“Bring back more eggs,” she said, and went back to her diary.
“You got it,” I said, and slid my legs out through the open window. My backpack was a mostly-empty weight against my lower back. After a quick, perfunctory glance to make sure I wasn’t about to become a new YouTube sensation, I let go of the frame, and I fell.
There’s something gloriously exhilarating about that moment where the body lets go and gravity takes over. It can be easy to forget how much effort goes into every movement the body makes. Even sitting still requires the muscles in your spine, thighs, and butt to work. But falling . . . falling can be a moment of perfect relaxation, at least until it’s time to start thinking about not hitting the ground.
I dropped about six feet, far enough to build some momentum, and more importantly, to carry me to the first-floor windows. I grabbed the top of the sill and used it to twist myself around to where I could catch hold of the rain gutter. It was gritty under my hands. Honestly, if someone wanted to find out which apartment was mine, all they’d have to do was look for the window next to the rain gutter that had been inexplicably wiped clean.
Bracing my feet to either side of the gutter, I slid the rest of the way to the street. I preferred to travel rooftop to rooftop whenever possible, but the Crier Apartments were too far from the surrounding buildings to let me do that without risk of major injury. I let go of the metal pipe, wiped my filthy palms against the seat of my pants, and started down the driveway toward the street.
There was a car parked midway down the drive. It flashed its headlights at me, twice. I was still wearing my wig, still the perfect picture of a dancer sneaking out for a late-night snack run: I composed my expression into one of vague curiosity and trotted over to the car.
The passenger side window rolled down when I got there. Brenna looked across the leather seats, expression solemn. “Get in,” she said. “I’ll give you a ride.”
I got in.
Brenna started the engine, rolling the window back up as she turned the car around. “Where are you heading?”
“You know the Be-Well Motel?” I unzipped my backpack and pulled out my wig bag. Then I reached up and peeled off my wig, tucking it into the bag before I started extricating bobby pins from my wig cap. My scalp itched like fire. I hadn’t been Valerie for such a long stretch in months: I was going to have to acclimate all over again. Swell.
“Pretty familiar,” she said. “Cheap as hell, you get what you pay for, rents by the hour, day, and week, and nobody asks any questions.”
“Exactly,” I said. The wig cap peeled away. I stuffed it into the backpack and began fluffing my sorely-abused hair. “I’m going there.”
“You have a perfectly nice bed that the producers are paying for, you know,” said Brenna. “Far be it from me to tell you how to spend your money, but . . .”
“But wasting money hurts your soul, even when the money isn’t yours, I know,” I said. “I’m not sleeping there. I’m meeting my husband there.”
“Husband? Really?” Brenna glanced at me, startled. “You mean the short, broody man you were with back at the theater? You married him?”
“Yes, I married him, not Valerie. Which is why he’s staying back and pretending to be Val’s boyfriend if anyone asks. He won’t be in the audience during the live show taping.”
“Why not?”
“Ex-Covenant.”
Brenna hit the brakes, slamming me forward. The seatbelt dug into my shoulder but kept me from going through the windshield, so I was willing to call it a win. I still yelped. I yelped again, this time in surprise rather than pain, when I turned and found Brenna staring at me, all wide eyes and impending rage.
“He’s what?!”
“He’s ex-Covenant,” I said. “He quit when he realized he’d rather have a live girlfriend than a dead trophy, and when he started to figure out that cryptids were people. He knows about William, Brenna. He was there when I found him.” When I’d been offered to him as a virgin sacrifice, technically, but I didn’t see any need to tell people that. “He didn’t tell the Covenant. He’s a good guy. He just can’t risk being caught on camera.”
“Of all the irresponsible, unreasonable, insane things you could have done, you—”
“Went and did exactly what my grandmother did, only without the ten years of pining, flirting, pining some more, drinking the cooking sherry, and trying to date other dudes?” I shrugged. “This seemed more efficient. And better for my liver.”
Brenna shook her head. “I take it back. I take it all back. You’re not the best of a bad lot, you’re as crazy as the rest of them.”