by Mary Dublin
"We've been… busy," Jon finally answered, debunking that theory. She had an excuse now to turn and look up at him as he went on. "Took a couple solo cases—though half the time I was just trying to wrestle Cliff into resting up."
He smiled, and it almost looked completely real. Then he pursed his lips, his smile taking on a guarded quality. His brown eyes rested on her, sweeping up and down. "Where've you been up to? You… you look good."
Sylvia let out a startled laugh. She had the feeling the question would come up eventually, but that didn't mean she was prepared.
"You know… here and there," she answered vaguely, shrugging. "Once things settled down in the forest, I realized it's extremely boring to play dead. I couldn't do it. Not me. Besides, I never felt safe hiding there. If anyone caught even a glimpse of me, it would've all been over. A few nights were all I could take, and even that was horrible. Once Rebecca got my wing fixed the best she could, I didn't hesitate. I left. I've been hanging around the city since then. I even went nocturnal to be safe."
She realized her mistake when Jon's hand went rigid beneath her. His voice was low, but it held a sharpness that made her wings twitch. "The city? This city? Where?"
Surprised by his reaction, Sylvia shifted uncomfortably. She tried to keep her tone casual, as if she had no reason to be nervous about sitting in the hand of an irritated giant. "Wherever it was safe. The rafters of a bar, for a while. And then more recently… somewhere quieter. I haven't had a chance to go back since I saw… you now."
"A bar?" Cliff was incredulous too, making her realize how unorthodox her living arrangement had been—even by human standards. "You're kidding me."
At least her strange choice seemed to distract him from the fact that she had been in the city all that time and never turned up at the most obvious place to ask for shelter. From how tense Jon still was, she had a feeling he wasn't quite as distracted. But it didn't make any sense. Why would he want her to return?
"It wasn't so bad," Sylvia said weakly. "Sort of fun to watch people." A sheepish smile tugged at the corner of her lips despite the little hiccup her heart gave. There were plenty of bars in the city. The hunters couldn't possibly know that they were among the people she had glimpsed. They couldn't…
"Well, we're not as well-stocked, I'm sorry to say," Cliff said wryly, interrupting her fretful thoughts. "But would you mind bunking with us for a few days? Might make the case easier if we don't have to play hide and seek to get ahold of you."
The question was sudden and startling, but at the same time it seemed so natural. Almost a formality to ask, really.
Her silence lasted a moment too long. "Yeah," she answered tightly, trying to sound nonchalant. She cleared her throat, crossing her legs atop Jon's palm and noticing how his fingers twitched from the adjustment. "Yeah, that's fine. Anything to wrap up the case faster." She peeked at the overcast sky, looking for further excuse to justify staying with them. "Probably best if I have a roof over my head anyway. Looks like rain."
Jon let his fingers curl inward a bit. If Sylvia didn't know any better, she would have thought he was relieved.
Thirty
Two
There were countless things that set fairies and humans apart. That had been drilled to Sylvia from the moment she learned about the enormous beings. One thing she hadn't been taught was how obsessed humans were with the precision of time. Right down to the second. The numbers on the alarm clock were confusing enough. She couldn't begin to understand how someone could look at a clock face and understand what those skinny ticking arms were trying to convey.
She tried to catch a glimpse of the watch from where she stood on the kitchen table, but it was practically hidden in Cliff's hands while he looked it over. The brief look she'd gotten back at the alley was seared into her mind, though: the glass was cracked, the arms unmoving. It wouldn't be telling anyone the time ever again.
Although she couldn't see the watch, she didn't dare let her eyes wander anywhere else. Jon was at the table too, of course. The two hunters practically had her cornered, but that couldn't be their intention. She doubted they even noticed. It didn't stop her from thinking about how close Jon was, with his arms folded nearby and how she was well within his reach.
A month ago, she would have been leaning against his arm, maybe even sitting on his shoulder for a better vantage point. She would have been more talkative, more curious, but now she had to hold her tongue.
