Page 29 of Muzzled

She unzipped her boots and kicked them against the wall, taking a slow tour of the room. “Mess?” she scoffed, peeking into the bathroom. “This place barely looks lived in. There’s, like, one piece of paper in the trash can.” She sat on one of the beds and bounced. “Okay. Talk to me.”

Facing the artwork, he slowly removed his shirt and set it on the dresser, watching her expression in the mirror as she took in the tattoo spread across his back and shoulders, her piece an exact replica of the ink embedded in his skin.

“I—” She stood up and walked closer to him. “That’s a little odd. I must’ve seen this on a website or something and it filed itself away in the back of my head.”

Holding still while she reached up and traced the outline of one of the shades, he cleared his throat. “This isn’t on any websites. It’s a working original commissioned solely for me and my brothers, done by an artist with absolutely no access to technology.”

Her fingers flitted over the center of his back where Hades sat, Cerberus at his side. Her thumbs trailed along the blank expressions of the shades spanning the width of his shoulders and stretching down his triceps, a morbid tally of the Pirithous kills he and his brothers had completed.

“It looks unfinished,” she muttered, her eyes traveling between his tattoo and her art. “It did in my mind, too. So I added that one there to balance the image.”

He looked at the face of the shade she’d added to her work, the image completely devoid of recognizable features, lighter and less defined than the others. “It is unfinished,” he said quietly, reaching for his shirt. “There will be one more inked in soon.” Tugging his tee back on, he turned to face her, rubbing his jaw as he contemplated how much he could say. “I need to know why you created that piece.”

Flopping back onto his bed, she groaned in exasperation. “Like I’ve said a dozen times, I see something in my mind, I put it on paper. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

“Do you have any Greek ancestry?” he pushed, determined to find a link between Micah, the Pirithous, and the visions she was replicating. “Is it possible your father may have?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Of course it’s possible. I have no idea who he is.” She crossed her arms and looked up at him. “What exactly is this about? Because it isn’t about any kind of copyright violation, is it?”

His gaze drifted to the ceiling as he formed his story. “My boss…” he opened slowly, tightening his grip on the dresser. “I’ve told you he’s a secretive guy, right? Well, he and his wife marked me and my brothers with these tattoos as a symbol of ownership. A testament to our loyalty, I guess. And if he finds out someone is out there copying his stuff, he’s not going to be happy.”

Her lips pursed, brows lifting. “Is this some sort of gang thing? Am I going to be gunned down for stumbling on some secret society?”

“No. But it—”

“But nothing. You’re telling me a load of bullshit.”

“It’s not bu—”

“It’s complete bullshit,” she continued, stepping in front of him and yanking the canvas from the dresser. “All the questions you keep asking me, the pictures you keep buying, the silent freak-outs you have every time I create a piece from these images crowding my head.” She shoved the art into his line of sight. “Tell me what you know about these spirit things. Because these aren’t something ‘your boss’ just made up, are they?”

“Yes, th—”

“No, Ryan, they aren’t,” she snapped at him, dropping the canvas at her feet as she sat again, her bloodshot eyes looking up at him. “Whatever those things are, they’re watching me.”

Chapter Eleven

Ryan’s heart skippeda beat. “Watching you?”

Micah’s chin tilted in defiance, as though daring him to refute her. “Yes, watching me. At first, they were in my head, slithering into everything I tried to paint, but now…” She trailed off, her gaze drifting down the charcoal drawing. “One of them is following me. Actually there, like I could touch it.”

He’d considered the idea the Pirithous was watching her, perhaps scouting her as a future victim. But a shade…

“That’s impossible,” he replied weakly, a knot forming in his stomach at the implication of her statement. “There’s no way that’s possible.” He jogged to the window, tossing the curtains open and scanning the dark lot. “Can you see one now? Can you see anything out there at all?”

She stepped up beside him, her fingers playing with the rings on her hand. “No. It’s never close when you’re with me.”

Swallowing past the tightness in his throat, he snapped the curtains closed again, not wanting to believe he had been right. “When did this start?”

Pulling out the tiny pot from the motel coffee maker, she disappeared into the bathroom and ran the tap. “Two weeks ago? During the first festival. Last week was the first time I saw it outside my head though. It follows me, but it’s never come into my suite or even close enough to touch.” She opened a package of coffee. “At first I thought I was just overtired and seeing things, but that’s not it, is it?”

He continued to stare at the paisley pattern of the curtains, his mind churning.

An escaped Pirithous shade.

An escaped Pirithous shade tracking his only link—weak link at that—to the last of the bloodline.

With a deep breath, he turned. “Does it seem aggressive? Threatening in any way?”

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