Page 40 of Fanged Desire
Addison
“What… is that?”
Hunter stood in the doorway of my tiny apartment, hands in her pockets, her expression oscillating between mild amusement and genuine horror as she gazed at the monstrosity of sticky notes and newspaper clippings on the wall behind me.
The living room was a disaster zone of papers, photos, the occasional mug of coffee, and on the wall; evidence – all connected with red string in what could only be described as an ode to shitty detective shows. I’d gone all out – multiple strings crossing one another in a tangled web, each one connecting potential leads to names, dates, and places. I knew it was a little over the top, but hell, it helped me visualize everything, and it was better than sitting around biting my nails as the overwhelming guilt and anxiety ate me alive.
“Disregard the obvious mental illness at play here and pay attention.” I jabbed a finger at the board, pointing to a blurry photo of the missing patient I’d recently learned of. “So, see thisguy? Broke his wrist, went to the hospital, vanished into thin air. His visitor – a mystery woman the police never tracked down.”
“Sounds familiar,” Hunter murmured, scanning the strings I’d meticulously mapped out with obvious amusement and a sprinkle of concern for my sanity. “Think it’s Cathy?”
I nodded, chewing my bottom lip. “It could be. I mean, she’s currently the only connection we’ve got that’s probable. But–” I dragged the red string further along the board to a different photo. “I’ve been doing some digging, and we’ve got a couple more disappearances like this guy. Same pattern. Regular person, someone not many would miss, gone without a trace after being spotted with an odd, beautiful woman.”
Hunter hummed thoughtfully, loping across the living room to inspect the tangled mess I’d made. “You’ve got more patience than I do. Doesn’t all this hypothesizing make your brain hurt?”
“No,” I muttered, bending to snag a stray note and pinning it to the wall. “Thisishow my brain works.”
Hunter chuckled, low and warm, and it sent a flutter through my chest that I tried my best to ignore. It didn’t help that I’d been up all night, strategizing, “hypothesizing”, and thinking about her mouth on mine.
My lips still burned at the memory of that kiss, like a blazing brand on my skin.
It took a moment too long to realize I was staring at her, at her lips, turned down at the corners as she scrutinized my evidence wall. It took a moment longer to sheepishly tear my eyes away when she caught me looking.
“So...” Hunter dragged the word out after an agonizingly awkward beat. “Just out of curiosity. Do youevertake a break?”
I blinked at her, not quite dumbfounded but something close. She seemed disinclined to acknowledge the elephant in the room – the kiss that still lingered in the back of my mind, no matterhow hard I tried to shake it off. But if Hunter wasn’t going to bring it up, then I wasn’t about to, either.
“I don’t have time for breaks. Penelope needs me.” My voice cracked slightly, and I cleared my throat, willing the knot in my chest to ease. “I can’t afford to stop.”
Penelope’s disappearance was the only thing that mattered. I couldn’t afford to be distracted, especially not by something as... complicated, as Hunter. She’d helped me a lot, true, but getting emotionally tangled with her was bound to lead me down a road I couldn’t risk traveling.
Still, no matter what I told myself, the way she acted like our wild few minutes together didn’t happen at all left a small pang of hurt in my chest. I tried to ignore the sting, to remind myself that Hunter wasn’t exactly a woman who wore her emotions on her sleeve.
“Anyway,” I turned my attention back to the wall, forcing a steady tone, “enough about me and my coping mechanisms. Let’s stay focused.”
Hunter dutifully straightened up, striding to stand at my shoulder and observe the wall alongside me, a faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Good plan.”
So that was that. We were both choosing to pretend it hadn’t happened.Fine.
Hunter and I sifted through every little detail of my detective wall for the rest of the day – every piece traced along the finest thread to the next possible conclusion, each possibility that felt maddeningly close yet frustratingly intangible. With the pile of newspaper clippings and printed photos around us, we were wading through a sea of dead ends and near-misses.
And all the while, the unspoken tension between us hummed in the quiet moments, like a wire pulled taut, ready to snap. We never mentioned the kiss, but it lingered, heavy in the air between us. I felt it every time she stepped close, every time hershoulder brushed mine. When she moved behind me to add a note to the wall I could feel the heat of her at my back, close enough to make my heart stutter.
I tried to focus on the job in front of me. But there was another thought echoing in the back of my mind, the section reserved just for Hunter. It occurred to me how natural it felt being with her, like I didn’t have to put on a mask or pretend to be anything other than myself. And that was... terrifying. I hadn’t realized how isolated I was until I met her. Now every brush of her hand felt like fire under my skin.
We worked until sundown, the light outside dimming to a soft glow. It was Hunter who eventually called it quits, groaning as she slid to the floor with her knees poking skywards.
“Addison, while your commitment to the haunted detective bit is impressive,” she reached up to tug on my jeans, coaxing me to join her on the floor among the rubble of discarded paper trails, “are you certain all of these disappearances are important, or is wishful thinking driving your theories?”
“I can’t prove it,” I swatted her hand away, gnawing on my bottom lip like it was going out of fashion, “but I know it’s all connected. Ithasto be.”
I expected a sarcastic comment, but when only silence followed I glanced down at her. Hunter was staring at me from her sprawled position on the floor, chin tilted to meet my gaze and serious in a way that seemed rare for her.
“You really care about her, huh? Penelope.” She said it in that knowing, gentle way that made it hard to look at her directly.
I took a shaky breath, the familiar ache of guilt rising in my chest as I stared, unseeing, at the wall of paper, pins, and red strings in front of me.
“Yeah. Of course I care about her. She’s my sister.” The words felt hollow against the storm of regret brewing inside and Ifinally relinquished my desperate search, sliding to my knees beside her. “I just didn’t care enough – not until it was too late.”
