Page 15 of A Witchy Spell Ride (31 Days of Trick or Treat, Bikers and Mobsters #15)

“Shut up,” I muttered, and she bumped my hip with hers, soft.

Upstairs, my apartment felt smaller. I checked the bathroom window again, pointless, and the closet, also pointless.

The red-thread charm sat where I’d left it; the box with the photo might as well have been a live wire in the drawer.

I didn’t open it. Not now. Not with everyone below me building a net with my name stitched into it.

I added two more knives to the bag, a spare phone charger, the little tin with the red-thread bottle sealed inside. I paused at the mirror and looked myself full in the face, the dark circles, the set jaw, the way fear had sharpened me. Then I blew out a breath and went back down.

They were where I’d left them. Ghost at the window, taking in the street without appearing to look.

Reaper in the doorway, a statue that could turn human and lethal in one step.

Cross on his phone, voice cordial, bribing a gallery owner with future tax help and present cash.

Bones somewhere in the guts of the building, footsteps heavy, humming off-key because he thought no one could hear.

Briar perched on the counter like a crow with glitter nails, spinning one of my rings on her finger.

“Ready,” I said.

“Car’s on the way,” Reaper said. “Briar walks you out the back. Ghost takes the front, loops the block. Cross and I will follow in a separate car. Bones stays here for the handoff with the footage and to love-tap anyone who thinks the alley is a shortcut.”

“I love-tap real hard,” Bones yelled from the back.

Reaper ignored him. “No detours. No stops. If either of you sees the sedan, you do not engage. You text.”

Briar hopped down and tossed me a hoodie. “Uniform.”

It smelled like her stupid candy perfume and cigarettes. I pulled it on anyway.

At the back door, I hesitated. The chalk line we’d drawn on the hinge this morning was pristine. The hair we’d taped across the latch still lay like a lash. It should have reassured me. It didn’t.

Briar squeezed my shoulder. “Hey,” she said softly. “We’re okay.”

I nodded and didn’t say I don’t believe in okay.

We slipped into the alley. The heat slapped my cheeks, and the Quarter breathed its humid, secret breath. Briar walked like she owned the block; I walked like I was trying to match her stride and not let my hands shake. No sedan. No hooded figure. Just a city pretending it was harmless.

The car Reaper sent idled one street over, anonymous and dented in a way that made it disappear.

Cross slid into the driver’s seat of the second car with the casual competence of someone who’d probably never been pulled over in his life.

Ghost passed in front of us on the sidewalk, head down, hat low, so ordinary I had the sudden, wild thought that anyone who looked right at him would forget him a second later.

In the car, Briar chattered. She did it for me, not her. “We’re making pasta again tonight. And garlic bread. And then we’re cutting Zeva’s hair on my kitchen floor because she’s in her feral cat era. You can help. Or you can sit and read runes and pretend you’re above it.”

“I am above it.”

“You are not.”

I let her carry us with words.

We made it to her building. Up the stairs. Inside. Bells on doors. Flour on the mat. Trip lines low. The gremlin toolkit redeployed. My bag went by the couch like a dog and lay there, sullen.

Briar put water on because she believed boiling things solved problems. I checked my phone. No new messages. No unknown numbers. My thumb hovered over Ghost’s name anyway, even though he was two floors down in the street. Even though I could feel him like weather.

A soft ping. A text from Briar though she stood ten feet away, her humor poking through the dread:

operation owl hootie engaged. do not feed the stalker.

I huffed. She grinned and threw a piece of dried pasta at me like a coin.

As the afternoon dragged its feet toward dusk, the plan tightened. Cross sent a pin with the route. Reaper sent a thumbs-up that was really a warning. Bones sent a selfie with the crowbar and the caption door whisperer. I sent nothing. I had nothing to say that wouldn’t crack me open.

The sun slid down and made the walls gold. The city began its nightly costume change. Briar tied her hair up in my style, pulled on my jacket, shadowed my walk until it looked enough like me to fool a stranger who wanted badly to be fooled.

“You ready?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Go anyway.”

She kissed my cheek. “As the poet said: yippee-ki-yay.”

“Which poet?”

“John McClane.”

I laughed, too loud, and then swallowed it.

We went. Reaper’s car two blocks behind. Cross’s car a street over. Ghost moving like the tide, always there, rarely seen.

From the backseat I watched Briar become me. The line of her shoulders. The lift of her chin. The way she paused at corners to look not left-right but far like someone who had learned to see beyond the nearest danger.

We turned toward the river where the sightlines stretch, and the air felt wider.

That’s when the silver sedan slid into view. Not close. Not fast. Smooth as a thought a man tells himself before he acts on it.

My heart didn’t spike. It steadied.

Briar didn’t break stride.

Ghost shifted two storefronts ahead and became a shadow I couldn’t lose even if I tried.

I should have been terrified. I was. But I was also something else.

Done being prey.

Done being quiet.

Done letting someone write me into a story I didn’t agree to be in.

The car kept its slow, careful distance. We reached the river. The air smelled like rust and old prayers. Briar put her elbows on the rail like I do when I’m pretending to daydream.

My phone vibrated once.

Ghost:

On your left. Don’t look. He’s here.

I didn’t look.

I breathed.

I let the fear sit beside me instead of inside me.

And I waited for the moment the game would stop being invisible.