Free Luminous by Corrina Lawson

Hell, I’m sure there’s flesh-colored body paint you could use. At least, I assume. Not my area. Anyway, the point is that there are solutions.” He paused. “If that’s what you want.”
    “I never thought that far ahead.” She hadn’t thought beyond escaping and shutting down Jill. It was what kept her moving. Last night, Al had offered to find out who she really was. Now Leslie was offering a glimpse at a future.
    I’m not ready for that. She had to keep moving, keep going forward. Stopping to look around was, well, terrifying.
    “Noir, or whatever your name is, you have talent. I could see that from your sketch. What you are won’t keep you from being an artist. They’re allowed to be eccentric, you know. Someone with that costume of yours would be accepted. Hell, it’d probably be an asset. It’d cultivate an air of mystery and draw attention to your work. You don’t have to run around with Al and get shot.”
    “What I want right now is to help Al catch the bad guys.”
    Leslie snorted. “You and Al. Two of a kind.” He walked over, grabbed a Pepsi can from the fridge and headed out. “Good luck, both of you. And try to avoid coming into my ER as a patient.”

Chapter Six
    Al ran into Leslie as he was coming up the stairs to his apartment building and Leslie was heading out.
    “She okay?”
    “Sure,” Leslie said. “You missed your calling, Lieutenant. That was a nice field dressing.”
    Al shrugged. “What’s her mood like?”
    “Pissed off, I’d say. She didn’t like you running off on her.”
    Al nodded. “Sounds about right. Thanks, Doc.”
    “Al. I’m interfering. Sue me. But she needs some kind of help for that condition. It doesn’t make sense.”
    “Obviously. It’s not like there are supposed to be invisible people.”
    “No, that’s not what I meant at all. You said she told you something was done to her skin, right? Some sort of genetic research? That can’t be right. If that was the case, why can’t we see her hair? The skin is covered in very fine body hair. If this was completely related to skin changes, that wouldn’t explain why we can’t see that or the hair on her head.”
    “Except that we can’t.” Al gripped the handrail tight. “What’s your point?”
    “She trusts you. Reason with her. She needs help from professionals.”
    “After we get the people who did this to her.”
    Leslie laughed. “Damn, you two are alike.”
    The doctor walked away, shaking his head. Al grimaced. Leslie laughed at the oddest things. What was wrong with finding murderers?
    Still, Al took the stairs two at a time, eager to check in with Noir. She’d love these latest developments. Screw computer records. A trip to city hall and time spent looking at the foreclosure records had supplied a number of possible locations for the lab. He’d spent the day riding around, narrowing down the possibilities for the site. He’d also talked to some of his street contacts. They’d told him that one of the supposedly “abandoned” warehouses had seen a lot of activity lately. It could be drug makers, but his contacts had been freaked out by glimpses they’d seen of a “monster”.
    Nope, not drugs.
    He opened the door to his place. “Noir?”
    “You son of a bitch,” she said.
    “So they tell me.” He tossed his keys on the coffee table. “What bug is up your invisible butt?”
    “You said we were partners last night.” She walked toward him, dressed in the shirt and sweatpants he’d left for her, a headless figure wearing his clothes. Huh. He was getting used to the headless part.
    But Leslie was right. Why wasn’t her hair visible? He’d felt how soft her hair had been last night when she’d laid her head against his shoulder. He’d love to see something of her.
    He wanted to see her face. How could he lust after someone he couldn’t see? But he did, dammit. He’d been thinking about her all day. Especially the part where she’d kissed his hand and how her skin