There’s something like a twinkle in her eye. “You aren’t ready to give up on your cryptid yet?”
“Ugh. I wish it were a bit easier. He said he knew the moment he set eyes on me.”
“You just met this guy?”
“Yeah, over the weekend. Things got—intense.”
She chews on her bright pink lip for a moment. “If there’s someone giving you trouble we, my fiancé really, have a lot of resources at our disposal. Money and manpower both. If you need help, we could—even if that sounds weird because you don’t actually know us. Every cryptid I’ve met has been fully devoted to their mates, but some of them can be really strange and I hate to think your mate would do anything bad to you.”
“No!” I insist, surprised by my desire to defend him. “I mean I don’t know. He’s just—I know I’m being stupid. I should never want to see him again.”
“What did he do?” Her face grows serious. “Do you need me to call anyone?”
"No! I'm fine. Fine. I think—" I laugh a little, thinking how ridiculous this is, and all of a sudden, everything comes bubbling out of me in one long stream. "He followed me home, took some of my junk mail, and some of my other garbage. And then he told me he loved me and wanted to be with me forever." A loud laugh breaks through my relief admitting everything out loud. “I think he might be stalking me? He could be outside, right now, waiting for me! And I’m not even sure I’d be angry about it!” I start to laugh so hard that Bailey joins me.
"I'm sorry. It isn't funny,” Bailey says in between giggles.
"No, it isn't." I can’t stop laughing myself. "I barely know the guy! What am I going to do?"
“What do you want to do?” Bailey asks more soberly.
“I don't know!” I admit loudly.
“Well here, if you want some help figuring it out—” Bailey hands me her business card with her phone number and screen name scribbled on the back. “Call me. Please. If you feel like you need help.”
I take the little card gratefully. At least now I have something resembling a plan.
“Remember,” she says, with shocking sincerity, “I have muscle on my side. Say the word, and we will do what we need to make sure you are safe.” She sounds almost like a mobster offering to do a hit.
By the time I get home it’s already starting to get dark. Nights come fast and early this time of year in the Pacific Northwest. It makes sense that a Mothman would settle here. The darker it is, the more likely that he could be following me home. That idea gives me little chills of excitement and not fear, in a way that I find very irritating.
When my ride pulls up outside my apartment, there’s a van parked out front. My eighty-seventh surprise for the day.
“Piper Hamilton, right? We’re with the storage company, ma’am,” a large gargoyle announces as I approach. He’s tall and broad, with thick gray skin and large wings folded against his back.
“Storage company?”
“We’re here for ‘Colin’s Stuff’, according to our clipboard.” He taps one gray finger against his piece of paper. There’s a little logo on his shirt with two gargoyles carrying a box and the words ‘Stone Solid Storage’ underneath.
“Colin’s stuff,” I repeat slowly.
“We were asked to wait here until you returned. Everything’s been paid for. We’re supposed to transfer his things to a storage facility. If you could just point us to what you need moved.”
“Right, right. Of course I can.”
I lead them inside and up the stairs to the second bedroom. Everything remaining from my destroyed relationship is in there. Everything Colin decided wasn’t important enough to take to New York with him and he left here for me to deal with. I gesture to the space. There are a couple boxes of clothes and books. His collectibles, the comics that we decided were his, a whole stack of Warhammer miniatures that he never got past the primer coat.
“Take it all. Everything in the room. It’s all his.” I stand in the hallway, watching as three muscled gargoyles pack up the room, marching everything outside, being careful their wings don’t graze my walls.
It doesn’t take long to clean out the small room. They load everything into their truck, and in under an hour they are headed away.
And that’s the end of Colin. His stuff is out of my apartment, and I flushed him from my body with an insane one-night stand. There’s nothing left of him but a few fading memories.
I’m free.
I sink onto the floor of my now empty room and search the internet for the biggest, most obnoxious cat tree I can find.
16
