Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
“Is Maddox eating your soul today?” I ask.
“Standard nibbling,” he says, tearing the bagel in half. “Dean wants me on a pen test at noon. I’ve got an hour before I head out. Thought I’d check on you.”
“You always check on me,” I mumble. It comes out half gratitude, half accusation. I’m not sure which one I mean more.
Arrow leans on the counter, eyes soft and searching. “You okay? You look…” He trails off, squinting at me like I’m code he can’t debug.
“Like a raccoon who’s been kissed by electricity?” I supply.
He grins. “I was going to say ‘like you didn’t sleep.’”
I shrug. “Weird dreams.”
“About?” His tone is light but there’s a wire beneath it.
“Killer tuxedos and…ghosts,” I say, and wait for the flinch. There is one—so small I almost miss it. He covers it by sliding the cinnamon-raisin into the bag and pressing it into my hands.
“Afternoon snack,” he says. “I’ve gotta run a few errands before Dean’s. Need anything? Batteries? String? Ten thousand sticky notes?”
My heart clanks. String and sticky notes, I think. Intel Narnia. It’s either the world’s strangest coincidence or he’s audibly confessing.
He kisses my forehead—Arrow kisses my forehead now, when did this become normal?—and the tenderness makes something ache. “Text me if you need me,” he says, and heads for the door.
“Arrow?” I blurt.
He pauses, one hand on the knob. “Yeah?”
I should ask. I should pin him to the cabinet with the truth until it stops wriggling. Instead I hear myself say, “Be careful.”
His smile crinkles the corners of his eyes. “You too,” he echoes, and the click as the door shuts is a gavel.
I last twelve minutes before I grab my keys.
If Hoover is Arrow, then Arrow isn’t just lying to me—he’s protecting me in the one way I can accept without screaming. If Hoover isn’t Arrow, then there is another man who knows the exact voltage of my fear and desire and I’ve got two parallel universes folding in on each other.
Either way, I’m done living in quantum uncertainty.
I take the stairs two at a time and hit the sidewalk just as Arrow rounds the corner onto Baylor. My body moves before my brain gives consent. I fall into a tail two storefronts back—hood up, sunglasses on, my best don’t look at me, I’m a sad girl in athleisure vibe. I’ve watched enough crime shows to know Rule One: don’t be interesting.
My thighs protest the pace. The coffee in my hand sloshes. I refuse to waste cinnamon.
Arrow’s first stop is the bodega on the corner, the one with the faded mural of a blue heron and Raúl who gives me free gum when I cry. I pause outside the fruit stand and pretend to examine avocados with the gravitas of a surgeon. Through the glass, I watch Arrow toss three packs of mint gum on the counter.
My eyebrows climb into my hairline. Bodega Raúl tilts his head at the loot. Arrow says something that makes him laugh, then slides a protein bar into the pile and pays cash. Cash. Who uses cash? Vigilantes and people avoiding paper trails, that’s who.
I bag an avocado I don’t need (sorry, budget) and step aside as Arrow re-emerges, tucking the gum into his backpack like contraband. He heads south, easy stride, like a man with nothing to hide. I trail him past the nail salon that plays telenovellas on loop and the psychic who told me I’d meet a tall dark stranger (check) and the church whose marquee says GOD KNOWS YOUR SEARCH HISTORY. Cool, cool, noted, God.
He ducks into the hardware store next—Hancock’s, all creaky floorboards and two aisles of a thousand solutions to problems you didn’t know you had. I linger at the window display of Halloween decorated tools and sneak a peek. He grabs a headlamp, two small padlocks, and a box of contractor-grade trash bags. The cashier is new—pink hair, septum ring, bored. Arrow walks out with red tape and zip ties.
“Subtle,” I mutter into my cup.
He cuts across to Ink & Paper, the tiny art supply store that lives between a tattoo parlor and a vegan donut shop like a Swiss diplomat. I let three middle-schoolers with slime kits thunder past and drift in, keeping a safe distance. Arrow is at the register with… a hunk of red cotton twine, a fistful of neon sticky notes, and a pack of Sharpies.
“Intel Narnia,” I whisper, equal parts wonder and rage. He signs the receipt with his left hand and my brain supplies a slideshow—left-handed loops on Post-its, left-handed smudges on keyboards, the left-handed reach for chopsticks that slid sweet-and-sour off my wrist.
He tosses me a glance. For a half-second, his gaze skims the back aisle where I’m pretending to admire sketchbooks. I go statue-still. He looks away, smooth and unhurried. Either he doesn’t see me or he sees me and chooses not to see me.