Oh, My Dragon (I Like Big Dragons 3)

Really, I didn’t.

I’d worked my ass off all day, and what did I have to show for it?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

No friends besides one who was a self-proclaimed workaholic and another who hated going out and doing anything, and that included spending time with me, unless she was between books.

A job that I hated.

I had nothing.

Except a dead body lying in the middle of the hallway leading to my apartment.

And a man leaning over that body.

I didn’t scream, though.

No, I did something stupid. I pulled out my phone and took a picture right when his head turned.

He tensed, and it was then that I did the only smart thing I’d done in all day.

I ran.

I’d never been more thankful in my life that I only wore tennis shoes everywhere I went.

The jeans were a hindrance since they were so tight, but they didn’t stop my legs from pumping or slowing me down.

Not with my heart beating ninety miles an hour and all that adrenaline coursing through my veins.

The soft curse of the male who’d been leaning over my neighbor’s dead body sounded from behind me and then his heavy footsteps ate up the distance.

I ran faster.

So fast, in fact, that I ran right out of my shoe.

I didn’t dare stop for it, though.

I kept going. Down the steps, out the door, and around the corner to the laundry room.

I made it through the door and got it shut and locked, eyes on the handle just in case he somehow had superpowers that made him able to open the lock without a key.

I bid him good luck. I wasn’t able to do it even with the key. Which was why the residents of the building had started leaving it open for that very reason.

I kept staring at it as I backed up towards the stairs that led inside the building.

I had just made it to the steps when I felt it.

A man’s—the man’s—steely arm circled my waist, pulling me back against his hard chest.

I opened my mouth to scream but found that my vocal cords didn’t work.

Mostly because the man’s hand had tightened around my throat, putting pressure there and letting me know that freaking out was not the way to go right then.

My body, however, didn’t get that memo.

Using my hands, feet, head and teeth, I started to thrash wildly.

My arms dug into the flesh of the man’s hands.

My feet started kicking at his shins.

And my head turned to the side so I could bury my teeth in his shoulder.

His other hand came up, though, and squeezed my jaw until I had no choice but to let go of him.

And once I was free, he held my head in place and spoke softly in my ear.

“I didn’t kill her,” he growled. “But the man who did is still here. He hasn’t left the building, so please shut the fuck up and be still.”

I froze, utterly and completely.

I also don’t know why I believed him, but I did.

The sureness in his voice, the complete truthfulness I could hear from that raspy dark tenor, had me believing him.

And I went limp in his arms, no longer fighting.

“Where?” I managed to squeak out.

My voice worked this time.

“I don’t know,” he whispered almost soundlessly. “But I need you to go into your apartment and not come out.”

I started to panic slightly.

“How do you know whomever it is isn’t in my apartment?” I asked wildly.

“Because I can see his trail,” he answered, pulling me back and confusing me all at once.

He started walking, me supported in his hands now, until he’d stepped over the lifeless body of my neighbor.

“Go.”

I went.

Straight to my apartment.

Where I then called the police.***Ian

“What happened?” the cop asked me.

I fought the urge to tell him ‘none of your fucking business.’ But only just barely.

Narrowing my eyes, I sent my stories into his subconscious, giving him the idea that I’d explained it all sufficiently.

The cop nodded.

“You can go. Please don’t step through the crime scene again. Use the emergency stairs.” He pointed to the hallway just to the side of the woman’s door.

Wink.

My hand burned where I’d touched her neck earlier, and I had to also battle the urge to knock on her apartment door and demand she come with me.

At least until the fucker who’d killed her neighbor was caught.

I had a nagging suspicion that this wouldn’t be the end of it. Whomever had killed Farrow’s girl had done so because he knew who Farrow was.

That’d been the only impressions I could get before Wink had interrupted me with terror in her eyes as she ran from the site of the murder victim.

My eyes went down to the body of the woman again, and I had to resist the urge to place my hands on her again.

See, dead people told stories.

Not too many, but some of the people on this Earth were sensitive to ghosts.