Jon shifted and sent her skittering back a few steps, torn from her thoughts so abruptly that her alarmed gaze sought him. She folded her wings tightly and crossed her arms, snapping her eyes back to Cliff as if nothing had happened. At least her racing heart couldn't be noticed.
"There's nothing here," Jon announced with a resigned sigh. "I can sit here and tell you about the make and model of this thing, but the back's too scratched to tell much else. You really didn't find anything else?" This last part was directed at Cliff—of course it was. Aside from holding her for the duration of the car ride back to the apartment, Jon seemed to be avoiding Sylvia just as much as she was him.
Cliff shook his head, letting the severed watch piece tumble from his fingers with a dull clunk onto the table. He did not pick it up.
"Either the cops swiped everything useful or this gasher did," he said, rubbing his palms over his eyes "Honestly, I wouldn't rule that out. He's careful, whoever he is. This is the first attack that's made the front page. Everything else has been background noise up until now."
Sylvia approached the broken watch, partly to give her a distraction, but mostly because she finally had an opportunity to take a good look at it. She knew very little about what to look for that could be useful, but there was no harm in trying. Sinking to her hands and knees, she leaned over the watch face.
The damage was even worse than she remembered—minus the blood, though she could still see spots of red in the thin crevices. The shattered veins of glass distorted the numbers and clock arms. Nothing there was helpful.
Sticking her fingers under the edge of the watch, she lifted one side with a grunt, rising back to her feet. Once it was standing, the held it in place as her gaze swept over the back of the watch. A mess of scrapes and scratches littered what once had been a perfectly smooth surface. Some of the thinner scratches had a strange, loop-like quality to them. Almost like upside-down letters.
"Wait…" She sidestepped to the other side of the watch and lowered it flat to the table again, this time with the back of it facing up. "I think—" She halted and peered up uncertainly, hesitant to give the hunters false hope if she was wrong. "I-I think there's something written on this."
She dropped to a crouch and narrowed her eyes, tilting the watch so the light could hit it better. She was sure of it, then. Beneath the scrapes was an elegant script that was almost too elegant for her to read.
"There's two big letters on top first," she announced. "It's 'R' and 'S'." She had no idea what that meant, but it was better than nothing. Beyond that, the letters were smaller and even harder to salvage among the damage. She leaned in closer, tracing her fingertip along the engraving to follow the looping script that made the letters stand apart from the jagged scratches. "And there's a whole word beneath it. I think it says… 'Hatchworth'?"
Sylvia went rigid as both hunters stopped what they were doing to lean over her. She fought not to let her intimidation read on her face. They were looking at the watch, not her. But though they narrowed their eyes, they seemed to have a difficult time making out what she saw.
"An inscription," Jon finally murmured. His brown eyes were eager. "That's something."
He pulled away and set his hands on the keyboard, stabbing a new combination of letters. There was a pause, light flickering on his face as he awaited results. Then, a disbelieving smile.
"'Hatchworth' is a financial advising firm downtown," he read aloud to them.
"What about R.S.?" Cliff asked.
More typing.
Sylvia ed
ged closer to the laptop, sticking as close to the screen as possible. Jon was scrolling through a plain looking page with a line of pictures on them. Portraits, framed faces with perfect smiles and lines around the eyes.
"Ronald Spencer, C.E.O." Jon stopped short on the image of a husky blonde man. He had a trimmed beard and mustache, and wore a pair of reading glasses on the bridge of his nose. He was familiar enough to make Sylvia's blood run cold. Jon stared at the screen for a short while before looking to her with urgency. "That man. Was he the victim you saw attacked in the alley?"
She was quiet for a moment before she shook her head. "No," she said tightly. "He's the werewolf. I didn't see him transform, but he looked up right before I took off. I saw his face. He was wolfed out, but I know that's him." She swallowed hard and averted her eyes from the picture. "You said he's a… C.E.O.? What does that mean?"
"It means he's the leader. He's in charge of all these other people, and runs this business." Jon gestured vaguely at the images on the screen to illustrate.
