Page 82 of Tracking Snow

"I can’t lose you too."

Ariel’s teasing expression evaporates. "As far as anyone knows, I’m a regular human. I’m going to be fine, but I’m worried you won’t be."

She’s not wrong. It’s been days and nights of me stalking the streets, rounding to Goldie and Ted’s house, trying any place to find information, to get a clue of where our friends have gone. I feel like I’m being torn apart. My people, my family is disappearing and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

Rap has pulled all the resources she can to help find our friends, but nothing has surfaced.

Ted has been going out of his mind as much as me. He walks into Poison Apple multiple times a night before going outside to stalk the city, then comes back again, hoping his wife will miraculously appear.

Now Cinder’s husband, Prince Kaison Charming, is hunting as well. Too many feral men on the loose. And I’m just as out of my mind as them. I can barely work my shift, constantly getting drink orders wrong and breaking things, because I’m watching, listening for any hint of suspicious behavior at the bar.

Isabelle’s husband, the Beast of Boston, the most powerful were and mafia lord of the city has also come up empty.

Poison Apple is being targeted, and it’s up to me to find them.

Which is why, the second the lights flicker for last call, I'm flipping chairs onto tables at a speed that earns me a raised eyebrow from the whole bar.

Four is at his spot at the end of the rail, waiting for our nightly prowl. He watches me with his ruby red gaze as I close out my register faster than I ever have in my life.

"Big plans?" he asks even though he knows exactly what the plan is.

I take his arm and tow him out the side door into the night before answering. I take out a folded piece of paper from my back pocket.

"It was stapled to the pole outside the laundromat." I hand it over. "Over Ariel's flyer. Staples right through her face."

He reads the cheap yellow paper with smudged toner.

COMMUNITY SAFETY ASSEMBLY. CONCERNED CITIZENS OF BOSTON. THURSDAY 9 PM. KEEP OUR NEIGHBORHOODS OURS.

"It’s a Humans Against Magic meeting." The paper starts to brown along the edge where Four’s thumb is.

"Hey." I snap it back and shake it cool. "I need that. It has the address on it."

"The address." His voice goes careful, which from Four is its own alarm.

"People I love are gone. HAM is the only group in this city that wants them gone, and tomorrow evening every HAM mouth in the neighborhood is going to be in one basement." I fold the flyer away. Despite our dwindling number of bartenders, I managed to convince Rap to let me come to work a couple hours later than normal. "I'm going to stake it out and get the details on what they’ve been up to."

"Snow."

"You can come or not."

He looks at me for a long moment, and the wind drags the smell of warm cotton off him. "Fine," he says. "But for the record, this sounds boring."

"Come on now, you’re starting to sound like Two."

Looking down from the fire escape on the back of the old church, we watch the door in the alley someone wedged open with a folding chair.

We lay flat on the landing, watching people arrive while rust imprints itself on my forearms. The smell of burnt coffee and haze from the smokers clustered just inside the doorframe rises up to us.

Though it’s hard to pay attention with a horny Four pressed to my side. His hot fingers stroke down my back, playing with my naked spine. Between it being hot as ogre balls out tonight, and the fact I need to head straight to work after this, I’m wearing my work outfit, a leather bra and matching leather shorts. I did go minimal on my accessories to avoid any loud clinking that might draw attention to our hiding spot.

Even as I tilt my head to listen better, Four finds the crook of my neck and lays slow, hot kisses there which dampen my panties and make my inner muscles clench with need.

But this can wait, so I gently push him off, trying to get some distance.

I spot a familiar hairdo, one slicked back into an afro puff, and give Four a nudge to pay attention.

It’s that same girl who was there the night I met The Seven, along with that guy with the dirty looking scruff and the massive dude. Lilah, I think was her name.