Page 5 of Batty About You (Pine Ridge Universe #23)

I’m an hour early, and the town is decorated to the teeth.

Gold, black, and orange adorn every lamp post in the old-fashioned “downtown” made up of shops and brick buildings.

I have time to kill. I should stop and buy her flowers.

No, a corsage! I’ve always dreamed of giving her a corsage, but between sneaking straight from work to Pine Ridge and dodging a dozen frantic phone calls from my relatives, I didn’t think about it until now.

Not that it matters.

Not that I can find the florist.

Not that any shops are even open.

What the...? Why is everything shut down tight at seven? Why aren’t there any kids running along the well-lit streets with costumes and buckets of candy?

Doesn’t matter.

I decide to head up to White Pines. I’ll see if I can park somewhere discreet, and then go on a flying mission in my bat form.

In case you’re wondering, I can always turn into a bat, day or night.

The problem is that once sunset hits, I can’t go back to a human form.

I’m either this big humanoid bat or a cute little bat.

(I think little brown bats are cute, anyway.) Consequently, I’ve rarely been outside at night unless it's in the sky. The idea of going to a crowded ballroom fills me with dread, but Kelly’s worth the risk.

My family may talk about curses, but this night is a blessing, too!

This is the one night I can take Kelly out without people fleeing and screaming. Tonight, I’m just another costume.

And hey, tonight is a night where bats are just another spooky decoration.

I make my way to White Pines, smiling as I see all the places Kelly has told me about—the River House, which is the restaurant where she works, and the campus where she attends classes.

.. Maybe one day I could be here, strolling hand in hand with her.

I know NYU has a med school. Does this little campus have one?

Could I do my grad school here, with her, my beautiful new bride?

I find a place behind the caterer’s van to park my car and roll up the windows, wincing as I’m compressed into a tiny tube of wings and seatbelts. Then I scurry out as fast as an overgrown bat mutant can scurry and take to the skies!

As I fly, I spot her off-campus apartments, a single block of bricks on the other side of the river from the campus.

Would this be where we live? Since Kelly’s roommate moved out, she’d have a spare room. If she can afford it on her own—temporarily, could we afford it together?

Would that second bedroom soon hold our baby daughter? Or son? I picture a girl, a beautiful girl like Kelly, someone safe from my cursed genes. We both want a big family, but I’ll be happy to stop well before seven, just in case.

I swoop lower, wondering if I can spot Kelly in one of the windows.

Not in a creepy, stalker-y way! I just can’t wait for a little glimpse of the woman I love in all of her finery.

Maybe I can even spot her car! I know what I’m looking for: a bright blue Toyota with one black rear door from where Lourdes ran into it with her scooter.

Oh! I see it! I see it! I let out a happy squeak. ( I hope Kelly thinks it’s a cute sound. I think it’s a cute sound. I could be both boyfriend and adorable pet. I’m multipurpose.)

Hope floods me as I zoom in closer—

Ahh! Too bright, too bright! What in the—

Twack!

“Oh, no. No, no, no! No!” I hit something. Please don’t let it have damaged the car... Mom’s old car has been in the family for twenty-two years, and unless you count the time Lourdes ran full-tilt into one of the rear doors with her new electric scooter, it’s never been in an accident.

I hurry out of the car and stop dead when I get to the bumper, horrified at what’s on the lid of my trunk. A little bat, its wings fluttering in a spasm, like it's locked in a seizure. “Oh, God!” I gasp, my eyes filling with tears.

Rushing back to the front seat, I grab my phone and turn on the flashlight. No blood. His eyes are shut, but his wings are still moving.

Good. He’s alive. Maybe I can keep him alive.

I look at the screen. 7:10. What the heck was I thinking, leaving thirty minutes early to meet Boggie at a place that’s a five-minute drive?

Well. I have time. I can get this little guy some help.

I can’t just brush it off the back of the car with the snow scraper in the back seat and leave him out here on the ground, unconscious.

Someone could run over him. A stray cat might eat him.

I’d be guilty of bat-slaughter by negligence instead of directly.

“My God, Kelly, is bat-slaughter even a thing?” I dig in the backseat for an old notebook and gently shift the bat onto it, trying not to scream when it flails harder, wings whipping up and down, his little eyes still shut. “I damaged your tiny brain, didn’t I?” I whisper, hurrying into the house.

I’ll call Bogdan as soon as I... “Ohh! I know. I know, I’ll put you in Pedro’s cage overnight, and I’ll look up online what I should do if a bat flies into a window.

I’m putting half the blame on you, little guy.

The parking lot was clear when I checked my rearview mirror.

You must have swooped down out of nowhere. Poor baby.”

Iowe my family a boatload of apologies.

I wake up, stuck in my little batty body, lying on my back with my head throbbing—and I can’t shift.

Slowly, with the world blurring, I sit up and crawl to the bars of my cell.

Cell? Birdcage.

Fancy, fancy birdcage that smells like parrot poop and newsprint, and has decorative silver bits all over the sides. On all of the sides.

Silver is great for protecting people from evil, which is why I often wear a silver cross and have one dangling in my car.

But if you surround a shifter with it? That suppresses the ability to shift, at least in my case.

I never thought it would be a problem. Who has a room with four walls of silver? No one!

But a silver box. Or birdcage...

Kelly’s sweet, soft voice suddenly penetrates the pounding in my head. “Oh, good! Little bat, you’re alive! And awake!”

Ohhh. She is so beautiful. Even more beautiful up close than her pictures.

Her big, brown eyes are warm and compassionate, smiling into my beady little red eyes as they finally focus.

Her lips look soft and full as they smile down on me, and one of her slender, violinist’s fingers gently strokes the bars.

“You rest here and recover, and when I come back, my boyfriend and I will let you out and make sure you can fly. Don’t worry. I won’t be gone for more than a few hours.”

I flail and struggle to fly to the side of the cage, hooking the single claws at the tip of my wings to the bars, squeaking and slapping my wings.

Don’t leave me in here! Let me out now!

Kelly shakes her head and bites her lip as I flail and fall backwards with a thump.

“Little buddy, you’re still too dizzy to fly! You rest—just a couple of hours. Good little bat!” She blows me a kiss and heads out the door while I shriek in my cell.

With one last, uncertain look, Kelly slides out of the apartment and locks the door behind her.

Have you ever heard a bat scream? Not a pretty noise.

Very high-pitched. It hurts my ears, but what else am I going to do as I watch the woman I love walk away from me, thinking I’m a wounded woodland creature, heading out to what was supposed to be our first date, the beginning of our great romance, and now. ..

I’m going to have to tell my entire family that they were right. Halloween is cursed for me, and this is the form the curse takes—watching helplessly as the person I love most in the world blithely drives into the night to get her heartbroken.