Page 5 of Out on a Limb

The air in this part of the cabin is warm, faintly scented with wood smoke and cocoa. The bed is where I left it, tucked into one corner. Thick curtains have been drawn across the window above it, blocking out the stars and any strangers’ eyes. There’s no light over here; not even the faint glow of starlight.

My squatter sighs gently in her sleep.

Heart drumming, I lean down and flick on the bedside lamp.

My gut swoops, and my skin flushes hot beneath my clothes. I stare at the sleeping figure in the sudden pool of golden light—at her smooth brown skin and plump, curved lips and the delicate slope of her throat. Her glossy dark hair is cut short, and she’s swamped in pale blue button-down pajamas.

She’s…

The woman in my bed, she’s…

Fuck. Me.

Swallowing hard, I scratch my cheek, then fold my arms and wait for her to stir. She frowns in her sleep, getting restless in the sudden light. My squatter tosses her head against the pillow, her short hair rumpling against the cotton pillowcase, and makes the tiniest sound of distress.

Then her eyes flutter open. They widen on me, honey-brown and horrified.

I raise an eyebrow at my squatter.

“Hello. I believe this is my bed.”

Four

Jana

I’ve always been slow to wake up in the mornings: groggy and cranky and dumb. That’s why bar work suits me so well. I’m never expected at Flint’s before 11am, and by that time, I can usually string a sentence together, or at the very least, pretend to be human.

But my first moments after waking? Those are never proud moments for me.

Add a dark blond, bearded man looming over my bed at night, catching me in the act of trespassing, and we’ve got a recipe for disaster.

“Hngh!” A weird, animal grunt bursts out of my mouth as I fling a pillow at the strange man’s face. He ducks, cursing, but it still hits him in the forehead, and in that time I scuttle backward up the bed like a crab.

There are no thoughts in my brain. No reason or logic. Only pure animal instincts and the thrill of fear.

Danger.

“Wait.” The man raises both hands to block another pillow flung full-strength at his face. This one bursts into a cloud of feathers—white, wispy fragments that snow down in a strangely beautiful display around the cabin. I’ve got no time to admire it, though—I’m casting around for something else to throw. “Wait,” the man says again. “I’m not going to hurt you, damn it.”

My fingers close on the cheap plastic alarm clock I bought last month in a failed attempt to keep my phone away from the bed. The man is ready this time as I fling it at his face, and he bats it easily into the cabin wall.

The alarm clock explodes into plastic shrapnel, pieces flying everywhere. My heart jolts even faster in my chest, thudding so hard it might burst too, and I’m still too groggy to think straight.

Strange man.

Middle of the night.

Gah!

I pick up the bedside lamp next, but the cord is plugged into the wall. Tugging desperately, I bare my teeth at the man as he leaps back, both palms raised in surrender.

“Okay! Okay, I’m backing up. Jesus Christ. What are you, a feral raccoon?”

I snarl again, yanking at the bedside lamp cord.

The man’s mouth twitches in amusement, and for some strange reason, that’s what finally gets through my groggy, panicked haze. The shrill alarms blaring in my brain quiet a little, and the adrenaline surging through my muscles begins to seep away.

The bedside lamp sags in my hand. I stare at the man, breathing hard.

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