Page 37 of Escaping Monsters

Chapter Thirteen

I leaned over an almost empty tank of gasoline, holding my breath. It looked like a large metal water tank perched behind the fire station. I went to my tiptoes and leaned over.

“Please don’t fall in,” Ace said through a yawn as he held the bottom of my ladder.

“Don’t worry. I’m a professional at this,” I lied, but I doubt he could tell with my nose coming out all stuffed as I plugged it. “Your gauge is off. This tank is almost empty.” The reading on the controls near the gas disbursement system had said that the tank was half full, but it was much closer to twenty percent.

I pushed the lid to the container closed and locked it with three sets of heavy-duty padlocks.

“Does anyone else have access to these locks?”

There had been some serious security around the gas tank nozzle as well.

“Magic town?” Ace said. “I wasn’t kidding when I said we have more thieves per capita than any other city on Earth, and the demons love gasoline. It’s one of the few things they’ll trade for.”

A strum of a guitar behind me almost had me toppling off the ladder, and I gasped and grabbed on. “Holy fuck.”

“You’re a bit jumpy,” a musical voice said, and I glanced back to see the all too handsome face of Chad Jameson. I remembered always thinking that the magazine covers airbrushed him and made the lighting just right. He couldn’t have looked that handsome in real life. But, in truth, they hadn’t done him justice. The real Chad Jameson was bolder and more magnetic than any magazine could capture.

He carried out a chair and set it down on the driveway, settling in it with his guitar on his lap. “I thought I’d give you guys some background music since no one in Grayhaven has a CD player.”

I nodded, deciding not to mention to him that most people outside of Grayhaven didn’t use CD players anymore either.

“So, Teagan…,” Chad leaned forward with his hands on the strings of his guitar, “Remember the other day when I told you that I couldn’t have sex with you yet?”

“You mean when you said that three minutes after I rejected your offer to go fuck in the firehouse? Yeah, I remember,” I said as I checked the locks on the tank.

“Well, I wanted to explain myself. I’m willing to give this mate thing a try, but there were just a few extremely unconventional sex positions I was curious about. Turns out, I don’t even like them, so the night was a waste.” He shrugged. “I guess you could say I purged my demons, and now I’m ready to give this mate thing a try to see if I like it.” He stuck his pick in his mouth, and his sultry gaze again melted away my clothing.

“Wow, thanks…” I stammered as I blinked slowly at him. “I’m honored, Chad, but I’m definitely not ready for that.”

“Maybe not yet, but I’m thinking you will be soon,” Chad said, and he started the intro for Silent Boy. Even though part of me wanted to grab Chad’s guitar and bash him upside the head with it, the familiar song hit me straight in my chest.

Fuck, this song meant so much to me back when I felt invisible. Ronnie had always been a loud party girl with a long string of boyfriends and best friends. She’d also been careless with those friends and when she lost them, they’d walk away from me too.

Silent Boy was about a high schooler who had too much anxiety to speak, and then his friends filtered away, abandoning him. Chad Jameson wrote it, and I’d always imagined the man himself experienced the deep and complicated emotions of the song, but clearly it wasn’t autobiographical.

When I stepped down from the ladder, Ace gave me a look like he was doing everything in his power not to roll his eyes. “My cynical brain literally can’t handle this scene. Want to head inside?”

I smiled at him. “After this song?”

“Fuck…” Ace started to turn away when he froze, staring down the driveway at a familiar fluffy cat. The moment I stepped down from the ladder, the cat wound around my ankles.

Ace crouched down. “I have never seen a cat willingly touch a werewolf?”

“I think it’s the familiar of the witch from Cat’s24-Hour Drugstore. He keeps finding me.”

“This isn’t some feral cat that a witch took in. Skogkatts are Norwegian forest cats. You can tell from their glossy and coarse topcoat and their thick undercoat along with its size and the pattern of its fur. This specific animal is associated with the goddess Freyja who’s the goddess of luck, chance, and destiny. Her cats are said to be able to see the future and shape destiny. I doubt that’s anyone’s familiar,” Ace held a hand out toward the cat, which immediately made the animal hiss and sit on my feet. “There are animals that witches use to perform magic, and then there are magical animals. Magical animals only appear to people their deity favors. Did you come across any extremely imposing blonde women lately?”

“Could she be in disguise as a black-haired chick with a bullnose ring? This guy here lives under her register. However, I know for a fact that woman hates me,” I said.

“That would be Morgana, the witch,” Chad sang, as he continued to strum.

“If you can enter Morgana’s store, she likes you,” Ace stated it as a fact. “Those she doesn’t like get flung away from the store if they even get close. But Morgana is not the goddess Freyja. Freyja is also the Goddess of Love and Fertility, and Morgana powers her drugstore on death magic. Were you especially kind to any cats?”

“I did give a stray cat my last can of tuna as I was walking into town,” I said.

Ace nodded. “There you go.”