The little bulb above my head flickered, and the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. It was that uncomfortable feeling people get when someone’s watching them, or maybe it was just the thought of someone lurking in the shadows. Probably just the after-effects of my panic attack. They got so bad that sometimes I puked. Shit, I hoped I wasn’t going to projectile into the gutter.
Glancing up and down the lane, I expected to see someone lingering—because being stalked was way better than throwing up, not—but no one was there. The light bulb flickered again, and I shivered. Should’ve picked up my coat on my way out.
Taking one more look, I hesitated when the shadowy figure of a man appeared halfway between me and the mouth of the lane. What the…? He hadn’t been there a second ago. The man stepped closer, and my heart twisted. Edging backwards, I peered at him as his boots scraped against the cobblestones.
Another figure appeared on High Street, silhouetted by the streetlights and the over-lit tattoo and body piercing shop across the road. He turned down the lane and approached the other man from behind, his steps purposeful. He was wearing a leather biker jacket and big boots, and the other guy looked normal enough—apart from the ugly blond colour of his hair.
Maybe this was one of those ‘wrong place, wrong time’ scenarios. Luck had never been my strong suit.
Leather Jacket Guy shook out his right arm as he gained on the other guy. A knife slid down his sleeve and dropped into his hand. Striding forward, he grasped the guy by the shoulder and swung him around.
“No!” I shrieked as he plunged his knife into the other guy’s chest.
A rush of adrenaline surged through my body, and before I knew what I was doing, I rushed out of the alcove and into the lane. Icy air blew through my hair.
Leather Jacket Guy was startled by my cry, and he let go of the body, rising to his full height with the grace of a predator. Our gazes met, and I almost shit myself. He turned towards me, his lips curving into a grin. He had short-cropped, almost black hair, and a thick coating of stubble on his hard jaw, and his eyes… His eyes almost looked silver.
I swallowed hard and took a step backwards. He’d killed a guy in the middle of the street, and now he was looking at me with a creepy smirk on his face. This was bad. Everyone knew you were supposed to run away from danger, not right at it, but I had to be the irreverent, quirky one, didn’t I? Rush right into the gaping maw of Hell, Scarlett. You’ll be just fine. Not!
I stood transfixed as Leather Jacket Guy grunted at me, and then dragged the body of his victim farther into the lane. No one passing by on High Street was even looking at them—like they weren’t even there.
I stared at the two men with my mouth hanging open. The knife was sticking out of the man’s chest, buried right to the hilt. When Leather Jacket dumped him, the man groaned, a puff of black smoke trailing from between his parted lips. My eyes widened as the inky cloud continued to whoosh out before it escaped into the darkening sky.
“What. The. Fu—”
“Well, this is a predicament,” Leather Jacket said, his accent very thick and very northern English, acting like this was an everyday occurrence for him. “What are you supposed to be, Purples?”
“P-purples?” My mouth was flapping uselessly. This was so not happening.
“Yeah, Purples. Your hair is purple, right?”
I glanced around and shied away when a group of women who stopped on the street and stared at me like I was mad.
“You’d better come farther into this dark alley where no one can see you, lovely,” Leather Jacket said, pulling the knife from the dead body. “You see me, but they don’t.”
“Y-you… you’re invisible?”
He flipped the knife in his hand and smirked. “He marked you, Purples. You’re welcome.”
“M-marked me?”
“I just saved your life.” He mock-bowed with a flourish. “You’re welcome.”
“No,” I said, wishing I’d had the good sense to run back into 8-bit, “you killed him.”
Leather Jacket rolled his eyes and grasped my wrist, then yanked me into the darkness. Oh, God, this was it. I was about to be murdered. Happy birthday, Scarlett.
I almost fell on my arse as he grasped my face and tilted my head to the side.
“Get your hands off me!” I shoved him away and stumbled back against the wall.
He curled his lip and grabbed my face again. “Where’d you get that lovely scar?” he asked, rubbing his thumb over the puckered line that split through my hairline, down the side of my face directly in front of my right ear, and ended at my jawline.
“None of your business.”
“Oh, I think it is,” he said, stepping forward and trapping me with his sheer size. “You can see through my Light, and if I’m not mistaken, you saw the parasite fleeing that man’s body. You’re either playing dumb or you’re manifesting. I’m going to take a stab at playing dumb, because no one manifests at your age.”
“My age?” I exclaimed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Leather Jacket laughed and tilted his face towards the sky. “She sees me excise a demon, and she’s worried that I know about her age? Women.”
“I don’t understand,” I wailed. “Just… just let me go. I won’t say
