Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
A LITTLE CHEESY BUT STILL GRATE
Kallie turns to me, and the color drains from her face, leaving her freckles scattered like dust against her skin. It’s a look I’ve never seen on her before, not in two years of living together. She looks genuinely, bone-deep scared.
Is this about the other night? The fight at the pizza place?
I’ve been trying to frame it as a drug deal gone wrong, something manageable.
But her terror is too big for that. When the cop—Alek—says he can help, I invite him in.
If we’re caught in some kind of mob turf war, we need all the help we can get.
Trouble just finds her, I swear.
And somehow I always end up trying to stand between the two.
Alek pushes in, stepping a single foot past the door and stopping to stare down at Kallie.
Not creepy at all.
She turns back around, her mouth pinching as she raises her chin to stare the tall man down.
She’s so fucking fearless.
Or stubborn.
With Kallie, the two are usually the same thing.
And she’s totally attracting the wrong attention at the moment if the way the tall fucker’s eyes light up with heat is anything to go by.
I’ll be the first to admit just how hot my roommate is.
I’ve been crushing on her way too fucking long, and I’ve seen the version of her no one else gets—hair down, laughing so hard she can’t breathe, completely herself.
This guy never stood a chance. He’s already caught in her orbit, just like everyone else. Just like me. And the way he’s looking at her right now... he knows it, too. It’s like watching a magnet pull iron filings.
But she’s not his.
And I’ll be damned if I let him think he might have a chance.
So I do what any guy would do when someone is clearly making his roommate uncomfortable—I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her away from him and flush against my own body.
Protective. Situational. Completely explainable. Yep.
But if it gives him a different message? So be it.
Best part? Kallie lets me without putting up a fight.
Alek, though, doesn’t react the way I think he will.
Instead of taking the hint, he leans down and smells—actually sniffs—Kallie’s hair.
Who the fuck does that?
And Kallie? She sorta just stares at him. She doesn’t look scared anymore. She looks downright pissed.
“Well, Stud Muffin, you’re in my house now. Talk.”
Stud muffin? What the fuck? She gave him a nickname?
Do these two know each other more than I thought?
Something shifts in my chest—an unfamiliar, unwelcome tightening I can’t seem to loosen.
The feeling is ugly.
I shove it down immediately.
If Kallie only knew, she’d never look at me the same way again.
Hell, she’d probably friendzone me for life.
So I exhale through my nostrils and count to ten before I say something stupid—something a best friend shouldn’t.
It mostly works.
Alek pushes by us and walks further into the apartment. He glances around, his eyes pausing on things too quickly for me to track, before they land back on Kallie and me. There’s an amused look on his stupid face.
Does he think this is funny?
He turns his attention to me, shakes his head once, then dismisses me completely to focus on Kallie.
“Remember when I left the coffee shop the other day?” he asks, pausing to let Kallie answer.
“Yes, you left pretty abruptly. You seemed… angry at something. Or someone.”
What the fuck? She lets him visit her at work?
She never lets me come by the hotel or coffee shop, not even to meet her for her breaks.
That same ugly emotion coils in my gut again and I swallow it down, hard. Now’s not the time.
But the feeling sticks in my throat, hot and acidic.
“There was… someone there. Someone who meant you harm. And I needed to catch up to him, to get answers.”
“Okay… so what did you find out?”
I lean forward without meaning to, wanting the answer too. Why are there people interested in Kallie enough to show up at her work?
I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.
“Nothing. The fang—the fucker disappeared before I could get any answers out of him. But he came back tonight. So he has clearly been following you. I’m sorry, Love, I was supposed to keep watch over you.”
He shifts from one foot to the other, dropping his gaze.
It could be discomfort, or maybe anger. Whatever it is, it calls to Kallie.
She eases out of my hold, a silent dismissal, and steps away from me—leaving my arm hanging uselessly in the air—to close the distance to the asshole calling her pet names in our living room.
She doesn’t even seem phased by the fact he just admitted to following her around. Which makes absolutely no sense.
Kallie hates people in her space.
I’ve watched her cross a parking lot to avoid conversations.
I’ve seen her fake phone calls to escape awkward small talk.
But this?
This doesn’t bother her?
Why?
She reaches up and cups his face. The gesture is so familiar, so tender, it’s like a punch to the gut. It’s the way you touch someone you know, someone you feel something for.
Have I been so blind as to miss the fact that she’s been making connections while I’m busy feeling sorry for myself?
“Hey, don’t beat yourself up. I got away from him. I’m safe.”
Alek’s eyes soften as he stares down at her, and something in my chest goes cold. I know that look. I’ve worn it. I just never expected to see it on someone else’s face.
