Page 33 of Girl, Unmasked (Ella Dark #28)

Day three. Angel number three. The third day of the rest of his new life.

Main Street, just before midday. A warren of storefronts and sidewalks under the indifferent sun.

Cain stood in the shade of a doorway with one hand jammed in his pocket, another thumbing the screen of a cell phone like he was just another face in the crowd.

Maybe he was meeting someone, maybe he was waiting for a cab. No one could prove otherwise.

Today was different, because for this angel he was stepping out of the darkness and into the light. Daylight. Witnesses. A constant ebb and flow of potential interruptions. It was madness, really. But necessity bred innovation, and Cain was nothing if not adaptable.

It had barely been twelve hours since he’d slashed that dumb woman’s throat and turned her into an angel-in-flight. The adrenaline was still coursing, and he was going to ride that wave until this whole damn mission was complete.

He’d been watching his destination for almost thirty minutes now, and only one person had entered since he’d taken up his vigil. Just one. That little fact put his mind at ease, because it meant there’d be ample opportunity to slip inside and be alone with his target.

Cain's fingers twitched, itching to set his plan in motion. But patience was key. Rush this, and everything he'd worked for would crumble like a house of cards in a hurricane.

So he waited. He was a predator, perfectly-still in the urban jungle.

The minutes stretched on. Sweat beaded on Cain’s forehead and trickled down the back of his neck. He resisted the urge to check his watch, to fidget, to do anything that might draw attention to himself. Just another face in the crowd, anonymous and forgettable.

His thoughts turned to the woman from last night, and how his actions had already pervaded every news outlet in the United States. In less than a day, she'd become a nationwide sensation. Pundits and talking heads frothing at the mouth, whipping the public into a frenzy.

And it was all because of him.

It was a heady feeling, this newfound power. To know that with a few carefully orchestrated moves, he could send ripples of fear and awe across an entire country.

But as intoxicating as this power was, Cain reminded himself that it wasn't the point. The power was merely a side effect. Every angel was a love letter to the person who’d saved him, and everything else was just a perk of the mission.

Movement at his target location snapped Cain back to the present. The lone customer he'd observed entering earlier was now leaving with a brown paper bag clutched to her chest.

Cain's muscles tensed, ready to spring into action. But not yet. Not until the coast was truly clear.

He counted to sixty and kept his eyes on the shop. No one else entered. The street remained busy, but no one paid any attention to the unremarkable man standing in the shadows. He watched as the customer ambled down the sidewalk, disappearing around a corner.

It was time.

With as much casualness as he could muster, Cain stepped out onto the sidewalk and merged seamlessly with the flow of pedestrians. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

At the door, he readied himself, stepped inside. In one fluid motion, he flipped the sign from ‘OPEN’ to ‘CLOSED’ and slid the bolt home.