Page 9 of Savage

Swallowing a sigh, I turned around and gave Edith Wilson a tight smile. No doubt she’d been watching the entrance with her hawklike eyes. She was every bit the ill-tempered old lady who ruled the roost in her front-snap dressing gown.

“Now, Ms. Edith, if I were bad news, you wouldn’t have generously let me rent an apartment from you.”

She grunted and narrowed her eyes to slits. “I’m reconsidering that generosity. I don’t put up with good-for-nothings.”

“I can assure you it’s nothing like that. It’s just such a big, confusing city, and I went out exploring and got a little lost.”

“Of course you did. I told you, Kentucky boy?—”

“Colorado.”

“—that small-towners get eaten in this city.” She pursed her lips and looked me up and down. “Try not to get eaten.” She went to close her door and added, “Or do,” before slamming it shut.

That was officially the shortest interaction we’d ever had, which was something to be grateful for on this night from hell. Ms. Edith was the nosiest landlord in the city, of that I was positive, and it didn’t matter if it was two p.m. or two a.m., she wasn’t popping her head out to say anything nice.

Again, it didn’t matter as long I was here and I had a roof over my head. I could deal with crankiness.

I trudged up to the fifth floor with my knee protesting the whole way. Once inside, I flicked on the light, went straight for the world’s tiniest fridge, and wrapped some ice in a towel, needing to get off my leg so I wouldn’t be limping around the city for days.

Opting for my bed over the desk and chair I had pushed up against the wall, I hopped over to it and kicked out of my shoes. I was too tired and too damn sore to bother undressing the rest of the way, and merely flopped down onto the harder-than-I-liked mattress that took up the majority of the space in the tiny studio.

It was ridiculous for a thirty-year-old to be living like a frat boy, and under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have entertained the thought. But this wasn’t a normal circumstance. In fact, any sense of normal had vanished from my life a coupleof months ago when a friend overdosed on a new drug that had entered the Colorado party scene.

Ever since then I’d made it my mission to track down the source, to expose the people responsible and take that information to the cops. But that new mission had driven me from my comfortable life to this unfamiliar one.

I stared up at the fan and light overhead, and then my eyes shifted to the flaking paint curling off the ceiling.What the hell am I doing here?

I’d known the city would be overwhelming. That the people I was looking into were dangerous. But tonight had been beyond anything I ever could’ve imagined when I first decided to move out here.

Drugs, guns, a masked vigilante? It was like some horrible nightmare I was trapped inside where I almost got my head blown off. Except it was no nightmare, just a really fucked-up reality.

I squeezed my eyes shut and shifted on the bed, and when my phone dug into my hip I cursed and reached into my pocket to pull it out. As the cell came free, I was about to toss it on the mattress beside me when I spotted something silver stuck to the bottom.

The light reflected off the rectangular metal card as I shuffled up the bed and leaned back against the wall.

Huh, where did this come from?

It wasn’t mine, that was for damn sure. But then where?—

Oh fuck. The alley…

I pried the card off the back of my phone, realizing it was stuck due to a magnet. That moment in the alley when I’d dropped my phone—it must have attached to whatever the hell this was, and when I picked it back up in the middle of all that chaos, I hadn’t noticed it.

Whateveritwas.

I turned the small card over, and when a familiar symbol at the top came into view, my breath left me like I’d been sucker-punched in the gut. There, staring back at me, was the same symbol I’d seen on the drugs my friend had taken. The same symbol I was trying to find out more about. One of the dealers must’ve dropped it tonight.

I flipped it over, looking to see if there were any other discernible markings, any other clues, but there was nothing.

Maybe it was a key? Like those hotel ones. But what did it open? Someone’s place? A stash house? Or maybe it was an access card to a facility. Or a safe? The possibilities were endless. The one thing Ididknow was that it belonged to the same people who’d supplied my friend the laced drugs. The same assholes who’d held a gun to my head tonight.

I let out a sigh, frustration riding me as I thought about how close I’d been to learning more information, only to have it snatched away from me due to a stupid misstep. But then again, maybe not. The masked vigilante had appeared from the shadows as though he’d been watching the deal in that alley too.

I wasn’t naïve enough to believe he’d been scouring the streets of Queens looking for people to save. That kind of thing didn’t happen in real life. So maybe he’d been there for something altogether different and I’d gotten inhisway. Maybe he’d been there to steal the drugs. Or to get a story, like me.

I snorted.Yeah, right.No reporter I knew would know how to wield weapons I’d only ever seen in spy movies. Who the hell carried around throwing stars on the off chance they actually needed tothrowone?

But damn he’d been impressive. Like my own personal saviorin kickass boots, a wicked-hot trench coat that held all those deadly weapons, and an intricate face mask that looked to be made out of black metal. It all probably should’ve terrifiedme, but now that I thought back, it only made him that much more mysterious and…sexy.

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