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12
ADDIE
My skin crawled with the sensation of being watched. I fidgeted in my seat as I tried to shake it off. The space between my shoulder blades still prickled and begged me to look behind me. The street was almost exactly the same, though.
“Are you good?” Vi asked with her mouth full.
I expected Cerri to smack her for speaking with her mouth full, but Cerri looked to me with concern, too.
Swallowing hard, I said, “Yeah. I’m all right. I think I’m just a little tired.”
I should have told them. Why didn’t I? Someone was watching me, and my friends deserved to know. Not just because they were here, but because they would absolutely help. But I couldn’t bring myself to put that on them.
I’d dragged Maddox into my problems, and he’d gotten turned into an undead shifter that was currently devouring the threads of the universe. I think that was enough incentive to keep others out of my affairs.
Of course, neither of them believed me for a minute. Vi immediately started scanning our surroundings. She looked up and down the street with narrowed eyes. Cerri reached over and grabbed my hand to squeeze it tight. Our arcanas greeted one another before ricocheting like magnets of the same polarity.
With a tight smile on my lips, I pulled away. This wasn’t their problem. Whatever was hunting me, I could handle it. I had to. No one else would be pulled into this.
I stood and excused myself. Inside, I didn’t go to the bathroom. Instead, I found another exit and tried to sneak out without catching my friends’ attention. Thankfully, the patio was on the side of the building. I was able to step onto the street unbeknownst to them.
Once alone, I floundered. I didn’t know what to do next. What did I even think I was doing? I should have stayed with Vi and Cerri. No one would dare approach me while I was surrounded by people. If they could sense the power levels between my friends, that would be even more protection.
Instead, I’d gone and put myself in a compromising situation. That meant that I would have to take advantage of that. If I could use it to my benefit, then I would maintain the upper hand. Using myself as bait wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done, but I liked to think that the risk would result in a massive reward.
At the corner of the street, I spread my arcana out in a far-reaching blanket. I let out a sigh of relief when my awareness picked up on every little dead thing in my radius. I felt everything from dead bugs to the rotting banana peels in the nearby trash. It was oddly comforting even though it was kind of gross.
However, I couldn’t sense any undead in my presence. Which only baffled me even more. I’d been expecting some sort of assault from another Reaper. That was my first mistake. My thoughts were on Bastien when I should have been afraid of the living.
A shiver raced up my spine. I startled and spun. The man walking behind me shouted. He threw his hands up and stared at me like I’d lost my damn mind. Of course, this was Syracuse. We were New Yorkers, so he shook his head and sidestepped me without missing a beat.
I watched his head of fluffy blond hair vanish, but not before he glanced back at me one last time. He didn’t stop, but something about his presence left me unsettled. I blamed it on my jumpiness. That was the only thing I could think of.
If Maddox was here, I wouldn’t have as much to fear.
“Dog on the loose!” someone shouted from the other end of the street.
Curious, I looked back in the direction I’d come. A woman chased after a white blur. Though I couldn’t see the animal, I felt the tug of his presence. Maddox came to a halt at my feet. His long claws screeched on the sidewalk, making me cringe.
I expected him to sit and stay, but his tail lifted in warning. Maddox sniffed the air around me as his hackles raised. The woman chasing him down caught up and bent over with her hands on her knees so she could catch her breath.
Attention split between Maddox’s tense behavior and the human woman’s anger, I was too slow to stop her from snatching up Maddox’s leash. Baffled, I looked down at Maddox and silently asked why he was wearing the collar and leash. The wolf paid me no attention. His guard was still up.
Had I been right about the man? I tried to recall his face but realized that everything about him had been a blur. All I’d noted had been his reaction and his blond hair. That was it. Nothing else about him clung to my memory. He slipped away as if he’d never been real in the first place.
The woman yanked on Maddox’s leash. “Come on, puppy. I’m taking you to the SPCA so they can scan your microchip.”
“Microchip?” I asked, like an idiot.
Maddox didn’t move. The woman put all of her strength into pulling his leash, but his body didn’t budge in the least. He pressed himself tight to my thigh while the woman leaned almost all the way back in her struggle to get him to move.
I laughed. It was a foolish thing to do when I hadn’t yet bothered to explain the situation, but I couldn’t help it. This scene was some sort of comedy gold all of a sudden. More laughter bubbled out of me.
I wiped away tears gathering at the corners of my eyes.
“What’s so funny?” The woman looked at me like I’d just stabbed a stranger. “This dog’s owner clearly can’t take care of them. You should be ashamed. The dog could have gotten hit by a car!”
Again, I couldn’t stop my laughter. “This fat bastard would do more damage to the car than it would do to him.”
