Page 62 of Saint of the Shadows

“It bit my foot!” Tobias kicked his leg and launched an object toward the wall.

She tapped the frozen flashlight function on her phone, and a light finally shot out. She pointed it at the wall.

Annie’s mouse stood, its spine crushed from hitting the wall. Its back popped into place, and with hair on end, it arched like an angry cat, releasing a guttural growl of a predator twenty times its size. As it leaned forward, its jaws opened with a screech. Marisol dropped her phone and pinned her arms against her ears. The piercing noise transported her to that night. The light projected shadows of large claws and spiny fur over the boiler room.

“Pick up the light!” Tobias ordered. He raised the tranquilizer pistol and steadied his arm with his other hand.

Marisol ran her thumb over her pendant and shone her flashlight toward the mouse. It rocked its weight back onto its haunches.

“Keep it steady!”

She held her phone with both hands. Another roar. A flash of oversized teeth. The mouse leaped.Click. Hiss.The dart met it in midair. The mouse tumbled to the ground on its side. Out cold.

Marisol broke into nervous laughter. “Nice shot.”

The intensity of Tobias’s glare didn’t break.

Her laughing morphed into teeth grinding. She fished the trap from her bag, scooped the super-mouse into the steel box, and pocketed the spent dart.

In the dark, Tobias’s eyes were as black as a predator’s. A sadness lingered in them, too, like he was an apex predator who mourned for his prey. Had his mind taken him back to the hospital when he killed that man? Or some other place and time? He certainly wasn’t present in the boiler room. At least, not until he tucked the gun in his waistband and scratched the back of his head. Then his pupils shrunk, and he was a man again.

Marisol wrapped her freezer with duct tape. The satisfyingrip!suddenly became a disappointingpfft!when she reached the tape’s cardboard ring.

Tobias pushed the refrigerator back to its spot. “Think that will keep Cujo in place?”

“Sure. Cryostasis ala Novotny. Should hold until I can hand it off to someone more capable.” More capable meant Vincent, and her stomach clenched at the thought. She needed something to take the edge off. Marisol grabbed the last of her beers out of her fridge, popped the tops off, and handed one to Tobias.

“To our friend.” Tobias clinked his bottle against hers and downed it.

Marisol slid to the floor, resting her back against the refrigerator. “Cujo’s a rabid dog.”

Tobias grunted as he lowered himself to sit next to her. “I stand by my reference.” He licked a drop of beer off his lips. “We make a good team, kid.”

“We do.” She tugged at her sweatshirt as it suddenly became too warm. In the lowlight of her kitchen, his speckled eyes settled on blue, not like stained glass but enough of an echo of Vincent’s shade to psychosomatically fissure her ribs.

Maybe this pain came from resisting good enough. Warming herself in Tobias’s heat and bolstered by his strength, she could make the easy choice. He was someone who saved her, accepted her, and protected her and her family. He was someone who could grow old with her. She inhaledhis essence: the sweat of hard work with a hint of fried dough, wood shavings, and beer.

He smelled like home.

Maybe, just maybe, she’d never have to admit about mistaken identities or mixed signals. Maybe the mistake was an opportunity.

He sighed, turning his head to face her. He looked at her like he had this morning. The gleam in his eye said she wasn’t a freak magically on two legs again; she was a promise.

She rolled the sleeves of her sweatshirt up. Tobias didn’t cause the hair on her arm to stand on end. Around him, she sensed her heart going on autopilot, operating with words like should and never want. Around him, she’d rub the scar above her knee and ache for the man who healed her, not the one who found her broken.

With him, there was no magic.

She darted her gaze to the floor. “She had to have known the Bloodsucker.”

“What?”

“I couldn’t save her because her lab is always locked. She’s the one that lets you in. She let him in. She trusted him.”

“Like a boyfriend or something?”

“Something. She was pretty tight-lipped about her love life. She got messages from someone but wouldn’t talk about it. I guess she was too ashamed to tell me.” Her throat tightened. If that were true, what kind of friend did that make Marisol?

He emptied his beer and winced. “That’s assuming the security program worked. Data shows something wiped the memory of all the network computers. And I mean all. We’re talking from the thermostat to pocket calculators. Security only logged Annie’s keycard entry. We didn’t know you were in the building until we found you.”

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