Page 12
Story: Saint of the Shadows
10
You Up?
M arisol’s apartment door whacked a small box across the entrance like a hockey puck. Another present? From him? The anticipation was enough for her to forget she had used the stair railing to pull her post-shift, heavy limbs up the steps. She kicked her door shut behind her and scurried after the box. She scanned the box for a sign from the sender, but whoever delivered it left it unlabeled. She ripped away the paper, revealing a flat white box that could fit a necklace. She popped the top off and saw a note. It read, I’m sorry. I was a jerk. Consider this an escalation. — A.
She ripped away the tissue paper to reveal a leather domino mask with satin ribbons. Annie used her spare key to leave a nice joke. Marisol shook her head and laughed.
thanks for the little gift! apology accepted , Marisol texted .
After a happy emoji, Annie sent, when we left for the ball, did I do anything weird with my notes?
no on counter like always.
not there… looking
go home!
the lab is my home
They both needed a Workaholics Anonymous meeting if those existed.
Marisol set her phone down on her nightstand and picked up the mask. In the reflection of her bedroom’s elongated mirror, she hovered the mask over her face to preview what could be. Yet beyond her reflection, she sensed something else. It was a vision of herself running through the city and leaping over walls. She had become like him. Her heartbeat pulsed in her ears. To quiet it, she stuffed the mask into the box, burying it under the shards of tissue paper. Masked vigilante adventures could wait until after bedtime. She should send that in a message to Annie too.
After changing into an old XL T-shirt, she climbed into bed and pulled the blanket around herself. It brushed against her cheek. The sensation reminded her of his warm kiss, his gloved hands. The blanket against her bare skin skimmed the other places she wanted to feel his touch. Her pulse drummed again in her ears, echoing through her body. Pressure twisted below her stomach, and heat pooled between her legs .
She sat up in the bed and turned her bedside lamp on. She grabbed her phone, selected Tobias, and typed, you up?
As soon as she hit the send button, she tossed her phone on the nightstand. What was she thinking? She turned off the lamp and pulled the covers over her head.
Her phone rang. Holy shit! He called her. “Hello?” she answered.
“I am up. Thanks for asking.”
“You’re probably wondering why I messaged you.”
He exhaled. “To continue where we left off?”
She toyed with her fixed necklace. “And to thank you for what you did today.”
“My pleasure. You know, I was raised believing nothing good happens after midnight.”
“Me too.” Looking at the mask through tissue paper, she said, “Good thing I only want to do bad things to you.” She froze in a wince. Too much. Again.
“Christ, kid. I’ll be right over.”
One hurdle jumped, another on its way: their nervous first kiss. She needed to feel that edge with him again, achieved by the assured energy of body-hugging formal wear and armored costumes. “Can I make a request?”
“Anything. ”
“This might come across as kinky or objectifying, so you can totally say no, but I was wondering if you could—”
“Wear my uniform?”
She would’ve said costume, but uniform cast his vigilantism as a calling. “How’d you know?” she asked. The tension in her body shifted from bracing nerves to the richer pang of desire.
“It would be ungentlemanly for me to share why I know, but that request alone is a pretty G-rated kink.”
“Is that a reverse psychology tactic to make me go crazy on you?”
“Is it working?”
She rubbed her thighs together. “Come over and find out. I’ll meet you outside.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He ended the phone call.
She scrambled to put on some more clothes, adding black jeans and combat boots to her giant t-shirt, and climbed out her window onto the fire escape. Each boot stomp rang against the grates of the escape. She figured the roof was her safest bet to meet him, unsure how she’d buzz someone in full mask regalia into her apartment.
She sent Tobias a message. You ’ ll know where to find me. After she tightened her mask, she flicked up the hood of her new coat and strapped her fingerless kickboxing gloves tight around her wrists. If he wanted crazy, she would give it. She wandered to the roof’s edge from the opposite side of the escape. Would the Patron Saint arrive from that direction? The distance between her roof and the neighboring rooftop below was the equivalent of the long jump she had landed in high school track. But many years later? She surveyed the distance to the alleyway below and rubbed Abuelita’s cross pendant. The Patron Saint might handle jumping from massive heights, but she needed a risk assessment chart. And the muscles of her teenage self. She shook her head—Ow! Her head still hurt from the mugging. She backed away from the edge and headed to the fire escape.
She leaned against the guardrail and looked at the steps back to her apartment’s window. Inside warmth, safety, predictability. Outside…?
A woman screamed from the alley over. Common sense said head inside and call 911. But Marisol Novotny turned around and entered a dead sprint, the skirt of her coat whipping behind her. When she reached the edge of the roof, she jumped across the alleyway, landing on her butt on the opposite rooftop. Plumes of vapor escaped her mouth, her breathing heavy. She landed the jump, but she had become like them—a crazy person in a costume who, if she chased one more bad idea, would appear on the other side of the emergency room.
