The Cloak's Shadow

by Elle Beauregard

  Always watching. Always listening.

  Earlier in the day, it had blocked the way into the kitchen the couple of times she tried to get something to eat or drink. It had turned off the television when she'd tried to watch a show in an attempt to distract herself. Like it was trying to remind her it was there. That she was its prisoner. Once or twice, she’d woken up and thought it might have left, but then it would appear again within minutes.

  "What's wrong with you?" Alyssa pried, pulling Cecily's gaze back to her. She cocked her head to one side, equal parts concern and challenge. "You keep saying you're sick, which, whatever, maybe you are. But I've seen you take enough daytime cold medicine to kill a man so you can go out on a Friday night. Yet here I am nearly ready to go out, and you're still in bed. What gives?"

  "I'm just not feeling well, I swear," Cecily replied. Unbidden, her eyes slid up to the dark corner again.

  Alyssa's gaze followed. "What are you looking at?" she snapped. When she turned back, having seen nothing, her expression was more wary than annoyed. "You keep looking up at that corner. What's going on? Do not tell me things are getting spooky again."

  Cecily didn't know what to say. Suddenly, the only soundtrack of words in her head spelled the truth. And they were loud. She couldn't think of anything else. The problem was, this was way more than the normal, spooky shit that happened whenever Zander was gone.

  "I, uh..." Cecily drew a heavy breath and blew it out, her lungs a hundred pounds each. She started to think through the ramifications if she said what she was about to say—but she couldn't. She couldn't even organize her thoughts enough to think it through, so she just said it, "There's something evil in the apartment. I think it's my fault."

  Alyssa's eyes slowly grew wider and wider until they resembled dinner plates. She flicked a glance up at the corner again.

  "Don't look up there," Cecily said, her voice low. "I think it gives him power if we acknowledge him."

  "Him?!"

  Cecily shrugged, suddenly even more exhausted. Maybe she shouldn't have told Alyssa. "It sounds masculine. I don't know."

  Alyssa looked like she might crawl out of her skin. "Holy shit. You're serious."

  Cecily just nodded. "I had it under control for a while."

  "Why can you see it but I can't?!"

  That was the million-dollar question, wasn't it? "No idea," was all Cecily could muster for a response.

  Alyssa gasped, still standing across the room like she was glued to the spot, unable to take a step. "Those nights I've heard you talking as I come home. Were you talking to—to that?"

  Cecily froze, words stuck in the back of her throat.

  She hadn't seen Trey in days. She hadn't left the apartment in days. What if the Shadow had done something to him? What if Trevor never came back? What if she could never leave the apartment again?

  Unexpected tears fought with her words for which would come out first.

  She shook her head. The words won by sheer force of will, but the tears weren't far behind. "No, that's different."

  Alyssa crossed the room like the sight of Cecily crying pulled her there. She sat on the end of Cecily's bed. "What's going on, Cissy?"

  Cecily drew another heavy breath. Again, the truth was all she could hear in her head. "Do you remember that party I made us drive by after we saw that stupid movie? Back in July."

  Alyssa thought for a second. "Yeah. It was pouring outside."

  Cecily opened her mouth to continue, but she choked instead, her throat closing around the words. Do you remember Trevor? she wanted to say. But she couldn't. And the fact was, Alyssa probably wouldn't remember him.

  Sometimes lies got too big, she realized with a sudden, stark clarity. Too big for anybody to forgive you for.

  "What about the party?" Alyssa pried when Cecily had sat silent for too long.

  Cecily shook her head. "Nothing. I was just thinking about that night." She couldn't tell her. What if Trey never came back? She'd be all alone. She couldn't risk losing Alyssa too.

  "What does it have to do with the evil thing?"

  "Nothing. Sorry."

  "You're not making sense." Alyssa rose from the edge of the bed, worry plain on her face. "I'm gonna call Mom."

