Chapter 13
I can feel Moro’s breath on my face and smell her surprisingly inoffensive breath long before she gives a little woof to wake me.
“We cannot be doing this,” I mutter, eyes still closed even with her paw planted on my shoulder. “Seriously, Moro, we’ve done so well before now. Please don’t break our streak and start being a menace during the night.”
She woofs again, making sure I know without a doubt that I will be getting my ass out of this bed for her.
It’s traumatizing, but I shove myself upward, gently shooing her away from me as I break free from my comfortable, enviable slumber.
“I still love you, Moro. But maybe a little less if this becomes a thing.” God, this really can’t become a thing.
I stumble to my feet in my t-shirt and shorts; my need to sleep while basically freezing always wins out no matter what the temperature outdoors is.
Tonight I also slide on my sneakers, and groan when I see that it’s a little after two am.
This is prime sleeping time, and I definitely don’t stay asleep long enough on my own to deserve Moro disrupting what little of it I get.
The back glass door is a little heavy, especially when I’m still half asleep, but I yank it open, forcing it to slide open on its track.
I flip on the deck light to squint out into my fenceless backyard that opens up into the forest behind the few houses on my road.
“Just hurry up, okay?” I sigh. “I want?—”
Unlike every other time I’ve let her out, Moro takes off, running lightly down the little deck’s stairs and out into the yard.
She circles a few times, then moves to sniff one of the nearest trees, her tail wagging.
A quick yip of excitement comes from her mouth, and with that she’s gone, disappearing outside of the range of my light.
“Moro?” I ask, and my stomach suddenly clenches nervously. “Moro!” Usually when I call her, she’s quick to come. And I’ve never seen her actually leave the yard any of the times I’ve let her out before off of a leash.
But tonight she doesn’t come back. I don’t hear her in the trees, nor the sound of her paws brushing across the debris in my yard. “MORO!” Her name comes out as a scream from my lips, and before I know it, I’m off of the deck and jogging across my yard.
What if she gets lost? I can’t help that thought, but the one that whispers through my mind next is even worse.
What if one of those monsters found her?
My steps pick up until I’m all out running, my feet carrying me faster into the chilly night air and away from the safety of my lit backyard.
It’s not until I’m ten steps into the woods, however, that I realize just how bad of an idea this is, and how I really need to go back to the house.
There’s a very real chance of me getting lost once the trees start getting thicker and I can’t see even a speck of light from my deck.
A rush of movement catches my eye, and I whip my head around with a gasp, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu from that night at Bluebone Ridge.
“Oh, fuck,” I whisper, stumbling back. “Oh, I fucked up real bad. Shit.” Every curse word I know comes bubbling to my lips, and I flex my hands against the bark of a tree behind me.
Yeah, I really should’ve stayed in the house.
Suddenly Moro appears, barking, her tail wagging stiffly and her ears pricked forward.
She runs past me, evading me easily as I grab for her collar, and I nearly hit the ground from overbalancing in the effort.
“Damn it, Moro!” I whisper, staggering. “Come on! ” She’s ignoring me, darting and bounding at something I can’t see.
Finally she stops moving, and I see her standing with her tail wagging, about twenty feet away by the base of a large tree, like she’s trapped something against it.
Surely if it is one of those monsters, it would be fighting her.
Even if it’s wounded already. But she’s not exactly attacking either, I note, slowing my steps as I get closer to her.
“Moro?” I breathe, and my dog looks up at me briefly, her tail wagging again like she’s found something worth showing off.
I still can’t help my apprehension though, even as I tell myself it’s probably a stray cat or raccoon or some other poor, unsuspecting animal she’s scaring to death.
That’s what gets me the rest of the way to her, and it’s not until I’m rounding the last tree before reaching Moro that I realize cats and raccoons and opossums don’t wear jeans and dirty sneakers that have seen better days.
“You’re not a cat,” is all I can say, as my gaze falls on Cairo’s face where he sits, reclining against the large tree.
His eyes open, flashing in the night like an animal’s reflecting light. My stomach clenches, and the feeling only gets worse when he grins and I see the hint of fangs between his lips.
“I’m definitely not a cat,” he agrees in a tired, raw voice. “And I’m probably not as charming as one either. You should go back inside.” He grimaces when he tries to move, prompting Moro to step closer and nudge at his arm.
