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CHAPTER 1
DEREK MOVED FAST ON QUIET FEET
The bartender downstairs, a stocky woman with hard eyes and a harder jaw, hadn’t heard him She just happened to look up as heto the back rooun she kept under the bar, then saw his face and changed her rown used to it He knew his eyes assured people that the inside matched the outside, and so the bartender turned away and let him walk up the stairs It was an old wooden staircase, probably pre-Shift, before the ical ht of humans every day, but the worn steps kept their peace this time He knehere to put his feet
A short hallway stretched before hiht, three doors on the left Unlit The oas trying to save on electricity or the charged-air bill The rooms were empty, all but one, the second on the left He paused by the door and listened On the other side of an inch-thick piece of wood people talked andin low voices The draft froht the odor of cheap beer to his nostrils mixed with the metallic stench of human blood He’d followed this scent across half the city
People lied Scents never did
The shadows under the door indicated a single light source The h the crack under the door was electric, buttery yellow, and judging by the hallway, the oas too cheap to spring for anything but a single lightbulb He reached into the pocket of his jeans with his left hand and pulled out a rock he’d picked up outside This didn’t warrant the claws He took a knife out of its sheath It was a si, coated in black epoxy, so it didn’t catch the light
The five , their voices still calm Relaxed
Derek thought back to the house from which he’d co open under the ith, and he hurled the rock at the lonely light fixture above the table Glass shattered, and the rooed into darkness
His instincts punched a cocktail of hormones into his bloodstrea up like a flower, revealing five heartbeats wrapped in scent His h the darkness toward the first warun Derek sliced across thebone Overkill He was a little too excited He spun to the left, dodging a bullet before he saw the starburst of the rabbed the man in his way, and punched the knife into his chest The heart ruptured Derek jerked his knife out and spun away to crouch by the wall
Shots popped, loud in the s
A heartbeat straight across fro bullets
Boom, boom, boomclick