Chapter 2 #2
Her house is ten minutes away. I know because I’ve timed it before. I’ve parked across the street, hidden under the shadow of a broken streetlamp, and watched her slip inside with takeout boxes or coffee, sometimes with her sisters trailing behind her.
I shouldn’t know the way by heart.
But I do.
Tonight, the windows are almost all dark. The blinds are drawn in Willow’s bedroom, Opal’s too. There’s a faint flickering from inside coming from Iris’s room, though. If I had to guess, it looks like Iris is the only one home.
Maybe I shouldn’t know her sister’s names, but what the hell can I say? I might have a problem.
I kill the engine and sit there, fingers drumming against the wheel, waiting. Watching. Hoping maybe I’m wrong and Willow will appear in the doorway any second.
Five minutes pass. Ten.
Nothing.
She’s not home.
My pulse spikes. It’s Halloween—she could be anywhere. A party. A bar. With someone else.
A sour taste coats my tongue at that thought. The idea of her leaning close to another man, flirting, smiling, laughing that low laugh she lets slip in her videos—it makes me grip the steering wheel until my knuckles ache.
Fuck.
I can’t lose track of her now. Not tonight. Not when she’s circling me closer and closer with those cards like she already knows the truth.
There’s one other place she might be. It’s my only hope of catching her tonight.
I don’t give myself time to second-guess. I gun the engine, spin back onto the road, and aim for the neon glow two blocks off the Strip. The Vale Tarot sign is my lighthouse. And if I’m lucky, it’ll lead me straight to her.
I park half a block away, palms slick on the wheel. My whole body buzzes with adrenaline, worse than anything the stage ever gives me. Out there, I’m in control. Up there on the silks, the fire, the cards—that’s my kingdom.
Here? Hunting her down in the dark? This is reckless as hell.
But when I see the light bleeding through her shop’s windows, relief slams into me so hard I almost laugh. It’s dim; the light in the front part of the shop is off, but she never leaves any lights on by accident. The light spilling out from the back room means she’s here.
I check the street left and right, shove my mask deeper into my pocket as I debate how to do this, and force my legs to move. Every step closer tightens the coil in my chest. What the hell am I going to say? Hey, babe, love your content. Could you stop exposing me before you ruin my entire life?
Pathetic.
Still, I’m rehearsing—pleas, bargains, threats—when I glance through the glass front door.
She isn’t in the front room, just like I expected. It’s empty up front. But there’s a door leading to the back room, and it’s left open just a foot or so, barely granting me a view inside.
And everything inside me locks.
She’s there.
Cat ears. Tail. Skin-tight black bodysuit.
There’s a man across from her at the table. He wears all black except for the stupid crown perched on his head. I see Willow’s lips move. She smiles at him, but I’ve seen her smile enough to recognize it’s all wrong. This one is forced. There’s disgust masked in it.
She says something else, and the man across from her takes the crown off, sets it on the edge of the table, and puts both of his hands on the table between them. She speaks again, and he turns them over, placing his palms flat on the wooden surface.
My brows furrow in confusion. She’s not doing a palm reading, asking him to place his hands down like that.
But just a second later, I see the flash of something silver and fast.
Two daggers slam down, metal biting flesh and wood in one merciless thrust. The man’s scream rattles against the glass. My gut lurches as his hands spasm, pinned like some grotesque crucifixion.
Holy shit. Holy shit! I don’t move. Can’t.
Willow. Willow, my little witchy obsession, just maimed a man with precise expertise, and she’s fucking smiling about it.
I watch as Willow leans close, her voice too low for me to hear, but her expression razor-sharp. Her mouth curls like she’s reciting scripture.
She rises to her feet and walks behind the man. And without hesitation, she pulls a black bag over his head and cinches it tight around his neck.
The man thrashes. Buckles. Jerks hard enough to rock the table, knocking the crown to the floor. His muffled screams scrape against my skull.
I should leave. I should run. I should pretend I never saw this.
But I can’t.
Because she looks holy.
Drenched in rage and conviction, eyeliner wings flared, fake tail jerking around as she holds the man still. She looks like justice itself wearing a cheap Halloween costume.
And I’ve never been so horrified or hard in my entire life.
When his body slumps forward, the silence hits harder than the scream.
That’s when the sound of laughter drifts down the sidewalk.
I jerk back, heart punching my ribs, just as a pack of drunk Halloween stragglers stumble up. Angel wings crooked, devil horns flashing, one pirate hugging a six-pack to his chest like it’s treasure.
