Page 14 of Claimed By the Mothman

It felt like the highest compliment she’d received in years.

“You’ve completed something,” he said suddenly.

“I—what?”

“The tenants before you were beloved,” he said. “A young couple. Kind. They moved away to be near family. The apartment missed them. The building missed them. It has been incomplete ever since. But now,” he continued, and his eyes burned brighter, “it has you.”

Nell’s ears buzzed faintly, like someone was whispering just behind her shoulder. She should have been unsettled. Everything about this should’ve screamedget out, get out, get out.But instead, something seemed to humin her chest. Something steady and comforting, like a cat purring.

“I hope I’m not a disappointment,” she joked weakly.

He studied her for a moment. “You are not.”

She looked down, worrying the ring on her finger. The opal caught the light. His ruby gaze flicked immediately toward it.

“You wear a stone of tangled light,” he said quietly, almost reverently. “It suits you.”

“Th-thanks,” she managed.

Something in the air heldfor a breathless moment. Then, with a slow, contemplative groan, the elevator shuddered and resumed its descent to the lobby.

The doors whispered open. The overhead lights felt clinical after the warm, charged stillness of the ride.

The pizza guy stood near the front desk. A familiar, childlike figure bounded in erratic loops around him, chittering with questions:

“Does the pizza know it’s being eaten? Did it cry when it was sliced? Why are your shoelaces two different colors?”

The pizza guy stared straight ahead, face locked in a thousand-yard stare like he was mentally retracing every decision that had led him to this moment.

“Theo,” came Sig’s voice, low and velvety. “Let the man go about his business.”

Theo froze mid-interrogation, one oversized foot still hovering off the ground. Then he beamed, his grin full of too many teeth for a mouth that small.

“Okay, Sig!” In a blur of motion almost too fast to register, he zipped forward and flung his gangly arms around Sig’s waist in a fierce hug. Then, with a delighted squeak, he tore off down the hall, singing the theme song to what Nell was almost certain wasWizards & Weathermen,her niece’s favorite cartoon.

She stepped forward and took the pizza boxes with a murmured apology, extending the tip money with an only slightly trembling hand. He accepted it like it might explode, and then sprinted through the front door so fast she was surprised he didn’t leave a pizza-guy-shaped void in his wake.

She turned around, hugging the pizza boxes to her like a shield. “Well…it was nice to meet you, Mr. Samora.”

“Sig,” he intoned gently. “Please.”

She nodded, and her mouth opened before her brain had a say in the matter. “Where are you off to?”

His eyes gleamed a little brighter. “To the community room,” he said. “It is time forMidsomer Murders. Mr. Caracas claims to hate it, but never misses an episode. He mutters about village inbreeding and implausible alibis the entire time, but prefers not to be alone.”

That was…completely unexpected. “You like British murder mysteries?”

“No,” he replied. A flicker of something moved across his face. “But I enjoy the company of those who do.”

With a polite incline of his head, he turned away, his tailored coat parting with the movement and Nell realized that it wasn’ta coat at all, butwings.Burnished, iridescent, faintly glowing wings, folded close like a cape. She saw his legs clearly now, too. They were jointed backwards like a cat’s, or a deer’s. It was oddly beautiful.

He glided forward, disappearing into the far hallway without a whisper.

Nell stood in the lobby, alone again, hearing the odd creaking of the building as her heart thudded in her ears.

She should feel rattled. She should feelalarmedat having met one of the mostcryptidcryptids she’d ever seen and been trapped inside an elevator with.

Instead, she felt…seen.Not the way Edward used to look at her, like he was searching for something wrong to name and fix. Not like those job interviewers who skimmed her resume with tired eyes, already preparing their polite dismissals.