Page 128 of Hunted in the Shadows
“It’s a classic.” Gwen snatched it from him and tucked it back into place. “I’ll get around to it. Soon.”
Cliff handed her the roll of shipping tape, his expression skeptical but good-natured. “My sister went on a classics kick once. Insisted she wanted to be moreculturedthan the other middleschoolers. She got over that urge real quick when she realized how many of them were a slog to get through.”
Gwen gave him a soft nudge on the arm, a small laugh escaping her. The look on her face was cautious, though surprisingly gentle. “Any word from her lately?”
“Hard for her to reach out when she doesn’t have my number, but… I dunno. Sylv was pestering me to call her the other day. I might just do it to get her off my back.”
She snorted. “You really have gone soft, haven’t you? It’s a good look on you.”
The front door creaked open, and the three of us turned to see Hannah walk in, wiping her grease-covered hands on her jeans. Her face was sweaty, and her clothes were streaked with oil like she’d been halfway inside a car all morning. All things considered, it wasn’t far from the truth.
Sylvia appeared behind her, iridescent wings glinting golden in the midday sunlight streaming in. She’d insisted on keeping Hannah company, though I knew she was hoping to glean some helpful information about the inner workings of an engine.
“So, the car…” Sylvia did a poor job of hiding a wince.
“Don’t sugarcoat it.” I folded my arms, looking between them as Hannah shut the door.
“Did everything I could, but your Pontiac’s dust,” Hannah announced. “Transmission’s out of commission, not to mention the electrical.”
She sauntered into the room, handing Cliff one of the pistons from the engine. The hunk of metal was discolored, damaged from the prolonged stint underwater.
Cliff let out a long sigh, looking at the piston like he had been handed a human skull. “Our luck had to run out somewhere.”
Hannah exhaled a shaky laugh as if to question where our luck had begun. But an enthused glint hid beneath her exhaustedgaze. “There are plenty of other cars on the lot,” she pointed out casually.
She exchanged a smirk with Sylvia when Cliff immediately glanced in the Challenger’s direction.
“Why don’t you take that one off my hands?” Hannah nodded toward it. “You’ve been eye-fucking it all week. It’ll save you the trouble of jacking it when I’m not looking.”
“Oh, come on, I wouldn’t—” Cliff’s insulted defensiveness took a backseat as he processed what she said. For a second, he looked thrilled, but it quickly melted into suspicion as he narrowed his eyes between Hannah and Gwen. He even threw a glare at me and Sylvia like we were in on a cruel joke. “Don’t fuck with me,” he said. “We can’t afford a tire off of that.”
Unfazed, Hannah reached into her pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “Some of the Pontiac parts are workable enough to earn you a couple grand. How’s five for the Challenger, plus you move a few more boxes, and we’ll call it even?”
“Jesus,” I muttered. I wasn’t anywhere near as obsessive as Cliff, but even I knew this was beyond a steal; it was a charity case. Then again, maybe that was what we were beginning to look like.
“Consider it a favor for me,” Hannah insisted. “My cousin’s coming to take over the lot. Love him to death, but he doesn’t know shit about maintaining classics. It’ll sit around and rust.” She tossed the keys, and Cliff snatched them out of the air. Her sweet smile tightened around the edges. “But if this one ends up in a swamp, I suggest you go down with it before I catch wind.”
“Noted.” Cliff looked down at the keys with disbelief. “Thanks, Hannah,” he murmured with surprising sincerity. Then he cleared his throat and glanced at me pointedly, raising his eyebrows. My expression flattened—thanks a lot.So, he was dumping it on me to pry.
I tried not to sound like I was interrogating, but there was no way around it. “Are we gonna talk about what the hell that was yesterday—or, Monday?” The lost days were still hard to wrap my head around, but the memory of Hannah slipping into her trance may as well have been from minutes ago.
Hannah’s gaze dropped. Her grease-stained fingers wove together, suddenly fidgeting. Gwen put a hand on her arm and shot each of us a warning glare, but she didn’t stop Hannah from answering.
“I didn’t mean to scare you. I come from a line of mediums on my mom’s side,” Hannah admitted in a low voice. “Nothing fancy these days; most of us keep it under wraps. My Tante Halle does make a killing with online readings, and my grandma had her own parlor in New Orleans before she passed.”
An uncertain shiver ran down my spine. Clairvoyance was typically a short walk from witchcraft, and most covens had a natural medium in their ranks. With how swiftly I was bristling, it was no wonder Gwen was hellbent on keeping Hannah away from hunters.
Sighing, Hannah looked between Cliff and me. “My family calls itthe gift, though it feels like anything but. My episodes started younger than anyone expected—I was barely nine. I collapsed during recess and spouted off about my friend suffering a great sorrow. I’ll never forget how my classmates and the teachers were looking at me when I came to—like I was some sort of freak. Well, it got even worse when my friend’s dad died in a car accident a week later.”
She swallowed hard. “I could go on about the other incidents, but bottom line, I never wanted anything to do with the gift. My family was so disappointed in me for suppressing my abilities instead of harnessing them. I’m supposed to behonoredto be blessed, but it scares me.” She lowered her gaze, growingmelancholy. “And it scares others, too. I’m sorry about whatever I said to you—clearly it put you on edge.”
That’s putting it lightly,I thought bitterly.
“You really don’t remember?” Sylvia asked, wheeling around to take a perch on my shoulder.
A pause drew out—as awkward as it was unsettling. My throat closed at the memory of Hannah’s rolling eyes and manic refrain—the words painting my best friend into some kind of messiah.
You’re Cliff Everett, aren’t you? The one from the legends. Are you going to save us?
