Chapter 2 #2
“What?” The word comes out pure curse. “Stay away from the windows. Do you hear me? Do not open the door.”
“You think I’m a fucking idiot?” I choke.
The laugh comes again, this time from behind me.
I spin, blood turning to ice.
The silhouette at the window to my side is massive, a smear of shadow against the faint glow of the streetlight. The glass rattles as he presses a palm flat against it, his face leaning close enough that the thin pane is the only thing between us.
Henry Thurston smiles like he has all the time in the world.
“Such a smart little girl,” he says, voice muffled but clear enough. “You figured everything out last time, didn’t you? Thought you could hide behind a screen and nobody would ever touch you.”
My stomach lurches. The room tunnels, my field of vision narrowing to his eyes and the smear of his hand.
This is impossible. He wasn’t supposed to come back. Monsters don’t double back to the same town, the same girl.
Except they do. If you hurt them enough. If you fuck with them, make things personal. Everything was very personal for us. He hurt my friends. I did everything I could to make sure that stopped.
“Get away from the window,” Jack orders in my ear. I can hear other voices behind him now, cars, movement. “Out of his line of sight, Twig. Move.”
I drop to a crouch so fast my knees crack, adrenaline roaring in my ears, and crawl toward the kitchen. I’ll put the island between us…if he breaks the glass, I’ll grab a knife. No, I’ll grab a knife now, and then I’ll run if he breaks the glass…
Except there is nowhere to run. This is a studio apartment.
“Jack—” I raise up and fumble for the butcher knife in the block on the counter.
“I’m coming to you. Deputies are closer, they’re en route. Stay on the phone. Don’t open the door. Don’t talk to him.”
Too late.
“Did you miss me?” Henry asks, breath fogging the glass, his gaze tracking my movements. “I missed you.”
I clench my teeth so hard my jaw aches.
“Jack,” I whisper, “please tell me you’re almost here.”
Tires squeal faintly through the phone. “Hold on. I’m three minutes out.”
Three minutes. A lifetime. No time at all.
Henry’s hand moves on the glass, skittering around the frame, slow and deliberate. The storm window rattles, and he utters a low curse, then taps one finger against the pane, a metronome made of threat.
“You know what happens to smart girls who stick their noses where they don’t belong?” he murmurs.
My pulse hammers. My brain catalogs everything—the angle of his shoulders, the way his weight sits on his right leg, the scar at his hairline.
Part of me is already matching new information to old files. Part of me wants to curl into a ball on the floor.
I force myself to breathe instead.
“You’re not going to touch me,” I say, and I’m almost impressed by how steady I sound. “This town isn’t yours. It never was. You’re just another man who thinks he’s the main character and isn’t.”
His smile drops an inch.
Good.
Without warning, he draws his fist back and slams it dead center in the lower pane of glass. It cracks, and I scream and leap back.
Fuck. Motherfuck, fuck a duck, he’s going to get in before Jack gets here—
Even as the thought crosses my mind, sirens sound in the distance.
Henry looks from me to his hand, dripping blood, and shrugs.
“I’ll be seeing you, Tallulah Gentry. Round one to you, but the game is just beginning.
Shiloh got away from me, spoiled all the fun…
” He pauses and takes a step back. “...her friends won’t be as lucky. ”
Red and blue lights flicker faintly across my ceiling.
“Twig!” Jack’s voice snaps, audible through the phone’s speaker. “We’re outside. He’s moving. Stay down.”
There’s a flurry of motion at the window, and Henry’s face melts into the darkness. The heavy thud of boots pounds a retreat on the fire escape.
Shouts. Doors. The echo of commands I can’t make out.
I stay crouched on the floor, phone pressed to my ear, fingers locked around it so tight they go numb. The little glass hummingbird swings on its branch above me, casting jittery flecks of color over the walls.
Eventually, the front door shudders under controlled pounding.
“Twiggy. It’s Jack.”
I stumble to my feet and unchain the lock with fingers that don’t want to work. Jack steps in, gun still drawn, eyes hard and scanning every corner as though Henry somehow managed to get by him and into my apartment. Another deputy lingers on the walkway behind him.
