Page 66 of Heartsong
He tried running his hands over her, searching for something.
“My Anna,where have you been?” he demanded, voice loud and as panicked as she felt.
“The neurologist’s,” she said, finally ducking out of his grip to get her layers off. She threw them over the back of a chair and hurried into the living room to look out the window.
There was the van, parked on the street with a slightly obstructed view of her building and window, but definitely visible. Her stomach churned as she watched, waiting to see if anything moved inside it. It was dark and she probably wouldn’t have seen anything if it did, but she had to look.
“Anna.” A big hand clasped her upper arm and pulled her away from the window. A glowering gargoyle took up her gaze, and another hand gripped her other arm. Frey’s hold wasn’t hard but it was firm. And unwelcome.
A different kind of panic bubbled up, and Anna squirmed again.
“Let me go,” she said, but he didn’t.
“You were gone so long and I—I had no sign of where you were! When you would return. I thought—” He bared his fangs in a grimace, and in her panic, her lizard brain shuddered at the sight of such a vivid predatory threat.
“I told you,” she murmured, “I was at the doctor’s. I finally had my appointment.”
“You didnottell me. You said nothing about being late tonight.”
“Oh.” That was true, she hadn’t said anything before tonight. She never really told anyone her plans and hadn’t thought to tell him. “Sorry.”
A hot huff hit her square on the forehead, and Frey’s forbidding expression clearly stated how unimpressed he was with her half-apology.
“My mate, you must tell me these things. I worry over—”
“I don’t have to do anything.”
The words were a reflex, out before she could think, and landed between her and Frey with all the delicacy of a slap.
Frey went rigid, and Anna used the moment to finally break free of his hold. She never liked being grabbed or gripped or pulled.
“Look,” she said, hurrying back into the kitchen to get the meds from her purse, “I’m sorry I forgot to tell you.”
When he said nothing, Anna couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder at him. The intensity of his stare took her breath away. He’d barely moved, just stood there, watching her, wings folded neatly over his shoulders.
Unnerved, Anna took the meds to her bathroom to sort into her weekly pill pack.
Finally, without a word, he plated dinner for her. Just for her. She sat and ate in silence as he did something else in the kitchen.
There was no conversation. There was no cuddling.
Anna went to bed soon after, dinner sitting unsettled in her stomach and a resigned sort of dread lodged in her throat.
Here it comes,she thought as she slipped under her covers.
She saw it coming, had prepared herself, but that didn’t mean a few tears didn’t escape for what might have been.
Sometimes she hated being right.
19
After another handful of workdays, Anna was sure there were too many strange vehicles in the neighborhood for it to be a coincidence. That van remained outside her building for another day but then was replaced by one of those hulking, souped up black SUVs that took up a parking space and a half. The van didn’t reappear on her street, but she was sure she spotted vans just like it on her walk to and from work, and the SUV was always parked with a clear view of her fourth-floor window.
Bonus points for getting that privacy film.
Was it reasonable to think that someone new had moved in and that was their SUV? Sure. That’s probably what she would’ve thought before a giant gargoyle swooped into her life. Instead, because she had illicit statuary in her apartment during the day, she got her phone out to pretend to be on it for the last leg of her walk home and took discreet pictures and videos.
She didn’t know what SFPD surveillance vehicles were supposed to look like, but the paranoia sinking its claws into her whispered she was looking right at one. And did anyone other than law enforcement actually drive those shiny black SUVs?
