Page 15 of Hunted in the Shadows
“How was last night?” I asked.
“Good. Real good. How was your trip to pornstar coma-land?” He peered at me over the rim of his mug.
I huffed, rolling my eyes to the heavens.
“You know if you just came and visited justonce, you would understand,” I said, dropping down to sit on the open edge of his laptop.
He scoffed. “I’ve seen you guys passed out with that pile of dirt too many times to count. It’s creepy as shit.”
I chewed my lip. His tone wasn’t cruel, but it gave me pause all the same—as it always did.
From the moment we peeled away from Elysia, hiding trysts with Jon to the spectral plane had been impossible—tentative ventures that became quickly a routine indulgence. Cliff knew from the start. Aside from dry remarks, he never outright objected, but I saw the dark look he shot at Jon’s back sometimes. A guarded disapproval that we all deftly evaded discussing—that I was wrong for Jon. Thatwewere wrong, some unique abomination in the landscape of their lives.
Too often, I considered whether Cliff was right.
“I know Jon talks to you about it. Don’t you ever wonder what it’s like?” I doubled down, batting my eyes at him. “Why won’t you come see me there?”
“I think I just made my case. Why would you wantmethere, anyway?” He lifted an accusatory eyebrow.
“I don’t know. Curiosity?”
He chuckled softly, in that decibel like velvet sandpaper. “Curiosity,” Cliff echoed, shaking his head as he tipped my chin up. “Sweetheart, you’ll just have to get me out of your system another way.”
He grinned as I shoved his hand away, my cheeks burning.
“By vomiting?” I offered sweetly.
I tucked unruly locks of hair behind my ears and debated again on asking for a sip of coffee. But Jon would be back soon, hopefully with something less bitter than the cheap brand that the Briar Inn stocked.
In his absence, the faint pulsing of my gemstone shard seemed to call out to me from across the room. Until I could use it as I wanted, its aura was a mocking lullaby. But I could dosomething.
I flew to the table, tapping on Cliff’s smartphone where it lay facedown beside the laptop.
“May I?” I asked.
He unlocked it. Not that I needed him to—but he was unaware I had peeked at him typing his passcode three weeks ago.
“Candy Crush?” Cliff asked.
“More important than that,” I scoffed.
He returned his attention to the laptop. Glancing at it, I realized a video had been quietly droning in the background. It wasn’t what usually held his attention—typically, I could expect to find him combing through grisly news reports of bizarre dismemberments or missing persons that led to a new case. And on more than one occasion, rewatching old episodes ofXena: Warrior Princess.
This was nothing like those; the screen displayed a video of a chamber filled with people sitting in tidy rows. Somehow, it held Cliff’s attention raptly.
On his phone, I pulled up the search engine. My palms danced over the digital keyboard with muscle memory, painstakingly scouring the local news for any reports of nature miraculously blooming out of season or wildlife acting out of character—the most common telltale signs of a charged gemstone in the area.
To my surprise, there were several nearly identical entries below mine that had been entered only a few days prior.
> unusual plant blooms in fall
> strange animal behavior in Arkansas
> unexplained occurrences nature near me
> things acting fucking insane for no reason
I peeked up at Cliff, my heart aching. If he hadn’t been so absorbed in his video, I would have sprung up to embrace him. For all his grumblings about my obsession to change forms, he was trying to help me.
