Chapter 22 #3
They come without a single question. The three of us head out through the doors together. My keys are in my fist, half a joke loaded, when I round the hood of my car and stop dead.
All four tires sag on the rims, sidewalls slashed, rubber peeled open where a blade went in.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” Priya crouches by the front wheel. “That’s not random. Somebody did this on purpose.”
“Vandals.” I hear how even I sound, and that steadies me a little because inside I’ve gone cold to the bone. “This lot gets hit now and then. Kids with a boxcutter and nothing better to do.”
Gwen frowns toward the street. “Shouldn’t we call the police?”
“I’ll deal with it tomorrow.” I make myself smile. “Actually, could one of you run me over to Crestline? My kid’s there, and I’m already late. The car can wait till morning.”
Gwen drives. I keep my eyes on her side mirror the whole way.
Three cars back, the gray sedan slides into the lane behind us, never once closing the gap.
My pulse won’t drop. I chatter about nothing and laugh in the right places.
When she pulls up at the academy gate, I thank her twice and wave until she’s gone.
The sedan noses to the curb across the road. I walk through the gate at a stroll, chin up, slow and easy, until the hedge cuts the street out of sight behind me. Then I run.
The drive vanishes under my flats, through the front doors, past the trophy cases and the framed jerseys. I hit the corner into the junior building too fast, nearly go down, catch the wall, and keep moving. Marcus’s door is shut. I shove it open without knocking.
There’s another man in the office with him, big through the shoulders, an old scar splitting one brow. Marcus is on his feet before the door’s done swinging.
“Jessa.” He’s around the desk in two strides. “What’s wrong?”
“I think I was followed.” It rushes out of me. “All day. Since this morning.”
“Slow down.” His hands come to my shoulders and steer me into the chair across from the desk.
“Start at the beginning.” I get it out in pieces: the man in the coffee shop who ordered nothing and only stared, the same face waiting in the lot at five, all four of my tires opened to the rim, the sedan trailing us the whole way here.
“Describe him,” Marcus says.
“He’s tall, taller than you, with a dark beard and a gray cap pulled low.” I press my hands together to stop the shaking. “There’s some kind of tattoo on the back of one hand.”
Marcus goes rigid. He cuts a look at the man beside him, and a muscle leaps in his jaw. “That’s Leroy.”
The other man tenses.
“Jessa.” Marcus angles his head toward him. “This is Adrian. He’s a friend.”
Adrian gives me a short nod, then turns back to Marcus. “This is bad. If they’ve put a tail on her, they know something. What do you want to do?”
“Take a few of the men out to her office lot. Her car’s sitting there on four slashed tires.” Marcus doesn’t look away from me while he says it. “See if anyone can pull a scent off it before it’s fouled.”
“I’m on it.” Adrian pushes off the wall and is gone through the door.
I blink after him. “Men? What men?”
“Most of the people who work at this academy are ours.” Marcus crouches in front of my chair, bringing his eyes level with mine. “The staff here are shifters, near enough every one of them.”
“Oh.” I look at the shut door, then back at him. “Right. The man following me.” My mouth’s dry. “He’s one of them? A hunter?”
“Yes.”
“Am I in danger? Is Mia?”
Marcus lifts my hands off my knees and holds them in both of his.
“Hunters don’t touch humans. It’s the one line they don’t cross.
They’re just trying to intimidate you.” His thumbs move over my knuckles.
“So they’ll most likely leave you alone.
But let’s not give them a chance.” His jaw sets.
“Mia’s a different matter. They’ve decided to come at me for some reason, and that drags her into it. ”
“Then what do we do?”
“From now on, I’ll take you to work and bring you home,” he says firmly. “If I can’t, Adrian does. You don’t drive anywhere alone.” He leans in and presses his mouth to my forehead. “I’m working on this, Jessa. You’ll be safe, I’ll see to that. Stop losing sleep over it.”
I look up at him, at how sure of himself he seems, and the question is out before I can stop it. “And who keeps you safe?”
For a second, he looks away. He doesn’t answer right away. “I can look after myself.”
It’s meant to settle me. It does the opposite. There’s a grim edge under it, something he won’t say aloud, and my chest winds tighter. I start to press him on it.
The office door opens first.
A man steps through without knocking, already mid-sentence, a folder tucked under one arm. He’s older, well-dressed, silver coming in at the temples, and the second he sees me, the words dry up in my throat.
I know that face.
Ten years back, I stood in a hotel lobby with a pregnancy test in my bag, my heart in my mouth.
My hands go cold.
It’s him. He’s the man who threw money at my feet and told me to get rid of my baby.