“How was she acting?” Sarah asks.
“She passed out drunk and found him that way when she woke up, I guess. But she was...normal,” I say. Actually... “She was almost too normal. Do you think she was faking? I wouldn’t know your friend’s daughter from someone planted there to take her place.” I pause. It wouldn’t be the first time someone got the idea our blood would be useful. I think of the small blue vial hidden in the zippered coin pouch that has no doubt settled to the bottom of my bag. “You don’t think I’m being hunted?”
When I was too small to understand, I’d been terrified of a place called Throng Ands. This will keep your blood from getting into Throng Ands, Allie. The words haunted my childhood nightmares. I’d been petrified of accidentally wandering over an invisible border to this place and having my blood leap from my veins to stay out. Of course, now I know better.
The wrong hands.
The vial is a last resort to keeping our secrets safe when nothing else will.
“She said she was my friend’s daughter?” Sarah says carefully.
My feet shuffle to a stop. “She was, right?”
“How’s the town?” Sarah says instead of answering. “Have you seen anything strange in the papers?”
I snort. “It’s Fissure’s Whipp.” The strap of my messenger bag digs into my shoulder. “If she is a hunter, I hope she doesn’t try to track me down. I’m not in the mood for a fight tonight.” The scar from the old knife wound aches. I tell myself it’s the weather and try to ignore it.
“Maybe you can stay with Talia for awhile?”
Now she has my attention. Talia had been my only friend since childhood, the single other kid I knew growing up who was like me. Other kids our age had played tag together—Talia and I sparred on dusty mats until our hands bled. By the time we hit high school we’d known each other’s every strength and weakness. We still do. But we haven’t spoken much since graduation. “Why would I do that?”
“I just thought if you were scared,” Sarah says. “You could go to her place.”
“I’m not scared,” I say, more heat in the words than needed. I plod up the last few stairs and round the corner. “Listen, I’m sure the McMansion is crawling with cops already. Or her mom knew a really good cleaning compan—”
At the end of the hallway, against my door, lays a shape. For a terrifying second, I think it’s the drowned boy. My knees bend, fingers diving for the messenger bag. I sling it forward with my hip to unzip it one handed. Every nerve in my body fires.
“What is it? Allie?” Sarah calls into my ear.
In the bag, my hand closes around the hilt of my knife. It’s not the best weapon I have on me, but I’ve got easy access to it.
“Did you send me another case?” I ask breathlessly, but even as the words are leaving my lips, I know Sarah would never send anyone to my doorstep. I move slowly, alert, watching.
“Tell me what you see.” There’s no panic in Sarah’s voice.
“It’s…” I don’t want to say. The shape in front of my door doesn’t move.
Is it dead? I wonder. I’ve been playing the cat and mouse game as long as I can remember, long before my parents lost and I wound up at Sarah’s place. Random work doesn’t happen. It’s dangerous to be known any more than necessary. We go to the cases, they don’t come to us. I take a flurry of steps toward my apartment.
“Allie, answer me,” Sarah demands.
It’s a boy, at least from what I can tell. His shoulder blades jut against the material of his shirt, head under a curled arm. If he still has a head, I think. All body parts and organs need be present for a proper resurrection. At least the important ones.
I edge closer. He’s laying over something. Suddenly, the body rolls over and yawns and I see the oversized backpack.
My shoulders sag in relief. “Damn it,” I whisper. The tension flees as Ploy offers me a sleepy, apologetic smile from where he’d nodded off waiting for me. I let the knife drop into the bag, hooking it into the sheath by the tip and then hold a finger to my lips. “Sarah? It’s fine. Someone left a trash bag in the hall,” I say and stick my tongue out at him as he gets to his feet.
He mocks a playful punch to my stomach and I ‘oof’ out of reflex.
“I have to go. I’ll call you later,” I say.
“Allie…” I wait for her to go into the inevitable lecture. Don’t get close. Don’t trust anyone with secrets that compromise the safety of myself and the others. Don’t make ties that can’t be cut. Instead she says, “We’ll talk tomorrow,” and hangs up without waiting for a reply.
Shoving the phone in my pocket, I shoot Ploy the evil eye. “Christ. I thought you were dead.”
He raises his pierced eyebrow. “Bodies show up on your doorstep often?” He means it as a joke. Ploy has no idea what I can do. After the night I’ve had though, I barely manage a sarcastic laugh. “Can I crash here tonight?” he asks.
“Yeah, fine,” I grumble as I unlock the door, secretly relieved for the company. I hang my key ring on the hook by the door. My jobs start with dead bodies. Ending one the same way unnerves me. I snap on a light and carry my bag through the living room to my bedroom. As I toss it onto the bed, I hear Ploy latch the deadbolt, then the chain. I’ve trained him well.
“Everything okay?” he asks from the living room where he’s set his pack down beside the couch.
I grunt in answer.
He ducks around the threshold. “The aunt again?” He knows the barest details of my past—dead parents, sheltered three years with Sarah and now the apartment she pays for to keep me under her thumb. I know even less about him. He’s lived mostly at the Boxcar Camp, an abandoned railroad station, with a loose knit group for going on a year. He knows all best places to beg tourists for change. For a couple months now, he’s had a soft spot for my couch and feel good comedies as long as they’re not romantic. This is the first time I haven’t been home when he stopped by.
He runs a hand through his sandy blond hair. It sticks up in a faux hawk, whether from the drizzle or lack of shampoo, I can’t tell. “Everything’s in the normal spots,” I say, pointing to the frayed sheet folded on one arm of the couch, the comforter he lays over the cushions. “Shower first?”
He snickers. “Yeah. Point taken.”
“Towel,” I say, tossing him the damp one I used this morning. I dig into the laundry basket of clean clothes I haven’t gotten around to folding and pluck free the oversized sweatpants he borrows when he’s here. If he’s following past procedure, he’ll take his own clothes into the shower with him and scrub them as best he can with my body wash, dry them over the shower door. I’ve offered to put them through an actual laundry cycle, but he claims if he gets rid of all the grime, no one will recognize him. Part of me believes him. “Need anything else?” I ask.
Balling up the towel and sweats, he shakes his head, but stops in the doorway.
I give him a minute and then tell him I’m heading to bed just as he finally says, “I need to talk to you.” He clears his throat. “I guess it can wait until morning. Thanks,” he says holding up the stuff in his hands. He breaks for the bathroom without waiting for a response.