Cliff leaned his chin in his hand, and Sylvia caught a glimmer of sadness on his face. "Means people are gonna miss him," he tacked on softly.
Sylvia cocked her head, eyebrows shooting up in surprise. She wouldn't have expected him to feel any remorse at all for what they had to do, especially when the hunters had been at their job for as long as they had. After seeing firsthand what a monster could do to a person, she couldn't imagine feeling sorry for the werewolf at all.
"People are gonna miss the person he tore apart in the alleyway," she pointed out, not snappish but thoroughly perplexed. "And any other victims, too. When I saw what was happening, and heard it… I couldn't even move. He's a monster, even if people miss him."
Cliff nodded, unshaven chin scratching against his palm. "Which is why we can't let him go."
He rose and slid an arm across the table, reaching for his keys. Jon scrambled to jot down the address, his eyes flicking to Sylvia every few seconds.
"Nice work," he remarked quietly. The weight of his gaze lasted but a moment.
His matter-of-fact tone left her feeling cold, but she was sure she wouldn't feel much better if he was all smiles and unending praise.
As Jon closed the laptop, she stepped away and didn't bother forcing a smile. "Anything to help."
They were preparing to leave already, she noticed with slight surprise. Her stomach growled, complaining that the only thing she'd had for breakfast was beer. She made a mental note to ask Cliff to leave a piece of one of those granola bars in the pocket with her this next time around. It was bad enough listening to his stomach growl.
"You coming?" Jon was halfway to the door when he turned to see Cliff had not followed.
Cliff tossed him the keys. "Right behind you. Just need to grab the silver under my pillow."
When he had disappeared into the hallway, Cliff let out a soft sigh. "If things get any icier between you two, I'm going to catch a cold."
Sylvia felt her cheeks flush without warning as he folded his arms across his chest, looking very much like some stern older brother in that moment. She gave him a stubbornly innocent frown. "I don't know what you mean."
"Please, you could cut the tension in this room with a butterknife. Are you sure you can handle this?"
The blunt question made her carefully-composed expression fall away. She looked down at the table with pursed lips, fiddling with her fingers. "I know what's important. Whatever you think I can't handle… clearly isn't getting in the way." She lifted her gaze a little more confidently, refusing to be intimidated by his stern frown. "We found who we're looking for, didn't we?"
"We did," he admitted. "But you look like you're going to buckle every time Jon walks into the room. And after what happened…" He trailed off, gnawing on his lower lip. His frown deepened with obvious worry. "Look, I don't blame you for being jumpy. I just don't want you to get you hurt when we corner the gasher."
She softened and shook her head. "That's not going to happen, Cliff. I can focus, I just—" Stopping herself short, she wondered if his worry was entirely justified. She'd done her best to remain neutral around Jon, but obviously her efforts had been in vain. If Cliff noticed, so did Jon. "I seem… afraid?"
He shrugged. "You look at us differently now."
"You mean, the way I did before the bond," she said. "I was afraid then, but I'm not now. I can't just forget what it felt like to snap out of it. The first thing I experienced when I was myself again was Jon trying to kill me. Or at least I thought he was. I can see the scars from where I attacked him. And I said terrible things to you when you were just trying to figure out what was going on." She let out a sharp sigh and pushed a hand through her hair. "So if I'm looking at you differently… it's not out of fear."
Cliff was quiet for a moment. Her eyes downcast somewhere closer to his waist, Sylvia could only see the wall of his torso lower down as he took a knee. His face loomed at the edge of her vision instead, large green eyes demanding to be met.
"Jon told me about the bond," Cliff said softly. "The way it took over your thoughts like a parasite. You've gotta know that none of what happened was your fault."
"I… I know," she said stiffly.
"Neither of us blame you, Sylv."
A measure of relief came from the simple statement. They didn't blame her. Whether he was telling the truth or not, she realized it didn't put her guilty thoughts to rest. She suddenly felt more vulnerable than ever, standing under Cliff's gaze and being unable to hide anything. At least Jon wasn't in the room. She didn't know what she'd do then.
