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He held the door open for her, motioning for her to enter.

Paige leaned back a step and glanced around the door. The dark alley appeared to be empty. No red eyes stared down at her. No growling sounded. And no scraping of claws on pavement announced the approach of the beast.

Paige licked her lips and flicked her gaze back to Otis. “Thanks.”

Otis glanced upward, a frown on his face. “Hmm, when did that light burn out?”

“Oh, just now,” Paige said. “And I couldn’t get the bags off my wrist to try to find my keycard.”

“I’ll let maintenance know. They can replace it tomorrow.”

“Great,” Paige said as they continued through the library toward the archive door.

Paige dug into her tote and waved her keycard in front of the card reader, and then she pulled the door open. They continued down the hall and descended the stairs.

Paige unlocked the archive door and retrieved all her bags from Otis. “Thanks for the help. You’re a lifesaver.”

“Or at least a wrist-saver,” Otis said with a chuckle. “You have a good night now, Paige.”

“You, too, Otis.”

With the bags dangling from her fingertips, Paige stepped onto the platform overlooking the stacks. The door slammed shut behind her. She hurried down the metal stairs and over to Dewey’s nest.

With labored breathing, she pushed through the door into his living room.

“There you are,” he exclaimed, shoving a book off his lap and flying off the chaise. He grabbed several of the bags from her hand and jetted to the kitchen counter. “Did you get everything?”

“I did. And something almost got me.”

Dewey cracked open a can of Jitter Juice-flavored energy drink and slurped it. He spun slowly, perching on the edge of the counter. His tail swished behind him. “What?”

Paige dropped the remaining bags near her chair and tugged her hoodie over her head. “Something nearly got me. I was being followed. By whatever did this to me.”

She crooked a finger at the gash.

“You’re kidding? It was here?”

“Yes, it was here. And it probably would have finished me off had Otis not opened the door when he did.”

Dewey set the can down on the counter. “Paige, this is serious! We need to take care of that wound immediately. I managed to find everything we needed here in the archives beyond the list I gave you.”

Dewey flitted around the kitchen, unpacking the items from the bags.

Paige grabbed the box of bandages and the antiseptic gel. She unscrewed the cap on the antiseptic and squeezed it onto her scraped hand. She fiddled with the packaging to free a bandage with one hand.

She grimaced at the paper package when it refused to tear open. “Won’t this thing just mark me again?”

Dewey glanced at her before he snatched the wrapper from her hand. “Let me do that.”

He ripped it open with a claw and carefully applied it to her hand.

“And yes, it may, but right now, it can find you because you have an open wound. When you spotted it, did the wound react?”

Paige crinkled her brow as Dewey squashed the bandage wrapper into a ball and tossed it into his trash can.

“Yes. Yes, it did. It felt like it was throbbing.”

Dewey nodded, swung the book containing the remedy recipe toward him, and began to line up the ingredients. “Healing the wound makes you less accessible. Though, the disturbing thing is he knows where you live.”