  "No, don't call Mom," Cecily replied, grabbing at Alyssa's wrist. She held it tight and tugged gently, coaxing her to sit again. "It's not like that. I'm fine." Plus, she was an adult. She didn't need her older sister calling their mom for her. As it was, her mom thought she had a virus and Cecily planned to keep it that way.

  Alyssa's brows furrowed skeptically, but she slowly lowered herself to sit back on the mattress. "Then tell me what's going on."

  Cecily drew a slow breath. She let it out. "It was only around sometimes—the Shadow—the evil presence—whatever you want to call it. And it stayed in the apartment," she explained.

  "It's been here, and you didn't tell anybody?" Alyssa asked, obviously alarmed, but keeping her voice low.

  She was being uncharacteristically collected, Cecily thought. She wondered how hard Alyssa was working to pull that off.

  "Yeah, but it was fine," she sighed. She was getting tired of talking. "It would mostly show up when nobody else was here. Anyway, it showed up at work on Monday."

  "What, did it want a latte?" Alyssa remarked.

  "It went into my body."

  Full stop. Alyssa froze, wide-eyed.

  "I haven't been right since then," Cecily said.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Zander tucked her phone back into her bag. She thought she'd heard it buzz a moment ago, but a quick screen check confirmed that, nope, Wren had definitely not texted her back.

  Wren hadn't spoken to her since the two of them had gone out and drunk way too much Saturday night.

  That wasn't true. They'd exchanged the requisite I-feel-like-hell texts on Sunday.

  Since then, though: silence.

  Zander hoped she hadn't upset Wren with her response to all that magic and witchy talk. She hadn't meant to sound so judgey. She didn't believe in that stuff—that didn't mean she cared if other people did.

  Zander sighed and turned her attention back to her computer. She had made some good strides on the analysis she'd been working on last week. Now she just needed to tie it all together—or at least get it to a semi-finished state so she could leave it for the weekend. She needed a break, but the completionist in her hated leaving things unfinished.

  Sort of how she'd left things with Callum when she'd stormed out of his room like a fucking teenager.

  Zander groaned. She folded her arms onto the desk and buried her face into them.

  She was over it. She really was.

  It was just that his text message was branded into her head. She'd deleted it. She'd deleted his damn number from her phone. But it didn't matter, she could read the text when she closed her eyes as if it was staring her in the face, Nah, you were right. We should focus on work. See ya around.

  She shouldn't have left that night.

  Callum was a completely decent dude.

  Thinking back and looking at that moment with perfect, twenty-twenty retrospect vision, she could recognize that it had all just felt too good. He was too perfect, too nice, too good-looking. Being with him was effortless—she got his humor and he got hers, laughing easily at one another's bad jokes. He talked about interesting things and listened when she talked about the things that interested her.

  And had she mentioned the sex? The multiple rounds of earth shatteringly good sex? That frenzied, first-time, followed by a softer, slower session that had felt way too much like making love.

  Sex had never been like that before. She'd never felt so much, never cared so much while she was doing it.

  And that, right there, was the problem. Liking Callum was one thing, but strolling into the territory of this-might-turn-into-something? Yeah, that twisted her insides and sent her thoughts scattering. She'd been serious when she said these things always ended in flames—ev
en while, logically, she knew that wasn’t true.

  But she'd watched it happen to her parents after twenty years of marriage. She'd watched her father turn into someone she didn't recognize. And watched her mother come to realize the foundation of their marriage—the one she'd thought was built of steel—was made of mere paper mâché, dissolving in the rain of time and scrutiny.

  What Zander had told herself in that moment, as she stood, half-dressed in Callum’s bedroom, was that kind of romantic destruction was inevitable—and she had to protect herself from that shit.

  Hours later, however, she knew she’d been overreacting.

  So what if they kept seeing each other—even kept sleeping together? And what if they did self-destruct in a matter of months? The idea of it might make her cringe, but she'd dealt with worse. She could definitely deal with a break-up. And could she not have both amazing sex and the career of her dreams in the meantime?

