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Jon

“ Y ou’re the only person on the planet who’s excited to do laundry,” Cliff remarked as he pulled our silver Pontiac into the empty laundromat parking lot.

Sylvia gave an insulted scoff from her perch on the dashboard. “On what planet is it weird to be excited about clean clothes?”Crinkling her nose, she pinched the fabric of her embroidered green leggings, which now bore a threadbare hole near the shin.

I couldn’t argue with her. With the last two hunts falling unusually close together, we all needed a refresh. We’d even brought our clothes along in the car during the hunt instead of leaving them at the motel room. Our demented list of errands: slay the vampires, then stop at the laundromat.

The late hour was necessary; 1 a.m. usually promised privacy. Despite the proud 24hr Service sign glowing in the window, no movement came from inside.

Eager as I was to wear clothing that didn’t smell like blood and guts, my body ached for bed. Sylvia had healed my open wounds, but there was little she could do to stifle the throbbing aftermath that came from being tossed across a room like a rag doll. I fantasized about a hot shower when we got back to our room at the Briar Inn.

And after …

I stole a glance at Sylvia, tracing the exposed curve of her lower back with my gaze. Adrenaline still thrummed through my veins, funneling my honed focus into a consuming wave of desire.

I hoped she would have the energy to conjure one last spell tonight.

As Cliff and I entered the laundromat laden with duffels and trash bags stuffed with clothes, Sylvia darted off and swiftly located the light switches, flicking half of them off. In our experience, potential customers tended to turn tail if they saw two shady-looking guys inside a dimly lit building.

In the diffused glow that remained, Cliff and I sorted through the chaotic jumble of clothes on one of the lengthy aluminum tables. Sylvia landed with her own sack of garments slung over her shoulder, quick to remark how foreign a human’s laundry ritual was compared to Elysia’s. I had to remind her that most humans also didn’t have to worry about making a ghoul-tattered pile in addition to lights and darks.

Cliff and I moved with the ease of muscle memory, lapsing into a comfortable, weary silence. There was the bloodstained pile that needed extra attention, a shredded pile that would be tossed out, and a shredded pile that was salvageable.

Sylvia knelt on the table, dumping her clothes before her. Each piece was an ethereal blend of earthy hues and shadowy gem tones—artfully crafted, impossibly soft to the touch.

Removing blood stains from fabric was a delicate art which she’d picked up decently in our second week on the road. I left a little cap of detergent mixed with hydrogen peroxide beside her so she could scrub off any splotches.

As I pulled my hand away, I eyed the leggings still hugging her curves. The vibrancy of the swirling ivy pattern was dulled by layers of ash and dirt. My brow pinched at the sight, the acrid taste of fear filling my mouth as I noted how tenderly she moved.

She’d been hurt tonight. I hadn’t been able to stop it.

There had been close calls in the last eight weeks or so—a ghost shattering windows into deadly shards that could shred her wings, a ghoul’s talons coming within a foot of her position midair. But tonight was more—a reckoning. That piece of shit vamp had touched her, could have killed her.

I wouldn’t let it happen again. No matter the cost.

“You’ve got the murder eyes again,” Sylvia said, drawing me out of my fantasy of crushing my hands around the vampire’s windpipe. She peered up at me as she continued her delicate work, a knowing look on her face.

“Sorry,” I muttered, then noted how raw her knuckles had become while scrubbing. “Need some help with that one?”

I reached for the stained cloak in her hands, grasping the hem. Sylvia kept hold of the collar, pulling it taut between us.

“Promise you won’t rip it like the last one you helped me with?” she asked.

My cheeks flushed at the memory, but I shot her a crooked grin. “Trust me, I learned my lesson after you tried to beat me with it.”

“You’re lucky I was able to cut it down into a shirt.” A good-humored smile curved her lips, but she shifted her gaze pleadingly to Cliff after considering her pinkened knuckles. “Sorry, Cliff’s better at this stuff. Would you?”

She thrust the cloak toward Cliff, who readily accepted—maybe just to annoy me.

“Not the first time I’ve been told I’m good with my hands,” he said, waggling his eyebrows at her.

“Want to do mine, too?” I pushed my crumpled shirt to him. He deftly swatted it back my way with twice as much force.

“You couldn’t pay me to touch your sweaty crap.” Cliff dipped a ratty toothbrush in the cleaning solution, the tiny garment draped over his left palm.

“How is mine any worse than yours?” I asked around an affronted laugh.

Sylvia wrinkled her nose at the state of Cliff, then peeled off her creme wrap sweater to reveal a delicate bralette underneath. “Jon has a point. You should throw your shirt in.”

Cliff glanced at his front and shrugged. “It’s only blood.”

“Only? You threaten to gut me for smudging your laptop, but you’re unbothered about looking like a serial killer ?” One of her favorite newfound terms since she began obsessively watching Dateline .

Rolling his eyes, Cliff removed his shirt and tossed it into the bloodstained pile. He held his arms out, putting his tattooed torso on full display. “If you’re so desperate to see me naked, sweetheart, you could ask nicely.”

Looking pleased with herself, Sylvia proceeded to strip off her leggings. She stuffed her clothing into a mesh bag that would keep her items from getting lost within the rest of the laundry.

Heat might have normally risen to my cheeks, but instead, my face drained as I got a better look at her in the low light. Faint bruising caressed her ribs, waist, and thighs. I could already picture how the dark hues would spread and deepen, wrapping her skin until she couldn’t find a modicum of comfort.

But she was all smiles as she strode to the edge of the counter and crossed her arms, raising an expectant eyebrow at me. “Now, you.”

It took me half a second to stagger back into what she was talking about. I glanced at Cliff, then her—both half-naked. Determined to not be caught off-guard by her brashness for once, I held her stare as I peeled off my undershirt and jeans. She bit her lip to quell giggles, practically bouncing with delight. That little flit in her wings was her biggest tell, though, as if she was physically restraining herself from closing the space between us .

Her gaze followed my collection of scars. She no longer flinched at the sight—not even at the barbed whistler scar beneath my collarbone that had never let go of its sickly gray hue. She looked me up and down like I was someone worth staring at.

“Stop eye-fucking each other,” Cliff groused without looking up from his meticulous stain removal. “I’m, like, two feet away.”

Sylvia grinned with the promise that our eye-fucking would continue in privacy soon enough, but my smile was half-hearted. I couldn’t tell if she was putting on a brave face through the pain for my sake.

By the time the stains were out, she was buzzing eagerly by the washers. Cliff and I loaded up four of the machines, passing detergent between us. I couldn’t imagine how we all looked—three serial killers in their underwear doing laundry at 1 a.m.

I held up a bag of coins to Sylvia. “You sure you’re up for the responsibility?” I asked.

“Gimme!” She snatched a stack of quarters from the bag and carefully fed each of the machines. She peeked through the final slot as though she could unravel the inner mechanisms’ secrets if she squinted hard enough.

Before long, the otherwise quiet laundromat filled with the sounds of churning water and clattering machinery. Cliff and I snickered as Sylvia went from washer to washer, pressing her face against the glass to watch the spinning clothes with utter fascination.

“Laugh all you want,” she tossed over her shoulder. “It’s beautiful!”

When Cliff became distracted with his phone, I nudged Sylvia’s arm to get her attention. She gazed up at me with a hopeful, questioning smile—perhaps hoping I was about to request we start our nighttime fun early.

“Did you ever get a look at his tramp stamp?” I whispered, thumbing in his direction .

Her lips parted, eyes wide. She flew off in a blink.

Seconds later, Cliff’s cursing nearly drowned out Sylvia’s scream of delight: “It’s a butterfly !”