“Why?” I ask, unmoving. But alarm bells are going off as I look at him and see the blood spattered on his clothes that aren’t Bluebone Ridge issue at all.
“Because you weren’t supposed to know I was out here in the first place.
” He grimaces at Moro’s next nudge and finally relents.
Cairo lifts a hand and settles it on her head, scratching behind her ears.
“Thanks a lot for that, by the way,” he tells her flatly.
“I clean you up and bring you to her, and this is the thanks I get?”
Moro’s tail only wags harder, but I’ve never been more confused.
“You what ?” The words send a shock of surprise through me, and I feel so strange standing above him in the woods.
Belatedly, as he looks up at me, I realize he’s bleeding.
“What the hell happened to you?” I murmur, kneeling beside him.
“Was it—” But I snatch my hand back when he grins, once more showing me too-sharp teeth.
“It was,” he tells me without hesitation in a voice that holds a soft, dark chuckle.
“But not for the reason you think.” He moves to scratch Moro’s chest, though grimaces when she tries to lick at the blood running down the side of his face and gently pushes her back.
“That’s gross, Moro,” he tells her disapprovingly.
“You saved me.” It isn’t a question as my mind puts together the pieces of that night. “The voice I heard before I passed out was yours. How did you get…it…” He looks up at me balefully, and my question dies on my lips.
Because it’s obvious, and I don’t need him to confirm it for me, with his reflective eyes and sharp teeth. “You’re hurt,” I force myself to repeat, trying to keep my mind on that.
“I’ve been hurt worse.”
“I didn’t ask.”
He rolls his eyes at that, settling back against the tree. “Well, it’s not fatal. And you shouldn’t be out here, Fern.”
“Why?”
But he doesn’t answer me this time, only gets comfortable with his hand on Moro as his eyes slide shut. It gives me the opportunity to survey him from where I’m kneeling, though I can’t see much in the light of the moon and the useless illumination from my deck in the distance.
I can’t leave him out here.
Not when he’s the reason I’m alive. “Come on.” I gently kick his leg, being as careful as I can be to not hurt him. “Get up, Cairo. My house is over there.”
“I know.” He sighs airily, which doesn’t make me feel any better.
“Which is weird.” I lean a little bit closer without letting myself chicken out. “We should talk about how weird that is, because it makes you sound like a stalker.”
“I’d have to be human to be a stalker, wouldn’t I?”
The admission sends a shiver up my spine, and I freeze with my hand outstretched toward him. Cairo opens his eyes to slits, and I see the satisfaction there. It hits me that this was his intention; he wants me to be afraid of him.
“You look human enough to me.” Before I can chicken out, I drag him to his feet, not that he really fights me on it. “Shut up,” I add when he starts to say something.
I’m definitely putting on a facade of confidence, but I don’t know what else to do. Cairo walks back toward my small house with me, mostly supporting his own weight except a few times when he has to stop and lean on me, letting out sharp, hissing breaths between his teeth.
Finally, I haul him up on my deck with Moro loping inside once I open the door, wagging her tail and turning like she’s welcoming him into her home. The sight makes me snort, and I shake my head at her treating him like her friend.
“You really helped her?” I close the sliding glass door and lock it while he leans on my small table, panting.
“Well, yeah. I stuck around until I could hear the ambulance coming for you. She didn’t want to leave you,” he adds, grinning back at me. “She almost bit me every time I got close to you for a few minutes.”
“Oh.” I glance back at Moro, who only wags her tail at both of us and steps forward to nudge at Cairo’s hand. “I’m happy you did that. I’m happy she’s okay. And I’m also pretty thrilled that I’m okay.”
Making a decision, I grab his arm and bring it over my shoulder, ignoring his undignified squawk of disapproval. “Are you hungry?” I don’t know where he’s been, or how he’s doing other than being hurt, but for some reason my question gets a grating chuckle from him.
“I’m starving.”
The words make me stop. We’re in my bedroom, just outside my bathroom door as I stare at him. Those words make everything inside me twist with anxiety. “Don’t say that.”
“Why?” His eyes flash in the light, doing that creepy reflecting thing again. “Because you’ve heard it before? It’s kind of our thing, so I’m not surprised.” God, I have no idea what he means, and I’m a little afraid to ask.