"I wish he did," she said tremulously. "Because if he's not blaming me… then he might be blaming himself. How… how's he been since it happened?" She looked Cliff in the eye, searching. "How's he really been?"
Cliff's jaw ticked, something flickering through those eyes. "For weeks, he kept the window open. Didn't think there was much of a chance of you ever coming back after he pulled a gun on you, but he wanted it open anyway."
Sylvia felt as though she had been slapped, the heat in her cheeks creeping down to the rest of her. She could scarcely believe her ears. Those weren't the actions of a man who was trying to ward her off.
"I understand that you weren't yourself when you and Jon were a thing," Cliff went on. "He knows it too. But Jon… he wasn't under any influence. He hasn't been the same since you left and quite frankly, I don't think he's going to get any better if you stick around."
"You want me to leave?" Sylvia breathed, her voice tinged with an odd relief.
"I want you to make up your mind."
She was quiet for a moment. The window had been closed when she arrived the night before. Jon had kept it open for weeks, but it was closed yesterday. That had to mean he was moving on, and she likely ruined whatever progress he'd made by showing up.
"You know him better than I do," she said. "I… I don't want to hurt him anymore, but I need to see this case through. Once I know the werewolf's not going to be out there anymore, I'll feel safe. I'll be gone for good." She paused, feeling an unexpected tightness in her chest, muddling her relief. Something horribly selfish in her threatened to snatch the words back, but she made herself continue. "Don't tell him about this. Any of this. If he thinks I'm afraid of him, maybe it'll be easier for him to let go."
Cliff lowered his eyes. "That might be best."
She felt a pang to realize this was exactly what he had wanted to hear. After a moment, his massive form shifted. When Sylvia looked up again, he had outstretched a hand at her feet in silent invitation.
"Come on. You're not gone yet.”
***
The building was nowhere near the size of the hospital Cliff had stayed in, but it daunted Sylvia all the same. The structure was white, but dark windows covered most of the outside, reflecting the overcast sky as if the building was gigantic mirror. She might have questioned if the hunters were sure they were in the right place, if not for the large sign planted around the corner from wh
ere the car was parked that read Hatchworth Advisory Services.
Her heart sank when she realized it wouldn't be as easy as walking in and getting rid of the werewolf. Already she glimpsed a security guard near the front of the building.
"What are you gonna do?" she asked, compelled to keep her voice lowered at the sight of the amount of pedestrian traffic along the downtown sidewalks. She was in Jon's hands again, where she could get a decent view without the risk of being right beside the window. "I mean… someone's bound to notice if you kill him right then and there."
Cliff unbuckled, his hand on the door. "Easy, kiddo. I'm just going to scope out the building. Just me for now," he added, looking to Jon. "Two of us might turn too many heads."
Sylvia took a steeling breath as each man glanced at her in his own time. Cliff, a reprisal of curious concern. Jon, with obvious discomfort. To his credit, he did a much better job of keeping his voice level when he spoke.
"I'll keep an eye on the back door. Call me if you need another hand."
After another lingering look shared with Sylvia, Cliff exited the car and started the walk up into the white building. She watched him until he was out of sight, and just like that, there was little to distract her from being completely alone with Jon. She could hear his breathing, feel his pulse beneath her.
It would have been far easier if she didn't know he left the bedroom window open for her. Now something inside threatened to slip out and demand to know why.
"Bet you're ready to get this case over with," she said instead. A second later, she realized it must have sounded like she was accusing him that he was ready to be rid of her. Her face flushed. "I mean, three lunar cycles is a long time to be worrying over one monster." Then she remembered politeness could be counterproductive to her goal of ensuring he had no reason to be attached to her. Sighing in agitation, she rubbed her eyes with one hand. "But what do I know about hunting?"
"More than any other fairy out there, I'd wager," Jon replied under his breath.