Page 47 of Bookish Girl’s Emergency Contact Is a Lycan King

I told Theo to monitor. Told him to report if anyone came back. Either he failed, or this is someone who doesn’t report to Theo.

Either way, I need answers.

I turn toward the ridge, ready to shift and chase, ready to demand explanations…

And the watcher vanishes into the trees before I can catch their scent.

10

— • —

Fable

Two weeks out from the crash, on a slow afternoon with the light going amber, the bookstore is empty, and I’m about to conduct a completely unscientific experiment on a supernatural creature who may or may not be lurking outside my back door.

This is not unusual behavior for me. My entire life is a series of impulsive decisions strung together with caffeine and denial. But this particular impulsive decision feels different, more deliberate, more intentional, more like something I’ve been building toward ever since I read his FAQ answers for the seventeenth time and traced my fingers over the words you called me pretty while you were bleeding, and no one has looked at me like that in a very long time.

I’m standing behind the register, autumn light slanting through the front windows in golden stripes, dust motes spinning lazy circles in the air. The shop smells like old paper and the pumpkin spice candle I lit this morning, and everything is quiet except for the occasional creak of the building settling and the distant sound of Mrs. Delgado’s wind chimes from the bakery next door.

Quiet enough that if someone with supernatural hearing was, say, stationed outside my back door in very dedicated stalker fashion, they might be able to hear me whisper.

This is ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous. He’s probably not even out there.

Except I know he’s out there. I’ve known for days now, ever since the FAQ exchange. Every night, that same presence in the shadows behind my building, watchful and steady. Every morning, small signs that someone’s been there, a displaced rock, footprints in the dew, once a perfect pinecone placed on my back step, an offering from a very strange woodland creature.

He thinks I don’t notice.

I notice everything.

ADHD brain: can’t remember to buy milk or respond to emails, can absolutely catalog every microscopic change in the environment because what if it’s IMPORTANT.

“Okay,” I breathe, barely audible even to myself. “Test one. If you can hear me, clear your throat.”

Silence.

I wait. Nothing happens. The building settles. The wind chimes tinkle faintly in the distance.

Maybe he’s not there. Maybe you imagined all of it. Maybe you’re just a crazy woman talking to herself in an empty bookstore, which honestly wouldn’t be that unusual…

A cough. Muffled, distant, but unmistakably deliberate.

Oh my god.

My heart rate spikes. I press my hand to my chest like I can physically contain the sudden thundering.

“Test two,” I whisper, even quieter this time. “Tap the wall once.”

Tap.

“Holy shit.”

I clap my hand over my mouth, because that was definitely louder than a whisper, and if he can hear me talking to myself about this, I’m going to die of embarrassment before I even get to the real experiment.

Focus. Science requires rigor. Even unhinged supernatural science.

“Test three.” I drop my voice as low as it can go while still technically being sound. “If you can hear me, knock twice on the back door.”

Silence.