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Tom shook his head again, staring at the ground this time. I couldn’t tell him it would be alright – I’d be lying to him. I’d pulled him into this shitty little dark corner of reality, and now I had to get us out of it. I just didn’t see how the hell I would manage it.

“Excuse me? Sir?” The young officer standing by the curb was barely more than a teenager, and I suspected he’d swapped his acne cream for a badge about fifteen minutes ago. “We’ve got a few more questions for you about Miss Everett, if you wouldn’t mind?” He shifted from foot to foot. The reek of his nervoussweat was pungent, even from a few feet away. It was probably the first death he’d dealt with.

I turned aside from the scene, allowing Tom some privacy as my thoughts raced. Something glinted behind the ambulance, the light bouncing from Maggie’s flat windows and momentarily blinding me. Squinting, I stood up to see beyond the rows of cars parked on the cramped road and spotted a familiar pale, golden head.

What the hell was Adam Locke doing climbing out of a sleek black Maserati at a crime scene? Who was he?

As I watched, a dark head joined him from the passenger side, and dread twisted in my stomach. Even in profile, she was unmistakable, but the pixilated image on Tom’s laptop had barely captured her. Austere and commanding despite her small stature, raw power radiated from her, and my senses recoiled despite the distance. Though Adam seemed tense and unhappy in the last of the indigo evening light, they made a striking pair – bright and dark. I swallowed.

What have you gotten yourself into now?

It took everything in me to turn my back to them and act as though I was engaged in conversation with Tom and the police officer. My skin crawled with goosebumps, and I shuddered. But Tom hadn’t seen a thing.

I kept my face turned away, my teeth on edge and my heart pounding. Eventually, after expressing his sympathy for our loss, the officer told Tom he was free to go. Releasing the breath I’d been holding, I risked a glance behind, but Adam and Wyatt had gone.

6: How Much More Morbid Could You Be?

The days blurred together, a cycle of frenzied thoughts, panic, worry and if I was honest, a fair amount of fear. To top it off, I felt like a complete idiot – Tom had been right about Wyatt, and I hadn’t taken him seriously. This was my fault, and the guilt was piling up.

I wanted to talk to him about it, but when we’d returned that night he was having none of it. While my mind raced, worrying about what all this meant and how the hell I was supposed to deal with it all, he was detached and distracted, passing his days in the chair by the window and staring into nothingness. I couldn’t tell him what I’d seen – not while he was in this state – and I’d never known him like this. He’d been friends with Jon for over a decade and worked with Maggie for less than a year, but his grief seemed more raw when it came to her.

The problem was, I needed to get my thoughts out. That was my process, and if I could talk things through withsomeone, I knew I’d feel calmer. But Tom was all I had, and one look at him was enough to tell me he needed more time. Unfortunately, I’d never been known for my patience, and on the second day of silence, I cracked.

“Tom?” I approached him with caution, but he didn’t look up or even react. “Look, I don’t mean to be harsh, but you’ve gotta get out of that bloody chair.”

I ran a hand through my hair, watching his reflection and mine in the glass. “Chowdhury. Fuckingwake up.” I knelt in front of him, grabbing the arms of the chair. “I need to talk to you.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d tried since we’d returned from Maggie’s flat. And I was upset about her too – Maggie had been one of the sweetest, funniest people I’d ever known. But being a hunter meant keeping my grief at arm’s length, especially now I knew that Wyatt was involved. So I needed to know what Tom knew – before I buggered up again.

“Okay,” I stood and leaned against the windowsill, blocking his view of the drizzly street outside. “If you won’t talk, I will. Isabel Wyatt was at Maggie’s.”

Tom’s grip on the arms of the chair tightened. “What?”

“When you were talking to the police officer. She pulled up in a car down the street with a guy I met in the shop last week.” My words were almost a whisper as I confessed.

“Did they see you?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

Tom shifted in his chair. “Good. You’d get yourself killed.”

His words hurt, though he was right. The strength I’d feltfrom Wyatt had been unlike anything I’d ever known, even at a distance. My skin crawled in memory, and for the first time in a long time, I was scared. I fought a lot of vampires, and I was damn good at it, but she was something different.

I should have taken Tom more seriously. I should have been protecting Maggie, but I hadn’t even considered it. I searched for the words to apologise – this was well and truly my fault. But a tiny part of me couldn’t help but think that if I’d protected her, we wouldn’t know for certain about Wyatt right now. We’d have nothing more to go on than we had before. It was a horrid, traitorous thought – but it was true.

???

After our brief chat, Tom went right back to his creepy silence. I brought him sandwiches, mugs of tea… I even went out and fetched his favourite pastries, but he barely touched them. I wasn’t sure if he was grieving or just pissed at me, but I suspected it might be a bit of both. Still, he hadn’t left. He stayed, and there was some comfort in that.

The morning of Jon’s funeral came around fast, the dawn dark and cold. I’d planned to stay away from Jolt and its distractions for the day, but standing by my bedroom window and cradling a hot mug of coffee, I changed my mind.

I stared at my bed. I’d laid out a smart black dress and tights for later that day, but they looked pathetic and rumpled against the dark red sheets. Jon would’ve found the idea of me in a dress hilarious – I was more the chunky Doc Martens and jeans type – and I wondered if we should have tried harder to get involvedin the funeral plans. Would Jon be mad that everyone was in formalwear?Duh, Erin.

Branches from the tree outside my window scratched against the glass as a blast of wind rolled down the street. The sky was only now beginning to grow light, but I’d been awake for well over an hour already. Despite my utter exhaustion from the long, solo days in the shop, sleeping well had become a thing of the past. Tom needed time before coming back. Hell, I’d needed time. I was drowning on my own.

Pulling my cardigan more closely around me, I turned back to stare at the dress on the bed. I hated this. I couldn’t sit and wait all morning to say goodbye, when he was already long gone. Gulping down the last of my coffee, I headed for the shower. I’d go and collect the post. It was a mundane way to find some normalcy in a day that shouldn’t even be happening, but it was what I had.

???