  Damn right, she could.

  Which is why she'd texted him, telling him she hadn't been thinking straight.

  And why it hurt like hell to read what he had texted back.

  So she'd gone drinking with Wren. She'd spent Sunday recovering from a monster of a hangover. Then she'd dived into work.

  She'd gone in early every morning. She'd worked late every evening. She'd logged some hours at home late at night.

  Which was part of why she needed a break. And why she was trying to finish this report up so she could put it all away for the weekend and seriously binge some Netflix. She also needed to call her sisters, and maybe her mom.

  So here she was at the library, where she'd gotten so much work done last Friday. The vibe here was perfect for productivity and focus. At least she’d thought it was.

  Maybe Callum had been the productivity-producing part of the equation.

  But that made no sense, she told herself.

  So, with a breath, she straightened her spine and forced her eyes to focus on the screen of her laptop again.

  Callum didn't want to see her again. That sucked. But that had nothing to do with the real reason she was here, so she needed to suck it up and re-focus.

  Okay, but who brought the dog into the library? Zander huffed a sigh. How was a person supposed to pretend to focus with the subtle jingle of a collar and the soft click of paws across the wooden floors echoing through the otherwise silent room?

  She let her gaze flick to the white, panting mound of fur as soon as it appeared in her peripheral vision—only to drop her eyes back her computer as her stomach fell to her feet.

  That wasn't just a dog.

  That was Rhia.

  And where Rhia was...

  Zander's heartrate ticked up a notch.

  She tried to hit the brakes on her runaway pulse.

  This was a public library—there were any number of purely library-related reasons he could be here. Just like she was. Hell, he'd been the one to show her the place. Of course he was here for work-reasons.

  Never mind that she'd found herself at the very table the two of them had shared on their study-date. She kicked herself. Could she look any lamer right now?

  "Hey."

  She looked up to find Callum's strikingly clear blue eyes peering down at her from across the table. "Hello." Was it suddenly warmer in here?

  He put a hand on the back of the chair in front of him. "Can I join you?"

  "That depends," she quipped before she could stop herself. "Am I going to be too much of a distraction?"

  Yeah, she was glad she hadn't stopped herself on that one. Sorry not sorry.

  Callum flexed his jaw as he pulled out the chair and sat himself in it, swinging his messenger bag around so it was in his lap. "I deserve that."

  She nodded with what she hoped was a “no-duh” expression.

  He leaned forward. "To be fair, you said it first," he whispered.

  Warmth ran under her skin with the sound of his whispered voice.

  Zander sat back in her chair, eying him. He had a point—she just wasn’t ready to tell him that. He stared right back, those blue eyes of his all determination and wit—and kindness.

  She pressed her lips together and nodded, remembering that night all over again—the good and the bad of it—with new clarity for having him sitting in front of her.

  She forced her eyes away from his. "I got spooked."

  Callum's chuckle was lined with understanding. "Good term for it. Me too. I wish I hadn't sent that text."

  Zander found herself fighting a smile. She wasn't sure what to say but "I wish I hadn't stormed out of your house like a drama queen?” seemed appropriate. Obviously, she could understand saying shit you later regretted, especially when it came to the two of them. So she just sat forward, flipping through the pages of the notebook she'd been using as a scratch pad like she was searching for something. Really, she couldn't even remember what she was working on anymore, let alone read any of her notes.

  "So we good?" he prompted when she didn't say anything. "To work together, I mean. Maybe hang out again?"

  She looked up at him, feeling another smile trying to pull at her mouth. It was a surprise, how relieved she was to be saying this, and how much she meant it, "Yeah. We're good."

  ⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸

  A couple hours later, Zander closed her laptop, followed by her notebook. She'd managed to finish the report, and even made notes in preparation for Monday so she could hit the ground running. And just like the last time she'd worked across the table from Callum, what she'd expected to take half the night had taken a fraction of the time.