A man yelled, “Shut up!” and she heard a familiar crack—the sound of a punch meeting cartilage. Followed by a woman crying. Also familiar. Marisol recognized the breaths and pauses between whimpers. It was the cry of someone fighting against it, telling herself to stop. Someone who thought no one would ever hear her or care.
Marisol must save her.
She approached the roof’s edge. Across the way, a woman in a mini dress staggered down the fire escape, carrying a pair of high heels. She had a bloody nose. A pot-bellied man followed her.
Marisol darted to a ladder bolted into the building’s bricks. She slid down it, avoiding the rungs. She skipped the last story and jumped to the ground with the grace of a cat. Not really. Instead, she crashed into a group of garbage cans, thrashing loud enough to stop the woman and man midstep.
Sour rotting garbage filled her nose. She’d try mouth breathing from now on. Marisol flicked a scrap of God-knows-what out of her hair and pulled her hood back over her head.
“Hey!” Marisol called out. She jumped to grab the steps of the fire escape. “That’s not how you treat a lady.”
“Mind your own business, you freak!” the man shouted back. He pulled the woman’s hair. “See the trouble you get us in?” The woman grimaced.
“This is my business.” Marisol lifted her body up the first stair. She ran up, up, and up the stairs until she reached the landing. There, she lowered herself into a fighting stance.
The man watched her and guffawed. He loosened his hold on the woman, who dove to cower behind Marisol. The man reached to grab the woman, but Marisol met him with a left hook. He stumbled back and flipped over the railing, falling the short distance to the ground. Flat on his back, he groaned. Marisol stared at her fist, in awe that it could bruise and break bones. She was too much. And she loved it.
She turned to the bloody-nosed woman who had curled into a ball, shivering. Task one: stop the blood. Marisol ripped away some of the lining of her coat. She handed the cloth to the woman, who blotted the blood collecting over her upper lip. Task two: get her to safety. Marisol asked, “Do you want me to call the police?”
The woman shook her head. “I’m working.”
“Do you have a safe place to go to?”
The woman nodded.
“All right, go back inside. Hire a cab to take you there.”
“What about the john?” the woman looked to the ground, where the pot-bellied man struggled to stand.
Marisol stretched her neck on each side. “He won’t be your problem anymore.”
The woman ran back up the steps and crawled back inside the window.
The man rubbed his backside. Marisol raised her fists again, prepared to attack or defend .
The man pointed a stubby and hairy finger in her direction. “When I’m done with you, you’ll be shitting blood!”
“I’d like to see you try.” She jumped to the ground, finally nailing a graceful landing. The flick of her hands said, “Come at me,” and she shifted her weight, readying to fight.
He swung his doughy arms wildly and clumsily at her, which she avoided easily with a bob and weave. She could end it with a haymaker, but she drew out the fight, wanting the Patron Saint to find her. She parried and blocked, bobbed, and weaved. “You can show up anytime!” She called out to the night.
“Who are you talking to?” the man asked. He caught her by the lapels of her coat and shoved her into the ground.
Marisol scudded across the wet pavement and rolled back to standing. She hit the man with an uppercut. He wobbled back and wiped blood from his lip. Marisol stood straight with her hands on her hips.
The man gasped, and his eyes grew wide. He ran down the street screaming.
“That’s right!” Marisol chuckled and gloated as she turned around… right into the wall of the Patron Saint. “You!”
“That was really stupid,” he said, low and husky .
“How long were you watching?” Which point should embarrass her—the fall in the garbage or her tumble to the ground?
He held up his right hand to stop her from speaking. With his left hand, he looked as if he was checking the time, and a blue light glowed at the wrist. His voice became brash and nasally as he spoke into the commlink on his hand, “Griggs? This is Quinlan. I lost track of a perp heading in your direction. Around 10th and Lewis? Short, bald, slightly overweight. See him? Yeah? Good.”
He snapped the commlink off, looked at her, and huffed. “Nice mask.” He brushed past her and finessed his way up the ladder, back toward her apartment.
She followed him. “Thought I should show you what you bring out of me.”
Over his shoulder, he said, “I’m not... a hobby.”
The chill from him stung. Earlier he seemed into it. She ran after him, pulling his cape to stop him. “What’s with the hot/cold routine?”
“I want you far from danger.” He growled, revealing the beast hiding behind his cool control.
Marisol chortled. “That’s sweet, but I work in an ER. I’m surrounded by danger.”
“Not that kind. There are bad people out there.”
She raised her chin. “I can handle it.”
He ran his gloved thumb over the Steri-strip on her head. “I’m sure you can. ”
She pressed her hand against his right side, above his hip. “I pulled a knife out of you. If we do the math, I think ‘knife’ is greater than ‘a little bump on the head.’” Her fingertips traced a line up his torso, over his chest.
