Under Attack

“You want to find the Vessel so you’ll be restored.”

Alex nodded but avoided my gaze.

“So it’s never been about us. Or me.” I could feel the tears starting, but I refused to let them flow, refused to let Alex know that I had, once again, stupidly fallen in love. “It’s always just been about you finding the Vessel.”

“No, Lawson, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You may not have meant it that way, but that’s exactly what it is, right?”

Alex opened his mouth and then closed it, dumbly, still avoiding my gaze. Instead he stood up, plucked his keys from the table where he had left them, and pressed the black plastic Taser box toward me. “Promise me you’ll be safe, okay?”

I sat at the table, staring at the plastic box until I heard Alex walk out the front door, clicking it shut behind him. I swallowed the lump in my throat and slid the Taser box into my purse, then brushed all thoughts of Alex and the Vessel aside. ChaCha stood up in her little dog bed and yawned mightily, and then trotted over to me, her toenails making a comforting tap-tap sound on the linoleum. I scooped her up and nuzzled her.

“You’re not going anywhere, are you, ChaCha?”

She licked my face agreeably and I smiled, handing her a dog bone and feeling an immediate sense of prideful dog ownership. “Let’s go for a walk!”

Chapter Eleven

I pulled on a pair of yoga pants and tossed on a sweatshirt, winding my bed-head hair into an unemployed- girl updo before yanking on my sneakers and finding ChaCha’s leash. I did a few obligatory stretches before striding proudly out the front door with ChaCha prancing in front of me in all her pink-studded-collar glory. We were three- quarters down the first city block when ChaCha abruptly flopped over onto her little doggie side, closed her eyes, and started snoring.

I gently tugged at her collar. “Come on, ChaCha. It’s time for a walk, girl! We’re still walking! Come on, girl!”

“The little thing is pooped,” I heard.

I whirled around and grinned when I saw him: tall, with Men’s Health muscles, short, ash-blond hair that spiked up around his scalp, a deep olive complexion highlighted by the flecks of gold sparkling in his hazel eyes. If my brand-new dog hadn’t been playing dead on the sidewalk I may have recognized him.

“We’ve hardly gone a block!” I said.

The guy leaned down, his polo shirt sliding back and revealing a strong neck and traps that could choke a pony. He uncapped his water bottle and poured some out; ChaCha sprang back to life, popped onto all fours, and drank gratefully.

“She was just thirsty.”

I felt like a heel. “I feed her and give her water. She had water before we left, I swear. It was even bottled —no tap!” I said, certain that CPS—ChaCha Protective Services—was going to spring out from behind the potted palm and nab me for tiny animal cruelty.

“I’m Will Sherman,” the guy said, standing up and offering me a hand to shake. “And I believe that you’re a good pet parent.”

I shook his hand, oddly grateful for the positive judgment from a complete stranger.

“I’m Sophie. And you’ve got an accent.”

Will smiled, his cheeks tinting a shade redder. “It’s that obvious, huh?”

I liked the way he stretched out the words, the relaxed lilt of his voice.

“Yep, it’s true. I’m from Oregon.” We both did that mildly uncomfortable small-talk chuckle. “By way of England.”

“Ah.” I smiled into his bright eyes, cocked my head, and then my stomach started to sink. “You look familiar.” My mental Rolodex started to go and I tried to place him—with a horn, from the UDA office; with a knife from one of my many near-death experiences; with a fra-paccino from the local Starbucks. I prayed for memory to lodge itself in the normalcy of a Starbucks but nothing stuck. “I feel like I know you from somewhere.”

Will grinned. “Wow. And I was going to use the ‘if I could rearrange the alphabet’ line.”

I felt my brows furrow. “What?”

“I would put ‘u’ and ‘I’ together. You know, if I could rearrange the alphabet.”

“What?” I said again.

“You weren’t picking me up? You know, with the ‘don’t I know you?’ thing? That wasn’t a line?”

I felt the corners of my lips pull down. “No! Geez, no. I really thought I knew you. Or had seen you or something.”

Will looked away, sheepish. “Sorry.”

“So, do I know you in a non-flirtational, non-coming-on-to-you kind of way?”

Will frowned. “Well, when you say it like that you take all the fun out of it.”

“Never mind.” I bent to scoop ChaCha up, but Will stopped me with a soft hand on my arm.

“Sorry. You might have seen me around.” Will shrugged. “I’m local—now. We’ve probably run into each other a hundred times and never even noticed. It’s a small city.” He grinned; his teeth were shockingly white and straight, except for two on the very bottom that crossed a little, giving him a semblance of little-boy cute.

I forced a smile. “I guess. Anyway, thanks for the water. Seems to have done the trick.”

ChaCha was nuzzling against Will’s pant leg now, sitting on his shoe and looking up adoringly at him.

“Ready to finish our walk, girl?”

ChaCha popped onto all fours and trotted around my ankles, winding her leash around my calves and into a pink-studded tourniquet.

“I think your dog is trying to tell you something.”

I looked down at ChaCha, who did indeed look like she was trying to tell me something as she sat down, smugly licking her genitals. I stepped out of my leash lasso and scooped up my traitorous pup.

“You may have won this one, dog,” I told her with a nuzzle, “but when we get home, you’re hitting the treadmill.” I looked back at Will and offered a friendly smile. “Thanks again.”

“Sure.”

I turned on my heel and started toward my building. Will followed the same direction, a foot or so back. Within a second he had caught up and fallen in step with me.

He offered me a polite smile and my hackles went up. I considered how to juggle my dog and my stun gun when Will decided to plunge a dagger into my heart/rape me/beat me/force me to watch an endless loop of How Stuff Works. He seemed like a perfectly normal guy out for a perfectly normal coffee run on a perfectly normal day, which meant, most likely, he was some sort of demon.

But then again, I was the spawn of Satan.

“Are you walking with me?”

“I’m walking near you. I happen to be going in that direction. I live right there.” He poked his index finger to the building in front of us. My building.

I raised an eyebrow. “Really?” Had he seen me come out? Did he have telepathic powers? “What apartment?”

“3C.”

I felt a little flutter in my chest. The previous resident of 3C—a sweet, dirty old man who had a penchant for slightly younger women in leopard-print spandex—had fallen in the stairwell and died. At least that’s how the story went.

I stopped in midstride. “How come I’ve never seen you around the building, then?”

Will took a sip from his paper coffee cup. “Why would you? Wait, is that your building, too?”

I crossed my arms. “Like you didn’t already know that.”

Will put up his hands. “Whoa, lady, I don’t know who you are and I have no idea where you live. I was just