent forward and tried to find my prize. Always, the pages organized the carts by Dewey decimal to streamline their process.
This helped me to streamline mine since a quick scan of the cart’s bottom shelf came up no dice.
“Holy shit fritters,” said Hunter, and I glanced up to find him pressing a palm to his chest. “?’Scuse my language, Miss Hart,” he said as he pulled out his AirPods, “but you scared the sloth snot outta me.”
I twitched a smile, the first I’d managed since the party. Since the… incident.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m… looking for a book. System says it’s in, but it wasn’t on the shelf. Thought it might be on your cart.”
“What book?” he scoffed. “How to Scare Friends and Terrify People? Cheese and crackers, I’ll never have the hiccups again, so I can thank your jack-in-the-box ass for that.”
Despite his monochrome wardrobe, Hunter had a colorful way with words. And though I was a librarian and therefore a superior, I had nothing to do with the adult department, so he didn’t often check himself around me. Which I was fine with. I preferred authenticity. And Hunter’s was a particularly special brand.
“Wait,” I said, straightening. “Back up. Did you just admit we’re friends?”
“Uh,” said Hunter, who went back to scanning spines and filing titles, “that’s a no-offense negative. When I’m in this crusty, dusty, fusty palace of brain drain, I’m a lone wolf. Stick my steel-toed boot out for nobody.”
I folded my arms. “You and Emily seem to get along fine.”
Emily was the new part-time clerk for the Hideout, the recently renovated teen area located in the basement. I had to cover that desk for Emily during her lunch. Which, lately, she’d been taking in the break room—with Hunter.
Hunter shifted toward me, and squinting at me, he draped an arm over his cart.
“Are you supposed to be in the adult section of the library?” he challenged. “Last I checked, your corner of the Literary Hunger Games was the kiddie area.”
