Page 24 of Into the Night

“Maisy told me you work here.” I take a tentative step inside and shut the door behind me against the driving rain.

If she’s surprised that I was asking around about her, she doesn’t show it, just keeps staring. Tilting her head, she regards me with suspicion.

I’m expecting her to lay into me about my cowardly, middle of the night disappearing act, but instead, she narrows her eyes.

“Have you been hanging around the ranger’s cabin since you’ve been in town? And snooping around Maisy’s?” Her tone is laced with annoyance.

Frowning, I’m not sure where she’s going with this, or what else I’m in trouble for. I only just arrived in Sutton yesterday.

“I went to check out whether the repairs to the ranger’s cabin were finished, and if John’s daughter had finished moving his stuff out. I wouldn’t exactly call it snooping.”

Kali throws her hands up in the air. “So, it is you. You’re the stranger lurking around the place, the beast that’s been making everyone nervous.”

“What do you mean, stranger and beast? Are there others?”

Kali looks at me, irritated. “Eh duh! Half the town is like us. And they don’t like strangers coming into their territory, scaring the humans. You’re lucky one of them hasn’t killed you.”

I have no idea what other creatures like us can do, or what abilities they have. Could they sense my presence that easily? “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t been lurking anywhere.”

She rolls her eyes.

If I wasn’t in the doghouse already, I’d be giving her a spanking for her bratty attitude.

“That’s your excuse for everything. I don’t know. I don’t understand.” She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “I need to tell Evan. You scared poor Holly half to death.” Kali bites her lip as she mulls that over, staring past me toward the door and down at the remaining shot glasses. “Maybe I’ll tell him tomorrow. They need to blow off some steam.”

I don’t care about Evan and Holly.

Slowly, I walk across the room and then pull out a stool. I don’t sit down yet, waiting for her to give me the okay first.

With a sigh, she nods, but as I sit, she steps back and leans against the cooler behind her, putting more distance between us, arms folded over her chest.

“Sit if you want. You’re not getting a drink, though. I’m locking up in five minutes, so you have that long to say your piece and get out. I’ve got things to do.”

When I open my mouth, finally ready to deliver the speech I’ve prepared, she promptly turns her back to me and grabs a set of keys from a hook on the wall.

I stare in disbelief as she walks away, striding down the hallway to lock the back door and then disappearing into a room marked office. When she re-enters the main bar, and I finally think she might stop moving long enough to listen to me, she starts stacking all the chairs upside down on the tables.

“Kali? Come on,” I say, pleading with her to stop. “Talk to me.”

She ignores me and just keeps working on clearing the floor.

I push off the stool and cross to her, the distance between us feeling like a vast gulf. From the way her shoulders tense, lifting closer to her ears, she can tell I’m there, but she still stubbornly doesn’t acknowledge my presence. My stomach twists. I did this. All I want is to see her smile like she did last night, but she won’t even look at me.

“Kali!” My raised voice snaps her resolve to ice me out. Shit. She drops a chair with a bang and whirls around, fire in her eyes.

“What, Griffin? You came all this way to get something off your chest, so go for it. Make yourself feel better with whatever half-baked excuse you’ve come up with for not wanting this, and then go. It’s not like I care anyway.” Her voice drops to a mutter for the last part, and my heart breaks a little with the knowledge that I really hurt her.

“I care. Dammit Kali, I care. I’m not that guy. Any of it.” Running a hand back through my hair, I shake my head, frustration clouding my thoughts. “Leaving without explaining properly. Even the sex, I mean… we just met each other. That’s not what I do, just jump into bed with strangers. It was too fast.”

Kali reels back like I slapped her, and when I reach for her, she recoils, shaking her head. “It’s bad enough you ran out on me, but then you go out of your way to seek me out, for what? To shame me for sleeping with you the first night we met?”

There’s the anger. There’s the pain. And I’ve only made it worse.

“I know I said you had five minutes, but I changed my mind. Your time is up. Get out. Right now,” Kali hisses.

Marching around me to the middle of the floor, she points at the door, looking past me at some fixed point on the wall, eyes glistening and chest heaving with pent up emotions she’s refusing to let out in my presence.

When I don’t move, she shakes her head, chin wobbling even though she tries to hide it. “GET. OUT.”

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