Getty rubbed his chest, wondering why his thoughts had taken such a depressing turn. He’d been okay with not seeing Donnchadh again, yet he suddenly felt like balling his eyes out at the prospect of never seeing him again.
“Looking for a good time, sweetheart?”
Fuck. The drunk was following him. He might not have been good-looking, but the guy was well built and, even drunk, could probably overpower Getty.
He ignored the stranger and picked up his pace, even crossing the street. It was time to walk his ass home. Getty should’ve never wandered this damn far.
For someone who was inebriated, the guy was able to keep pace. It was possible he wasn’t drunk, just some perv hanging around a bar to hit on whoever came out, too wasted to realize this guy was bad news.
“Where’re you running off to?” the guy asked. “I just wanna talk.”
“I highly doubt that.” Shit. Getty shouldn’t have said anything. He was only encouraging a conversation that he was desperate not to have.
He slipped his phone out, wondering if he should call Donnchadh or the cops. Would the cops get there fast enough before the jerk tried something? Would Donnchadh even care about Getty’s situation enough to get out of bed and help?
He decided to call the cops. Harassment was a crime, and even though the stranger hadn’t actually done anything, Getty wanted to keep it that way.
“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”
“I need the cops,” Getty said.
The stranger knocked the phone out of his hand. “Try to be nice to humans and this is what happens. Did you seriously just call the cops on me?”
Getty didn’t answer him. He took off running, knees to chest, while wishing he worked out more. Immediately his lungs and muscles started to burn, but he wasn’t going to stop until he was safely home.
Or the guy stopped chasing him, because, fuck, the pervert was fast, right on Getty’s heels. He tried to scream, but he was already overexerting his lungs and couldn’t catch his breath long enough to shout.
The stranger gripped him around the waist and lifted Getty off his feet.
“Help! Help me!” Getty swung his arms and legs, trying to kick or elbow the guy.
“Just remember. You brought this on yourself.”
Getty reached around and shoved at the stranger’s head. It looked as if the guy was trying to bite him. He had long canines that terrified Getty. He had an urge to squeeze his eyes shut but forced them to remain open as he fought to get free.
Getty was nauseous and faint and felt like he was gonna die if this bastard bit him with those deadly teeth. He smelled the guy’s rotten breath. His touch was hard, biting and bruising. Getty heard a low, menacing snarl in the back of the guy’s throat.
Then Getty was falling to the ground, hitting his knees on the concrete. Pain shot up his legs as he rolled and pushed to his feet.
Donnchadh.
His one-night stand had the pervert by the neck, yanking him back as another guy Getty didn’t know or recognize, held a blade high in the air.
The pervert deserved jail time, but not death. “Wait!”
The blade moved swiftly through the air. It struck the attacker in his head, just behind his ear. Getty was going to throw up. He’d never seen anyone killed and could’ve gone his entire life without that image now burned into his brain.
Donnchadh was a killer.
Getty had slept with a killer.
A strange, high-pitched noise ripped from Getty’s throat when the attacker exploded into dust.
What. The. Fuck?
Getty tried to make sense of what had happened, tried to wrap his brain around the fact that someone had just exploded into dust, but it all seemed so freaking unreal.
Donnchadh charged toward Getty and grabbed his upper arms. “Did he bite you?”
Getty was in a daze. His mind was breaking down.
“Did he bite you?” Donnchadh shook him. “Damn it, Getty. Answer me!”
“No.” Getty’s head started moving back and forth on autopilot.
“I think he’s broken,” the stranger with Donnchadh said. “Try slapping him around. It works in movies.”
“I-I think I w-wanna go h-home now.” Getty blinked several times, trying to focus, but he was too blown away by what he’d just seen. How did a person explode into dust? What otherworldly plane was he on?
“I’ll take you,” Donnchadh said, and Getty didn’t argue. He felt as if his knees would give out at any second.
But on a happy note, he no longer felt depressed, as if all the joy in his life hadn’t been sucked out of him.
Nope. He wasn’t depressed. Just going insane.
Numbly, he walked home, afraid the pervert would somehow magically put himself back together and come after him again. The night no longer felt peaceful.
No longer felt safe.
The quaint little town of Maple Grove felt ominous, like it was harboring dark secrets with claws that were trying to reach for him and pull him under.
“Wait outside and keep an eye on things,” Donnchadh said, making Getty realize they were standing on his front porch. He let them in and went straight to his bedroom, unlocking his door, uncaring that his dad might see Donnchadh in the house.
Getty had other things on his mind.
Disastrous things.
Impossible things.
“You’re in shock,” Donnchadh said as he closed the bedroom door. “That’s natural.”
“Natural?” Getty snapped out of his stupor. “What was natural about what just happened?”
Fuck. He was shouting. Getty didn’t want to wake his father or Bimbo. He really did need to remember her name. But that wasn’t important right now.
His sanity was.
He was losing it at a fast rate, so fast that when he tried to sit on his bed, he missed and would’ve hit the floor if Donnchadh hadn’t caught him.
“Steady.” Donnchadh helped Getty sit on the bed. “I need you to breathe, Getty.”
“What the hell is going on?” his father shouted from somewhere in the house. Getty froze, his gaze shooting to the door.
“You have to go,” Getty whispered. “He can’t find you here.”
It was a sad thing when Getty had to hide someone in his own damn house. But he was already mind fucked. Getty didn’t want to get into it with his dad.
“Why?” Donnchadh asked. “I thought he lived with you, not the other way around. What’s he gonna do if he sees me here?”
Getty didn’t want to find out. “Out the window, now!”
Donnchadh made a growling noise in the back of his throat. “This time. I’ll do what you ask this time, Getty.”
But Donnchadh didn’t use the window.
He simply vanished, as if he’d moved so fast that he was unseen by the naked eye.
Getty’s eyes rolled back as he fainted.
* * * *
It was close to noon when Getty stuck his head out the front door, making sure no perverts were lingering on his front porch.
Perverts who exploded into dust.
Perverts with sharp teeth that wanted to bite him.
Getty tried to tell himself it had all been a bad dream, but he knew it hadn’t been. He could still feel his attacker breathing down his neck, still smell his rancid breath, and still felt rough fingers digging into his skin.