“Not for long. He’ll be coming back. With reinforcements. And he now knows where you work and where you live. You can’t stay here, Kallie. You’re not safe anymore.”
“Pretty sure none of them can come in without being invited.”
Kallie’s tone has a hint of sass, her eyebrows raising in challenge, making Alek rear back in surprise.
There she is.
Terrified five minutes ago and already arguing with the bastard.
That’s the Kallie I know.
But once again I feel several steps behind.
What the fuck are they even saying?
“You know this and yet you let me step inside your home?” The tall asshole’s eyebrows raise in what seems like genuine awe, like he’s impressed with Kallie.
She has that effect on people. She effortlessly leaves an impression, without even realizing she’s doing it.
“Technically, Casey let you in. I was going to leave you out in the hall.” She says my name and I glance over, but she isn’t looking at me. Instead, she has a little smirk on her face that makes Alek chuckle.
Are they… flirting?
I open my mouth to say something, to break the moment, to insert myself right smack in the middle of whatever is happening here because I’ll be damned if I’ll let the tall asshole charm his way into Kallie’s heart right here in my fucking house.
Kallie can flirt and date whoever she wants, I never deluded myself in thinking I could have her all to myself, but right here in our sacred safe space? This is mine. Ours.
I regret inviting the fake cop inside our apartment, and I’m about to tell him he needs to leave when a knock on the door interrupts us all.
I cross to the door, my hand just closing around the knob, when Alek somehow beats me to it and slams a hand on it, closing it with a bang.
“Don’t.”
One word. That’s it.
Except his tone is now hard, unyielding. Bossy as fuck.
What the hell? This is my house. What’s his problem?
“Get out of the way.” The words come out even, but inside, my pulse hammers a frantic rhythm against my ribs. That is until I hear the weird hissing noise coming from the other side.
“The flower... Give ussss the sssweet one...”
A growl that sounds more beast than human rolls out of the tall asshole beside me, and every muscle in my body goes rigid like I’ve been doused in cold water. My feet move before I decide to move them, three steps back, four, my body making a decision my brain hasn’t caught up to yet.
My throat closes. I must be hallucinating. His eyes flare completely black, his teeth lengthen into fangs that glint in the dim light, and the tips of his fingers sharpen into claws. I blink, shake my head, but the monster in front of me doesn’t disappear. It’s real.
Shit.
We let a fucking monster inside our house.
That’s not a man at all. My body knows it before my brain does.
I take a few more steps to stand protectively in front of Kallie, putting myself between whatever that dude is and her.
He’ll have to get through me first.
He’s bigger. Taller. But I work out. Some. It’ll have to be enough.
Fuck.
But Kallie pushes me away, again, like always, and goes to stand right in front of Alek. I grab at her arm, trying to yank her back.
“Casey, stop. He won’t hurt me. He’s here to protect me.”
“How the fuck would you know that? He’s a… He’s a…”
“A vampire,” she finishes, the word sounding foreign and sharp. “Yeah. Trust me, I’m just as thrilled about it as you are.”
The brittle edge in her voice throws me completely. Vampires? She’s talking about vampires like they’re real, like one is standing in our living room right now.
I don’t have time to dwell on what ifs and questions though because the hissy threat on the other side of the door bangs again, this time so violently that it sounds like he’s throwing himself at it, trying to knock it down.
“Back up Kallie. This door isn’t going to hold much longer.”
Alek’s voice is calm, normal, but his words are distorted by the long ass fucking fangs.
“But they can’t come in, can they? I’m not inviting them in.”
Another bang, followed by a fist punching a hole straight through the metal door.
Holy fuck.
“Stark knows. He’s on his way.”
Who the fuck is Stark?
“How—” Kallie starts to question, but another fist makes it through the door and this time claws shred the hole bigger like it’s made of just thin paper.
The metal shrieks and tears, the brackets offering no resistance at all.
Red eyes lock onto mine through the shredded door.
The frantic energy in them stills, focusing into a beam that drills right into my skull.
The panic I felt seconds ago dissolves, replaced by a thick, warm fog.
I was supposed to do something… protect Kallie…
but the thought unravels like a frayed rope. It doesn’t matter. Nothing does.
“Invite me in,” a voice commands. I feel my body stumble forward, moving before I’ve decided to move. My own voice responds, flat and distant, as if it belongs to someone else.
From far away, someone—I think it’s Kallie—screams, “No!” but the sound is muffled, unimportant. My thoughts keep sliding off whatever I try to hold onto.
“Please, come in.”
Bangs and growls echo around me, red eyes coming closer and closer, then something clamps down on my shoulder—hard, wet, wrong—and my own scream is the last thing I hear.