Free Kissing Midnight by Laura Bradley Rede Page B

to be all right.” Dev puts his arms around me, and I let him. He pulls me close. The feeling of his arms around me calms my breathing—and makes my heart race in a completely different way.
    But we can’t stay here. Not if there’s any chance what I saw was real. I pull away. The fake blood on Dev’s shirt has left a mark on my own, like a bleeding heart. “We have to get out of here.”
    “Saintly, really, I don’t think—”
    There’s a noise from behind me. I spin to face it. Dev’s arms go back around me, protectively, as something emerges from the shadows.
    It’s a cat, small and black and sleek. It picks its way through the wreckage towards us, mewing plaintively.
    Dev laughs with relief. “Is that what you saw?”
    “No!” My face is hot with embarrassment. “The thing I saw was bigger, much bigger. Its eyes were at my eye level!”
    “Maybe the cat was standing on boxes.” Dev lets me go and reaches down to run a hand along the cat’s back. It arches into his touch.
    “But what about the music? What about the lights?”
    Dev eyes the fluorescents doubtfully. “These old places have iffy wiring. They may have blown some sort of fuse.”
    “Then why did the lights go out, but the music came on? Why did the lights come back on when you hit the switch?” None of this makes any sense. I feel completely thrown off, like the ground has shifted underneath me.
    Dev reaches out a hand to steady me. “You look shaken. We should get you out to the car so you can sit down.”
    I’m not going to argue. Right now, getting out of this warehouse seems like the best possible idea.
    I start for the door. Dev reaches down to the cat one more time, and I think he’s just saying goodbye, but when I glance back he’s looking at the cat with the strangest expression, like he’s furious with it. “I’ll deal with you later,” I hear him hiss under his breath.
    Or at least I think that’s what I hear. How can I trust anything anymore?

 
     
     
Chapter 8
     
    Saintly
     
     
    An hour later, I’m still sitting in the passenger seat of Dev’s car, a plaid picnic blanket from the trunk wrapped around me, my hands still shaking. Dev has loaded the last of the boxes into the trunk and piled the back seat with costumes, and now he’s gone back in to clean up the mess. My mess. The thought makes me feel awful. I pride myself on being the sort of person who cleans up her own messes, thank you very much, and I know I should be in there helping, but the thought of going back into the warehouse makes me feel sick. The monster may have been all in my head, but it doesn’t matter. My nerves are still shot.
    Which is why I jump about ten miles when I see the wolf creature walk through the warehouse door.
    No, not the wolf creature. I let out my breath. Dev, with a sort of wolf-skin cape over him. The wolf’s head is pulled up over his own like a hood, its face covering the top half of his face so that its muzzle protrudes out over his nose and his eyes shine through the empty eye holes. The skin of the wolf dangles down his back, the front legs knotted at his chest like the clasp of a cape, the tip of the tail grazing the ground behind him. In the half light he looks like some ancient warrior returning from the hunt.
    He smiles at me from under the wolf’s muzzle as he walks up to my window and raps on the glass. “Look! I think we found your beast.”
    I roll it down, but only about an inch. “You think that’s funny?”
    Dev tips the mask up so the wolf’s nose is pointing straight up at the darkening sky, like its howling at the moon. I can see his whole face now, full of concern. “I’m not trying to make fun of you, Saintly. I just thought you might feel better knowing I solved the mystery. It was sitting on top of some boxes, right at your eye level. Made me jump just to see it, even with the lights on. I’m sure if I’d run into it in the dark…Well, it’s a wonder you didn’t have a heart