It made no sense for me to have wanted him to notice me. It flew directly in the face of my rules of Tracker Jack, and was actually pretty stupid for any woman who wanted to keep a low profile. I’d never been someone who liked any sort of spotlight, and I considered the fact that I could blend in with most ethnic groups a point in my favor. My long, straight dark hair, brown eyes, and high cheekbones could be found scattered among Indigenous people of North and South America, as well as several Pacific islands and Southeast Asian countries. Guesses as to my ethnicity included those, plus Middle Eastern, Mongolian, and South Asian, and I rarely corrected anyone or admitted to my Northern Tutchone heritage. It required far more conversation than I generally wanted to have with people.
But there, in the bakery section of an overpriced market, in the midst of a game of Tracker Jack that only I knew I was playing, I was annoyed to realize just how invisible I was.
I slipped into a checkout line with my own baguette before Hipsterman had finished his shopping, and then lingered at a table, savoring bites of bread as I watched him flirt with the cashier. Her laughter at something he’d said was like nails on a chalkboard to me, and I tore off another bite of bread as an antidote to the annoyance. Their hands touched as Hipsterman reached for his plastic tote full of groceries, and I scoffed, inhaled a crumb, and nearly missed his departure in my fit of silent coughing. He was nearly at the door when I slipped in behind him to leave the store.
Hipsterman’s route took him up Milwaukee Avenue, the main restaurant and shopping street in Wicker Park. He paused to check out the window display at Volumes Book Café, and I caught a flash of red in the window of a hair salon when I turned to avoid his gaze. There were mirrors in the display, presumably to show passersby how desperately they needed the salon’s services, which was how I saw the redhat hunched into his coat across Milwaukee Avenue. The back of my neck itched at the sight of him. One of the redhats from the train? That seemed unlikely, but I had learned long ago to trust instinct. It was a survival tool that was just as valuable as a knife or fire, so I listened to it and hurried after Hipsterman as he turned down an alley between buildings.
When I rounded the corner, my Canada Goose–wearing quarry had disappeared, and I nearly halted in surprise at the empty passage. The itch at the back of my neck persisted though, so I kept moving forward, away from Milwaukee Avenue and whatever had disquieted me.
The sound of traffic behind me was dulled by the tall brick buildings on either side of the narrow alley. I glanced behind me. No one had followed me in, and the tension in my chest eased slightly, right until the moment I turned back around and almost collided with Hipsterman.
“Why are you following me?” he demanded sharply.
My shock instantly quieted to cold calm, and I took a wary step backward.
His hand shot out to grab my arm. “Answer me, damn it! What do you want?”
I twisted out of his grasp, and he looked stunned at how easily I’d done it. But then his eyes flicked over my shoulder and went wide with fear.
I spun, then grabbed the Canada Goose jacket to jerk Hipsterman away as a redhat lunged. Redhat held a fixed blade, and I instinctively kicked at his knife hand as I reached for my own blade, which I wore in a sheath at my back. He dodged my foot and swung to face off with me just as my knife hand came up. I knocked his red baseball cap off as I sliced him across the forehead—a clean, shallow cut, just like Grandpop had taught me. Blind them with their own blood, he’d said. It stings and barely leaves a mark, but head wounds are nasty bleeders.
Redhat jumped back, snarling in a foreign language as blood streamed into his eyes. He swiped an arm across his face to clear the blood, then zeroed in on the knife I held defensively in front of me. He sent a glance over my shoulder, grabbed his hat off the ground, turned, and ran.
Adrenaline shot through me, and my feet were moving before my brain had a chance to catch up. This redhat had been the invisible one from the train, but I reached Milwaukee Avenue and discovered that even with blood running down his face, he had melted back into the scenery.
I didn’t enjoy having been surprised, and I retreated back into the alley, now empty of both Hipsterman and Redhat, to wait out the adrenaline aftermath away from people. There was a doorway at the back of one of the Milwaukee Avenue–facing buildings, and I spotted Hipsterman’s grocery bag sitting there. I waited, wondering how long it would take him to come back for his steaks, but based on the fear I’d seen in his eyes, I figured he’d probably gone home to hide in the closet. The steaks would be eaten by rats if nobody claimed them, so after the adrenaline crash, I picked up the grocery bag and continued down the alley in the direction he had run.
The alley emptied out into a neighborhood full of condos and parking structures, and there were no Canada Geese in sight. I turned left and continued up to West North Avenue, eyes peeled for my hipsterman in every window, but I saw no one resembling him or Redhat anywhere.
Well, that was the most interesting game of Tracker Jack I’d played in a long time.
I dissected the incident in the alley as I walked home to my Humboldt Park rental. Hipsterman had definitely seen me in the market. His sliding glance had been too disinterested. I knew I could blend into the background. It was a skill I’d practiced every summer I spent hunting, and I’d turned that skill into an asset for my close-protection work. But I wasn’t invisible. Granted, I wasn’t one of the big bodyguards people hired to intimidate and terrify. I was young and female and decent-looking enough to be a friend, or sister, or girlfriend—someone who actually belonged by the client’s side. Hiding in plain sight meant I was seen but never really noticed, and that was why my invisibility to Hipsterman had bothered me so much.
It definitely wasn’t because I’d wanted him to notice me.
His brand of pretty wasn’t my type. His easy, charming smile at passersby definitely wasn’t appealing to me. And flirting with every woman in range was so far off my list of desirable traits it might have been written in smoke.
I was two blocks from my destination and lost in uncomfortable thoughts when I heard the car. It was coming too fast for the yellow light above me, and my hands were already reaching for the woman in front of me at the curb. I grabbed her coat and yanked her backward as the car slid around the corner.
“Hey!” she said, and I couldn’t tell if she was protesting the bumper’s near miss or my grab.
“You okay?” I asked the woman. She wore smoky black eye makeup the way tutorials have never been able to teach me, and her long, straight hair was hot pink. The t-shirt she wore proclaimed “Feminist as f*ck,” and it made me smile because my friend Anna had one just like it.
“Bloody hell,” she said, tossing her head toward the departed car. Then she turned to me and stuck her hand out. “Thank you.” She looked at me another second. “I’ve seen you walking here before. I’m Lynn.”
“Dallas,” I said as I shook her hand. I’d seen her too. The hair was unmistakable. “Nice shirt.”
Her smile grew wider. “Nice reflexes.”
The light changed and we crossed the street. When we got to the other side, Lynn turned right with a wave. “I owe you a save someday,” she said as her bright pink hair bobbed away.
“No worries, it’s my job,” I said quietly, mostly to myself, as I continued on my way.