Page 55 of A Witchy Spell Ride
Then him.
You can feel the center of gravity of a space tilt when a predator steps into it. He walked not too fast, not too slow. He wore a ballcap lower now, beard trimmed tighter. He’d changed jackets. But men don’t change gait. His left stride still short by half an inch. Knee healed wrong. He took the bench at my ten o’clock and turned his face away from Briar and toward the water like he was admiring it. Men who admire water don’t hold their shoulders like a winch.
I didn’t look at him. I looked through him, past him. I angled my phone so the black screen could take his reflection. He rubbed his thumb against his knuckles — the exact two he’d used as a signal in the car days ago. Habit carved into bone.
“On your left,” I texted Selene, though she was two blocks back and not supposed to be part of the conversation in any way that mattered. The truth was it mattered to me.
“Copy,” she wrote. One word. Steady.
Briar didn’t move. Good girl. The sedan’s driver stayed in his car. The man on the bench, my man, waited thirty-two seconds and then stood, hands in pockets, and drifted closer to Briar by two steps, then three, then stopped. He breathed in like the smell of her, of Selene, could give him an erection or absolution.
“Take the third step,” I said to the air, and Briar, who had an earbud tucked in her hair under the hood, took the third step away. The man followed the exact distance and stopped again.
Got you.
“Now,” Reaper texted.
I moved first.
I crossed into his path and “stumbled,” shoulder-checking him hard enough that a man who wasn’t ready would’ve gone down. He didn’t. He caught himself, quick. Trained on balance if not on sense.
“Watch yourself,” he snapped, voice deeper than I expected.
“Yeah,” I said, bored. “You too.”
He looked at me. And I looked at him, really looked for the first time. And I smiled. It wasn’t nice.
“Afternoon,” I said.
Recognition flickered. Notoh, you’re Ghost— he wasn’t that stupid. Moreoh, you’re the problem between me and the thing I want to own.He banked it. Coward courage. He glanced past me toward Briar’s hood, toward Selene-who-wasn’t, and his pupils edged wide.
“Have a good one,” I said, stepping aside.
He did something sloppy then he sniffed. Not because he had a cold. Because he wanted to remember her. He moved on. Past me. Past Briar. Toward the water. Away from the car.
Reaper’s hold text came in hot. Not here.
I agreed. Not here where families walked and the river listens.
So, I let him go. For ten steps.
“Bones,” I said into the mic. “Lantern post, your one o’clock. Knee short on the left.”
“I see him,” Bones breathed.
“Cross,” I said, “plate on the sedan. It’s swapped. I want the old one.”
“Give me a minute and a saint,” Cross said.
The man pivoted at the rail, checked the angle again, told himself a story in which he was brave. He cut back toward Briar, closer this time.
“Now,” Reaper said.
We closed. Not all at once. Not like wolves. Wolves are messy. We closed like a tide; the kind people drown in because they didn’t feel it pull until it was too late.
I caught his wrist first. Soft. Like a friend. Then I tightened. Hard. The way you test a bolt before you trust it to hold weight.
“Walk,” I said.