  She sat for a second, admiring his down-turned head, the way his hair fell in a short curtain that hid his eyes from view as he read; the angles of his jaw, and the taper of his long, masculine fingers. Then she sat remembering the way those hands had grazed her skin, trailing fire.

  She never would have said it, before, but she'd missed him.

  How was that for completely weird? She barely knew the guy.

  But she did. She couldn't say why or how, but she did know him—even if she didn't know much about him. In a strange way she didn't understand, she felt like she knew him better than she knew anyone, except maybe her sisters.

  He looked up, and his smile made her heartbeat catch. "You good?"

  She nodded, forcing her brain back into motion. "Yeah, I—" she shook her head and whispered a laugh, in disbelief that she was about to say this, "This is gonna sound weird, but it's really easy to focus when I'm with you." She shrugged.

  That smile of his spread, changing to something even warmer and happier. He nodded and closed his laptop. "I've had the same thought about you."

  At her feet, Rhia looked up and gave Zander what felt like an appreciative look before laying her head down again.

  "Also, I think only service animals are allowed in the library," Zander admonished with no seriousness whatsoever, keeping her voice low.

  "That is true," Callum replied. "So, are you saying that all this focused work means you might be looking for something to do tonight?"

  Zander's cheeks were starting to ache from all the smiling. Damn he was charming. "I might have more free time on my hands than I'd anticipated," she allowed, smirking.

  He sat back in his chair and tented his fingers funny-dramatically in front of his perfectly shaped mouth. "Me as well. What should we do with our newfound time?"

  Zander could barely force her attention from his soft lips. Clips of the scene from a few nights ago replayed in her mind—snapshots of all the things those lips could do. She felt her teeth run across her bottom lip and drew a breath. "I can think of a few things."

  Callum's jaw flexed, his pupils dilating like he could see the reel of thoughts in her eyes from across the table—and maybe wanted to throw the table out of the way to get to her. "My place or yours?"

  "Yours," was Zander's breathless response. "Your bed is bigger."

  ⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸

  Zander pulled the smell of Callum's skin
down deep into her lungs. The steady rhythm of his heart was loud in her ear as she lay with her head on his chest, his fingers tracing lines on her back, her shoulder, up into her hair.

  "Did you come to the library looking for me tonight?" Zander asked into the silence, her voice low and private. It had been exactly one week since their working date, after all. Seemed like an oddly perfect coincidence.

  "Mm. Did you go to the library hoping I'd find you there?"

  She opened her mouth with a "no" ready, but stopped short. She hadn't gone to the library with the hopes of finding him—but she had managed to find herself at the table the two of them had shared before. So maybe she had hoped to see him, if only from a distance. "Maybe," she allowed.

  "No maybe on my part," he replied, his palm slipping up her back, then running back down at a languid pace. "I came looking for you. Rhia helped."

  She smiled and turned her face into his pec before lifting her head and looking up at him though she didn't have anything to say in response.

  He smiled down at her, his grin crooked and charming. She laughed under her breath. Then she shook her head before laying it on his chest again.

  He reached for his phone on the bedside table and lifted it. "It's only midnight," he remarked. "So I guess it makes sense that my eyes keep wanting to snap shut, but it sure as shit explains why I'm starving."

  Zander chuckled under her breath. "Yeah, we didn't really stop to eat, did we?"

  "I have no regrets," he replied.

  She smiled a smug, satisfied kind of smile and brought her hand up to trace the tattoos that laced his other shoulder, gray-black lines intersecting and branching off, forming shapes and designs, all interconnected—an intricate web that covered his shoulder and upper arm, bleeding onto his chest and grazing his collarbone.

  "I've never seen a piece like this," she said. "Where did you get it done?"

  "My roommate, the one I told you is more like a brother, he did it," Callum replied, his voice low. "Most of it, at least."

  "Is he a tattoo artist?" He must have been—no way an amateur had inked this into Callum's skin. It was too well done.