“Did he know about me? That we’re twins?”
“I told him I had a sister, but I don’t think I mentioned we were twins. Why would that matter?”
A banging on the front door cut off Iris’s reply, and they froze.
“Who is that?” Iris whispered. “He didn’t come back, did he?”
When neither of them moved, the banging sounded again. “Open up or I’ll kick it in!” a male voice shouted. Not Mist.
Lily stared at her sister. “What should we do?”
Iris shook her head.
“Let me in, that’s what you should do!”
How had he heard them? They were whispering all the way across the flat.
“Not joking about kicking in the fucking door!”
“Oh my god,” Iris whispered, recognition flaring in her eyes. “I think it’s…”
“Yeah, it’s the scary guy from the park. Boo. Now open the damn door.”
“Let’s slip out the back.” Iris dug out Lily’s biggest knife from the utensil drawer and gripped it like a lifeline.
“You do that, I’ll just follow you, and we’ll still end up having this conversation. Or you can open the door and save yourself the trouble of replacing it later.”
“We should talk to him,” Lily whispered, unsure why she felt so strongly about it.
“He’ll kill us!”
“He won’t hurt us.” Again, she had no idea why she was certain about that.
Brandishing the cleaver, Iris looked dubious.
Unwilling to ignore her instincts, Lily jumped up and raced down the hall before her sister could stop her. Iris called out, “Damn it, Lil!” but she didn’t stop until she was at the front door, unlocking and throwing it open.
Iris reached the end of the hall right as Mist’s tattooed friend walked in like he owned the place, closing the door behind him and staring down Lily like he was a pissed off parent and she was the naughty kid.
The loose tank top he wore bagged under his arms and showcased the tattoos covering his torso. On his face, an illegible gothic script ran above his pierced left eyebrow, and the strange symbols beneath his eye looked like something out of a grimoire. More writing ran in vertical lines down the left side of his face. He had a ring in the center of his nose and two on either side of his lower lip. A backwards hat held down short black hair, and his eyes were red.
Not reddish brown. Red.
“Where the fuck is he?” He glared at Lily, who had frozen like a deer in headlights.
“Where the fuck is who?” Iris snapped.
“Mist!” He hadn’t stopped looking at Lily. “He was here, and now he’s not, and I got this weird text from him, and now he’s not answering his…” He trailed off as his gaze finally landed on Iris. “Phone.”
His eyes flared in blatant appreciation as they ran up and down her body. He started to smile. “You have blue hair.”
Iris gaped at him. “Yeah, I have blue freaking hair. So what?”
“So, it’s cool. I like it.”
“Fantastic!” She threw up her hands, including the one still clutching the meat cleaver. Both Lily and the newcomer flinched as the blade passed inches from their faces. “And if you’re looking for your friend, he shifted into a fucking demon and flew off!”
“Shit. You’re witches, then?”