“Yo, tarot!” one of them slurs, pointing at the glowing sign. “Bet it’s haunted in there!”
Another staggers toward the door. And panic explodes in me. If they push that door open, they’ll see him. See her. See everything.
I step forward fast, throwing myself between the drunks and the glass. Hood low, voice pitched deep. “Shop’s closed. Private event.”
The pirate squints at me. “C’mon, it’s Halloween—”
I lean close enough he can smell the chalk and pyrotechnic lighter fuel still clinging to me. My voice sharpens like a blade. “Walk away. Unless you’re looking for a future you won’t like.”
For a beat, silence. Then the angel girl laughs nervously. “Whatever, dude. Let’s hit the next bar.”
The pack stumbles off, neon glow swallowing them whole.
Relief floods me. Too soon. Because when I turn back toward the window—
She’s staring at me.
Hands still bloody. Cat ears still perched.
And her blue eyes, wide and sharp, are locked onto mine like she could pin me just as easily as she pinned him.
My stomach drops.
I’m not wearing my mask.
Her eyes cut through me like a blade.
Not wide with fear. Not even with guilt. No—she looks at me like a predator who just realized another predator was in the room the whole time.
My pulse stutters. My breath catches. For one stupid second, I think maybe I imagined the whole thing. Maybe I didn’t just watch a woman dressed like a Halloween kitten suffocate a man with a plastic bag.
But then I glance at the table.
At the slumped body. At the blood dripping steadily down the wood, dark and slick. And I know I’m not imagining shit.
She knows I saw. I know she knows I saw. And that’s the kind of knowledge that ruins people.
I should run. Bolt. Pretend none of this ever happened.
Instead, my legs move. Straight toward the door.
The bell jingles softly as I push it open, the most absurdly cheerful sound to ever exist in a murder scene.
Willow’s eyes remain fixed on me, the terror in them obvious, her mouth parting, a curse caught on her lips.
And I hear myself say, voice dry, reckless, too calm for the chaos inside me: “If you’re going to do that in here, you should at least have curtains.” It comes off a little… angry. Maybe even annoyed.
Willow doesn’t say a word. She stands there, frozen, staring at me. Taking in every detail of my face. Memorizing me.
“Let’s get this cleaned up before anyone else just walks by and sees a body in a pool of blood,” I say to fill the silence.
The words hang in the incense-thick air, sharp and surreal.
Her chest rises and falls fast. Cat ears tilted. Guilt written over every inch of her face.
And me? I just crossed a line I can’t uncross. The body slumps forward, hands still lying on the oak table like some horror movie saint offering sacrifice.
And her.
She’s just… frozen.
Well, not completely. Her fingers flex like she’s debating snatching her daggers from the table, chest heaving. And I have to wonder: am I in danger now? Maybe she’s a violent little killer and she’ll stab anything that moves.
But her eyes are wide and locked on me like I’ve just ripped her mask off.
Fight. Flight. Freeze. And my girl here? She’s ice.
I know the look too well. The oh-shit-it’s-over stare. The one where you see your own life ending in a courtroom or in a car trunk.
Part of me wants to laugh. I’ve been obsessed with her for months—her mouth, her sharp tarot reads, the way she leaves comments that burn hotter than any flame trick I’ve ever pulled. And now? Turns out she’s a killer.
And here’s the fucked-up part: instead of running, I’m hard as steel under the performance pants I’m still wearing, because apparently, this is exactly my type.
What does that say about me? That I grew up around bodies and blood and crime, and so much worse. Damn. Did I ever have a chance at falling for someone normal?
Shit. Therapy would eat me alive.
But standing here? Watching her stare at me like I’m about to ruin her entire life? I can’t let it happen.
I step closer, voice low and steady, like I’ve rehearsed this my whole damn life. “Willow,” I say, tasting her name out loud for the first time. “We need to clean this up. Now. I’m going to help you.”
Her breath jerks in, sharp as a blade. “Who the hell are you?”
I should lie. I should tell her I’m a cop, or a neighbor, or anyone but what I actually am—another freak who knows exactly how to bleach blood out of that oak.
Instead, I meet her eyes and give her the truth she needs in this second. “Someone who really doesn’t want to see you go to prison.”
Something flickers in her expression. Confusion. Suspicion. A thread of hope she’s trying like hell to strangle.