“Okaaaaaay,” Joey said awkwardly from behind me as we walked down the street, away from Hellhound and the three guys within it. “What was all that about?”
“Nothing, just drop it,” I snapped, not bothering to elaborate. “I’m going home.”
“Home?” he yelled, jogging to catch up with me. “Annalise, why the fuck would you go home? We just got started, and I haven’t even had a drink yet!”
“Then go have a drink, Joey! I’m going home.” I could feel him staring at me from his place to my left, no doubt ready to grill me about why the hell I was acting so strange.
I walked faster, trying to get some distance between us, but Joey was hot on my tail.
“Hey, hold the fuck up!” He grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop on the sidewalk before I could walk any farther. He took my chin between his thumb and index finger, bringing my face toward his, looking at me with a mix of confusion and concern. “Talk to me, Annie. What the hell is going on with you? What was that back there?”
I didn’t know what to tell him, so I decided to change the subject to something else that was bothering me. “I’m getting stronger.”
His eyes narrowed for a moment before he said, “You train at that damn gym every day, Annie. That’s kind of the point.”
“No, you don’t get it. I’m getting stronger without my training—I’m not even lifting anymore. I’m spending all my time sparring, and my hits are…” I hesitated, not sure how much to tell him. This was almost too much for even me to believe. “They’re not the same, Joe. Something is going on, something is wrong with me.” I huffed out a bitter laugh. “Something more than usual, I guess I should say.”
“Annie, what can I do? How can I help you?” His voice was barely above a whisper. His brown eyes had gone soft, like melted chocolate, and I knew that I was flirting with crossing the line I drew between us. We weren’t together anymore, but he’d tried, many times, to get close to me again. I was always conscious of how I acted around him. I didn’t want to lead him on, but in this case, I had no one else to talk to. “What does this have to do with those guys?”
“That’s the thing, I don’t know. When they cornered me in the alley last night, they seemed to know something about me. They said that I didn’t know what I was. Like I might be something else, something not Human? But when I disabled them in less than two minutes, they seemed shocked.” I took a step back and sucked air into my lungs, trying hard to calm myself down. I was running on pure panic and anger. The whole night had become too much for me to handle, and I knew it was because of my strange reaction to the three guys back at the bar.
I could still feel their eyes on me. I was hot and flustered and turned the fuck on.
But before I could continue to explain my situation to Joey, I stopped myself. I’d said enough, way more than I’d planned to tell him. “I don’t know, Joe. I’m just in a shitty mood, I guess—it’s fine.”
I turned around and started walking in the direction of our apartment. Just as I began to enter the alley by the warehouse, the one from the previous night, I felt a blank space in the air behind me. Like I walked into someone’s line of sight.
Someone was watching me.
Looking around quickly, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. The alley was dark but no darker than normal—I knew it like the back of my hand. I took a deep breath and turned in the other direction to see if maybe there was someone across the street.
Nothing.
“Annie?” Joey asked, confused. I put up a hand signaling him to be quiet.
I closed my eyes, pushing my hearing out farther, and scanned the area for any weird sounds. It was all calm and quiet for a few seconds just before…
There.
A ticking noise was coming from the darkness of the alley—like a metronome but…faster. So fast that it sounded more like a hiss. Like a rattlesnake?
I hadn’t paid much attention to the weather or my surroundings before that moment. The air was balmy with humidity, the city lights off in the distance were bathed in nighttime darkness, the scent of rotting garbage and piss filled my nostrils.
I didn’t like the feeling I had. The hairs on my arms pebbled at the strange noise, and Bestia started to rapidly pace in her cage. She was growling low, the sharp fur on the back of her neck rising as she listened for the threat.
Quickly, I turned to Joey and whispered harshly, “Go home. Get in a cab, don’t walk.”
“Anna”—he was looking around him, searching for what I saw, but he wouldn’t be able to hear the threat, not like I could—“what’s going on?”
“For once, don’t question me, Joey. Just go, please,” I snapped. “Now! Go!”
He looked at me for only a second, searching my eyes. He must have seen how serious I was, because he reached forward and placed his hand on the back of my head, bringing me toward him to place a soft kiss on my hair. He looked at me for just a moment before turning around and walking across the street.
He’d beat himself up the whole way home for leaving me, a girl, in this situation. But he knew that I could handle myself better than he could.
I knew I’d made the right choice, because as soon as he was gone, I heard a voice come from the alley.
“Come here, Angel.”
I didn’t move.
My heart kicked up to a consistent hammer in my chest—so loud I could hear it just as clearly as the ticking sound. I felt sick.
The voice was low and rough like gravel. The ticking got louder, faster. It seemed to be coming closer.
“Come on, now. Surely you aren’t afraid of me?” It wasn’t a male or a female voice, it was something from another world, another life. It was something that dripped darkness and pulsed a threatening beat.
I was about to dance with evil.
For the first time in my life, I was terrified. I’d never felt fear like this before. Even when my foster father first came for me, I was never this scared, because I knew him. I was shocked and upset and a myriad of other emotions during those initial beatings, but I never feared him. I, sure as shit, was fearful now—I was out of my element.
I wanted to pull Bestia out, but I couldn’t seem to reach her. She was whining and whimpering in her cage, trying to come for me, but her sharp claws weren’t doing anything against the padlock holding the cage shut.
I took a deep, centering breath. I could do this. Hell, I had to do this. I wasn’t about to lose my life to whatever the fuck this thing was, even though Death and I were old friends.
“How about you come out here?” My voice sounded more confident than I felt, thank god. I was trying not to let the thing know that I was afraid—it probably ate fear for breakfast.
“Gladly,” it replied.
I tried to brace myself for anything I might see, but nothing could have prepared me for what appeared.
I screamed.
Then I ran.
For the first time in my life, I ran from something.
The creature was massive. Easily eight or nine feet tall, with horns that protruded from its skull, adding another foot to its height. It sort of looked like the creature was burning alive, but I couldn’t see any kind of fire. The only evidence was the skin that turned to ash and the black soot that was dripping onto the ground around it.