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“Who the fuck are you?” One of the men steps forward, his arms crossed. He’s not much bigger than me, but the fact that he’s the first one to speak tells me a lot.
“Nobody,” I say, and move toward the door.
The man snarls. “Get the fuck out of here.”
I glance at him. His friends have formed up behind him, and they’re staring at me with narrowed eyes, suspicious, their fingers twitching and the air suddenly electric. They’re spoiling for a fight.
“Don’t you have wives to fuck, or something?” I ask, running my hand through my hair, the breeze picking it up off of my forehead and cooling the sweat that I had worked up on the ride here.
The man’s lip curls. “You wanna fuck your sister, too, faggot? Go fuck off uptown.”
I smirk. Uptown Detroit. Yeah. Right.
“Maybe I will,” I say, and pull open the door to the bar. “But not before I sample the local ladies.” I don’t bother waiting to see if my taunt lands. Instead, I step inside, my eyes immediately adjusting to the dark.
And it’s dark inside.
Completely pitch-black. A problem for humans, but not for me, a creature of the night. And right ahead of me, like a beacon, is the key, lighting up the whole room to my Sight like it’s a miniature sun.
And it’s around the neck of the most gorgeous, if exhausted and worn-thin, woman I’ve ever seen.
3
Katy
Light pierces across my vision and I squint as the front door swings open, and the outline of someone tall, a man, silhouettes itself heavily there. Holy shit, he’s… tall, very tall. And strong. I swallow. Is it Dad? Or did he send someone after me because I haven’t answered his messages?
Oh fuck, it could be anyone.
The fear spikes in my throat, and I back up, my hand tightening around the rag I’d picked up. I could throw it at him. Who comes in after lunch? The locals all know we’re closed down for a few hours to clean. Anyway, they have another shift to get to...
“We’re closed,” Emily snaps, and I can see her near the entrance, a long shadow in her hand that must be the flashlight we keep stored behind the cash register. It’s the only source of illumination in the room, and the darkness doesn’t help with the panic that’s starting to build in my stomach.
“Is that so?”
It’s not the man’s voice, deep and rich and amused, that stops me from throwing my weapon. It’s the darkness that chases him.The man steps inside, ignoring the fact our power is out and we’re clearly no longer open for business, which is stupid and maybe also slightly bizarre, but I’m too focused on the fact that he’s letting the door fall off his fingers. Letting the door fall shut behind him. Emi lets out a yelp as her flashlight stutters in her hands and then goes out.
And we’re all wrapped up in the black again.
Emily lets out a squeak, and I can hear the rattle of her shaking the flashlight as she bangs it on her palm. She flicks it on again, and the blessed light spills out from the end of it. She pulls it up to reveal the stranger’s face. He’s already right at the bar, almost as if he’d been able to cross eight feet of space in that blink of a moment. And he’s not even squinting, face relaxed, eyes open as she shines it right at him.
“As I was saying, we don’t have power right now, so we can’t serve you,” she says, and while her voice retains its usual bitchy edge, it’s undeniably shaking. Her grip on the heavy metal flashlight tells me she’s ready to use it as an improvised baseball bat the instant he comes a step closer.
“Did you hit it?” The tall stranger’s voice is a purring rumble, husky and amused. In the cone of light that has thrown him into stark relief, he lifts his hand. His fist clenches, and he bangs hard on the bar-top counter. Emily shrieks, and the sound seems to echo through the entire room.
There’s a crackle above me, and a high-pitched whine that follows it that has me cringing, my eyes shutting tight for a second. When I open them, the lights flicker, and come back on, a soft hum resuming from the vents. The jukebox wakes up, squawking at us from the corner, and making me jump. My rag drops to the floor from my numb fingers. The stranger smirks,and his gaze shifts away from Emily and onto me.
His eyes are dark, like midnight, like an inky, starless sky, and my knees feel weak.
The flashlight drops to the ground, tumbling end over end and sending slices of light across the ceiling and walls. It hits the floor with a crack, and the lights above flare as he narrows his eyes. The jukebox blares again, beeping and booping in the background as we both stare at the strange would-be Fonzie in front of us.
“What a coincidence,” my sister says weakly. “Um—“ She inhales like a teakettle getting ready for a good screech, and that’s when I see it too. The stranger — his hood had been up, but now he’s pushing it back, shaggy, long, inky black hair has started to tumble into his eyes — and when he looks from me, to Emily, and back to me, I’m stuck to the floor.
Rooted here, like someone glued me or maybe I’ve become temporarily paralyzed, because this guy is disgustingly hot — the kind of man who sits in the VIP section of casinos and clubs, who exists folded into a bespoke suit across the covers and centerfolds of magazines — and you feel embarrassed just to be in the same space as him because you know that if he catches even a glimpse of you, he’ll see you for the ultimately inferior creature that you are.
I clear my throat, and he raises an eyebrow at me before swinging back to look at my sister. I take a moment to breathe, feeling like I need to run out of here, fast. No customer has ever given me that feeling, not even the really dangerous ones that I do my best to serve and get out of the way for.
This one though... he’s tall, and broad, and the way he moves just screams violence.