Jack holsters his weapon when he sees me, shoulders dropping a fraction.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Define ‘okay,’” I rasp.
He huffs something that isn’t quite a laugh. “You’re alive. I’ll take it.”
My phone buzzes in my palm. brODIE flashes across the screen. Then COTTON. Then brODIE again. My cousin’s way of saying the thing out loud without saying it—
Answer, or I’m coming over.
I ignore the calls for a second, staring at Jack.
“What now?” I ask. My voice sounds very far away. “You guys arrest him? Shoot him? Drag him off into the night?”
Jack’s jaw flexes. “We didn’t catch him.
He booked it as soon as he heard the sirens, made his way across the river and into the wooded hillside.
He must've had a boat waiting. We’ve got units combing the area, but…
” He looks at me, and the apology in his eyes makes bile rise in my throat. “He knows how to vanish.”
Of course he does. That’s part of what made him such a good ghost the first time. “That’s his territory.”
My phone buzzes again, insistent.
Jack nods at it. “Answer him. He’s not going to let this go.”
I thumb it on and lift it to my ear.
“What the fuck is going on?” Brodie’s voice explodes in my head without preamble. “Jack just called. He said—”
“He was here,” I cut in before Brodie can say Henry’s name out loud. “At my door. At my window.”
Silence, heavy and lethal.
“Pack a bag,” Brodie says finally, voice gone flat. “You’re going to Philly.”
“The fuck I am.” I glance around my small, messy apartment. The hummingbird, the sad little tree. The life I’ve built here, weird and imperfect and mine. I have my routines. My space. “I’m not leaving. This is my home.”
“You can’t stay, Tallulah.” He only uses my full name when he’s dead serious. “You saw him. He knows where you live. He knows you. I’m not letting you be an easy target.”
“I’m not—I’m not going to let some psycho run me out of my own town,” I snap, throat thickening. “I’m not thirteen anymore. I’m not scared of monsters. And you guys can keep me safe.”
Jack’s brows pinch, but he doesn’t contradict me.
“You’re not scared?” Brodie repeats slowly. “Good. Then you won’t be scared when I tell Kael to send someone to sit on you until this is handled. Jack and I can’t keep eyes on you twenty-four-seven, Twig.”
I grit my teeth so hard I hear them grind together. “I don’t need an around-the-clock babysitter.”
“I need you alive.” His tone brooks no argument. “And Kael will feel the same. And it’s called a bodyguard. I’ll talk to him, and he’ll send someone down tomorrow. You’ll deal with it.”
“I—”
The line clicks. He’s already hung up.
I stare at my phone for a heartbeat, then another.
“Thanks a lot,” I mutter at Jack.
A ghost of a grin tugs at his mouth. “You know he’s right.”
“I know I’m going to murder whatever poor bastard Kael sends,” I grumble, collapsing onto the couch. The cushions swallow me whole. I press my palms into my eyes until I see stars.
“It won’t be for forever,” Jack says, leaning against the doorframe like my living room is his second office. “You’ll live. That’s the part I care about.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I let my hands drop and stare at the hummingbird ornament. It’s still swaying, slowly, like the world is trying to decide if it wants to settle. “What happens tonight?”
“I’ll be in the cruiser outside,” Jack says. “I’ve got a deputy sitting with you until he gets here. Extra patrols around the building. We’ll beef up your security tomorrow.”
“I have security,” I argue weakly. “I literally helped build the system you use.”
“Digital.” He tips his head, studying me. “We’re talking about flesh-and-blood threats now.”
Something hot and stubborn flares in my chest.
“I’m not afraid,” I say.
Jack’s gaze softens. “Of course you’re not,” he says quietly. “You’re a tiny, fierce little badass, Twig. But the big, strong men are terrified. Humor us.”
When the door shuts behind him, the apartment feels both too small and too empty. My pulse finally starts to slow.
Tomorrow, Kael will send someone. A stranger, most likely. Another wall between me and the world that keeps trying to break me.
I curl up on the couch, pulling my blanket over my lap, laptop back on top of it like armor.
The thing about monsters is, you can’t just lock your doors and hope they go away. You have to watch them. Track them. Learn the shape of their shadows.
You have to be smarter than they are.
That’s the part I’m good at.