Page 64 of Lights Out

For the first time since I’d started watching her, Aly left the hospital when she was supposed to, so the sun wasn’t up yet, and I had the roads almost entirely to myself. Even so, she lived closer to the hospital than I did to her, and her front door camera showed her beating me there by several minutes.

I parked around the corner, out of sight, and doubled back on foot. It was freezing. The news had warned that we were in for a polar vortex, but this was the first one of the year, and I’d forgotten just how cold it could get. My breath hung in the air around me, and although I didn’t need it yet, I pulled on my balaclava to keep the frost from my skin. Fuck this weather.

I didn’t bother turning Aly’s cameras off since my face was covered, and I didn’t bother knocking either, using the key I’d made to let myself in the front door. Fred came running right up to me, his tail held high and mouth wide open as he sang me the song of his people.

I shrugged out of my jacket and scooped him off the floor before heading into the house. “We need to work on your social skills, buddy. Imagine if Mommy and Daddy acted like you and ran in here screaming every time we got home.”

The sound of my voice brought me up short. Myunmodulatedvoice. Shit. In my haste to leave the apartment, I’d forgotten the modulator was stitched into my mask. What a rookie move. I wasn’t going back to get it – now that I was here, only Aly ordering me to leave would get me out – so I’d have to find some other way to talk to her because I was done with the texting thing, and I was pretty sure she was too.

As I approached Aly’s room, I heard her shower running. I had a few minutes.

“How’s this?” I asked a purring Fred, dropping my voice as low as I comfortably could. “I am Batman.”

Fred half-slitted his eyes and dug his claws into my jacket, kneading it, so I assumed he approved.

I nuzzled him through the face mask and set him back down as I made a beeline toward the kitchen. Some people lost their appetite when upset, so I didn’t want to make Aly another elaborate breakfast only to have it go to waste. I especially didn’t love the idea of frying more bacon. It brought up memories of when Dad got an ingenious idea for how to dispose of his latest victim during a now infamous Fourth of July neighborhood cookout. I’d been vegan since, and even now, almost twenty years later, the smell of sizzling meat still made me want to puke.

What might Aly want instead of food? Wine, or maybe a nice soothing tea? I’d get both ready. That way, she would have her choice.

The shower cut off shortly after the tea finished steeping, and I scooped the mug and wine up and headed toward her bedroom. She was dressed in a thick white bathrobe, combing her hair with her back to me when I walked in.

“I didn’t know what you wanted, so I brought – ARGH!”

She whipped around and threw the brush at my head, and I burned the shit out of my hand with scalding-hot tea as I ducked it.

“Fuck!” Aly and I both yelled before speaking over each other.

“You can’t just sneak up on me like that!”

“I thought you heard me.”

I set the wine and tea on her bureau and turned to go rinse my scalded skin in the kitchen.

Aly was hot on my heels. “What’s up with your voice? What are you, the scary mask version of Batman?”

“Maskman?” I shot back. “I like it.”

“I hope you like the sound of ringing, too, because I’m getting you a collar with a bell on it so you can’t sneak up on me again.”

Despite my pain, I grinned. “Kinky.”

“Goddamn it,” Aly muttered.

I clamped my lips shut to hold in my laughter.

“Here, let me look at it,” she said when we reached the sink.

I turned the faucet on cold and spared a glance at my angry-looking skin before lifting my gaze to watch Aly’s brows pull together as she took my hand in hers. She gave my latest injury a quick, professional once-over, shifted the faucet from cold to lukewarm, and guided my hand beneath the water.

“It’s not too bad,” she said. “And at least it wasn’t the hand I stabbed.”

I wanted to reach out and smooth the line between her brows, but seeing her slightly upset was better than no emotion at all. “Yeah, much better that I lose the use of both of them than just the one.”

She shook her head and muttered something unintelligible that sounded slightly threatening, and I was glad she couldn’t see how wide I was grinning. Women tended not to like it when people found their dark moods cute, and I was betting Aly was no exception. But I couldn’t help it. She was adorable, especially because after watching her with Brad, I knew she was all bark and no bite with me.

“Nice touch with the blue contacts, by the way,” she said, glancing up at me. “But I can see a line of brown around them.”

Damn it. I knew I should have gotten a custom-fitted pair.

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