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A foot sticks halfway out of the stew pot. Another rests on the butcher block. There’s gnaw marks on the ankles and a big black garbage bag tied up in the corner. I don’t have to guess what’s inside.
She’s been busy.
“Dammit, you don’t bring bodies here either! You—” I spot his keys on the counter beside my jars of spices. My heart sinks at the twisted symbol on his keychain. “Oh, fuck.”
A trader.
I squeeze my eyes shut, muttering more curses to myself. But I know what Creepy must’ve thought. That this is fair. A twisted form of justice, even. After all, traders sell bits of supernaturals at their secret markets—when they aren’t throwing supernatural kids into cages to fight, selling them as pets, or grinding up the adults’ organs for powders, anyway. So why not return the favor?
“We don’t do blood magic, you idiot. Or sell bits for it either. And this… Dammit, this is how we end up in a cage too.”
She recoils in my mind. She doesn’t like cages.
“Yeah, exactly.” I scowl, but even without her watching me, I know my expression is half-hearted. “How’d you find him? Was he hauling in a shipment of supernatural kids or what?”
Images pelt me, hard and fast like I’ve pissed her off. I cringe back from the onslaught, one hand catching on the counter and bracing me.
It takes a minute for me to find my voice again. “We could have called the cops. Stopped him and then tried to get the woman to press charges.”
Now I’m the idiot as far as she’s concerned.
“Fine. But he’s a trader. If he operates with any kind of crew, they’re bound to come looking for him.”
I can feel her grinning like that’s a good thing.
“Cage, remember? This shit is a real quick way to get locked up, and then you don’t get to stop the bad ones ever again.”
She sulks at that, like it’s my fault the criminal justice system doesn’t look more favorably on vigilantes.
But then, that’s hardly the only problem. Your average human cop or FBI agent doesn’t have a clue we exist. Even that damned secret organization known as the Government-Sanctioned Slayers—a.k.a. the GSS—seems to think we’re just a myth.
It really needs to stay that way.
“Look, just stop bringing bodies home. This is a safe house, remember? It’s not helpful. And if you do that for me, then…” I rack my brain for the bargaining chip least likely to get me arrested. “We can go play with the gators this weekend, all right?”
She grins so wide, it makes my lip flinch.
I exhale, trying to ease her back gently. “Good. It’s a deal. So now just stay put, don’t fuss, and don’t interfere, okay?” I head for the closet where my disposable gloves and bleach are stored. “I’ll get rid of the body.”
One of the first things you learn as a young Jekyll is how to clean up after your Hyde. It’s right up there with tying your shoelaces on the list of life skills Jekyll parents teach their children. So by the time sunset rolls around, no one would ever know my kitchen recently played host to an impromptu episode of Dexter or that my specially designed furnace burns so hot because it just made dust out of a body.
But gods, it’s exhausting.
It’s past sunset by the time I finish, and as I’m packing up the last of my cleaning supplies, my phone rings.
“Men suck,” my friend Tamira says before I can even say hello. “You still coming out for drinks tonight?”
I laugh. “I take it things didn’t work out with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Tiger Shifter?”
“Is it a red flag when he’s more interested in asking about your family pedigree than whether you’re okay after you got food poisoning on your last date?”
I tuck the bleach back into the closet. “Pretty sure it is, yeah.”
She sighs. “Why are all the good supernatural guys taken?”
I chuckle. “Oh, I’ve got no answer to that.”
Truth is, I’ve tried a few dates with non-Jekylls and even had a handful of relationships with supernaturals that lasted maybe a few months or even upwards of a year. But while shifters or vampires can understand being supernatural, and some can even understand having a side of you that isn’t quite sane, it’s still hard to explain to someone else what it’s like to have a Hyde.