He stopped her hand. “Marisol.”
“Kiss me.” She reached up to his face and closed her eyes, expecting the kiss he owed her. He pulled her sharply by the waist. She gasped and opened her eyes. With his free arm, he revealed what looked like a gun and fired it. A zipline cable launched over the rooftop. It hooked securely to an opposite ledge of her apartment building, confirmed by a taut vibration of the cable. With her in his grasp, he jumped off the roof, and they glided over the street far below.
She braced for the crash into the opposite building with eyes screwed close. And what was that? A scream? Was she a damsel tied to the tracks? So much for playing the hero…
Her feet kissed the ground. Eyes open, she was on her apartment’s roof again. He let the rope retract back into his device.
She slugged him in the shoulder. “You should warn me when you do something like that!”
His lips curled into a wicked smile. “What are you going to do about it?”
She gripped the shoulders of his cape and pulled him toward herself. Her mouth crashed into his, and her teeth grazed his lips. He opened his mouth, and the soft touch of his tongue invited a deeper kiss. He tasted like burning atmosphere, zapping her to attention and vibrating her skin.
Marisol let go of his cape, and his mouth left hers. They stared at each other. Their heaving breath formed into one icy cloud above them. Here on the edge, she wanted to “do bad things” like running her hands up his naked torso, scratching flames across his chest, huffing swirls of smoke off his burning skin, and watching those stained-glass eyes roll into the back of his head when she gave him the little death.
What the Hell? She pulled off her mask, terrified of the side of her that hungered for him.
Marisol looked at the mask and then at him. Their wild gaze locked. He hooked his fingers between the buttons of her coat and pulled her back to him with a groan. She devoured his mouth, sucking and biting his lower lip.
She wanted to pull him down, dig her knees into his arms, and pin him as she kissed him. But she couldn’t budge him.
Instead, they awkwardly staggered across the rooftop in a tangle of limbs. He pushed. She pulled. He pulled. She pushed. A little too hard. His back hit the colossal HVAC unit, knocking his breath away.
His eyes widened, as if the dual sensation of pain and pleasure confused him. It was like the kiss at the hospital all over again, a hot start with an anticlimactic finish. She took in a breath, preparing to say sorry .
He inhaled and growled, resuming their kiss. His hands moved from her waist and down her backside. After he lifted her, Marisol wrapped her legs around him. He spun her so her back dented the metal wall of the unit. He leaned his weight into her. She squeezed him with her thighs, hoping to feel that he needed her as much as she needed him. But like the mask, the uniform hid the man underneath. He rocked his hips into her. The erotic friction shocked like a live wire. Marisol opened her eyes, drawing a sharp breath.
She studied his face, caressing his jawline. Under her fingers, he felt unblemished and smooth. She finally noticed the small cleft in his chin. Charming, she chuckled as she kissed it. Her fingers traced up from his chin to his mask, and she toyed underneath its edges. He jerked his face away and dropped her to her feet.
He held his mask in place. “What are you doing?”
“If we are about to do what I think we’re about to do, why not as the real you?”
“I’m not ready.” His gaze drifted down.
She lifted his chin. “That’s kind of adorable.” She kissed him on the cheek.
He broke from her embrace and moved to the edge of the roof.
Marisol, unsatisfied, reached out for him. “You’re leaving? Now? ”
“It’s almost dawn. What else are we going to do?”
She arched an eyebrow. What did he think?
“That was a purely rhetorical question.”
“Okay. When can I see you again?”
“Tomorrow, here, at sundown.” He kissed the inside of her wrist. “But the mask stays on.” He smirked, and with that, he jumped down from the ledge and out of her life.
She twirled in place and sat down on the wrought-iron bench, bending to pick up her mask and stuff it in her pocket. Her phone vibrated against her hand. She checked it. It beeped incessantly from a slew of missed calls. The first one was from Annie. Marisol sprung back to her feet and walked down the fire escape, redialing. Straight to Annie’s voicemail. "I'm heading to your lab right now. You really need to start charging your phone."
As she headed toward the hospital, she occasionally stopped herself and smiled. She’d lick her lips to savor the Patron Saint. She’d touch her cheek, reliving the burn of his skin against hers. Tomorrow, she’d offer the other parts of her that yearned to be explored.
Marisol swiped her badge to enter the building. She clamped down her widening smile as she rode up the elevator and turned the corner of the hallway. She should just shout her good news—how the weight of his body felt oh-so right against hers, or how his mouth tasted almost metallic. As she neared the light of Annie’s lab, Marisol added a skip to her step. “Annie, you won’t believe—”
Marisol turned the corner. The sight through the window froze her.
Annie wasn’t alone.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12 (Reading here)
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37