Chapter One

      Dark glass shot out from Garrett Blackwell’s palms as he ran down the alley behind his apartment building. The college student from 4A screamed at the top of her lungs, grappling with the man in the black ski mask who held her by the throat. Garrett’s shards of glass struck true as they bloodied the assailant’s hands, giving the girl a quick second of release.

      “Run,” he yelled to her, but she was already sprinting down the narrow road without looking back.

      “You son of a bitch.” The girl’s attacker shook his bloody hands in front of him, splattering crimson against the brown brick walls.

      “Truer words were never spoken,” Garrett said.

      Drawing from the darkness around him and in the man opposite him, he mentally called up a long, double-edged blade into his right hand. A black tribal tattoo from his right biceps slithered down his arm, wrapped around his wrist, and pooled in his palm, materializing as a dagger. He readjusted his shoulders to soothe the crawling sensation as the tattoo did what he’d asked of it. The blade shone midnight-black in the dim light of the quarter moon above them.

      The perpetrator started to back away before Garrett had fully gripped the dagger. “Oh no, you’re not getting away that easily,” he said.

      Garrett launched himself toward the man, and felt a surge of satisfaction as the dagger sliced through the man’s arm. His blood slicked the blade and was absorbed into it within seconds. The man feinted to the right, then lunged to the left. They had reached the end of the alleyway, where bright streetlights gleamed against the night sky, chasing away the shadows that fueled Garrett’s power.

      A car came careening around the corner and glanced off the man in the tattered ski mask. He went down, but was back up faster than Garrett would have anticipated. He ran into the middle of the street, loping painfully and cradling his arm against his side.

      Before Garrett could follow him and finish this thing, the same car screeched to a halt and the man jumped in, shouting obscenities while the car zoomed off in a heartbeat.

      Leaning against the brick building, Garrett dragged in a deep breath and absorbed the dagger back into his body, his tattoos reforming around his biceps. Later, he would need to find the shards of glass he’d sent shooting into the assailant’s hands. He could live without them, but he didn’t like to leave pieces of himself lying around. There would be enough fallout from this brawl without the added complication of making a trip to Lissa for a new tat.

      He dug his fingers into the bricks, trying to ground himself so he could find the strength to fight the darkness swirling through his blood. His head swam with nausea and his knees almost gave out. Somehow he had to get back upstairs so he could detox. Right about now, he wished he could fly like the mythical Superman. He’d take Kryptonite over the purging any day.

      Each step was painful, though no one would be able to tell from his outward appearance. He might look slightly drunk to the casual observer, his dark hair tousled, his T-shirt untucked from his worn jeans, but that suited his purpose. Hopefully it would keep his neighbors from being too nosy.

      He made it to the third landing without coming across anyone. Staggering down the hallway, he only hoped he could make the last three steps without attracting notice.

      This was not his night, though, in more ways than one. He snapped to his full height a breath before 3A’s door opened.

      “Hey, Garrett,” his next-door neighbor said. “I’ve been working on a new recipe. Have you had dinner yet?”

      He stifled a groan, not knowing whether it was from the unwelcome promise of another meal cooked by someone who shouldn’t even have a kitchen, or from the pain coursing through his body as the darkness sank deeper into his cells.

      “Hi, Dory. Thanks for the offer, but I already ate.” The urge to bolt into his apartment was nearly overwhelming. But running from Dory was not going to do him any good. He’d realized the hard way that the more fodder you gave people for speculation, the more questions they tended to ask.

      “Well, I’ll just bring some over in a container then. I’ve been trying out some new spices and I think you’ll like it.”

      If only she knew how her wild concoctions never sat well with him. Maybe he was a bland-food kind of guy and she a woman of differing tastes. But after he’d eaten—or attempted to eat—the first meal she’d brought over, he hadn’t known how to turn down the many offers that followed.

      He laughed because she was expecting it. “Sounds like a crowd pleaser. But you don’t need to send any over, I have plenty of food in my refrigerator.”

      Her smile fell quickly into a frown. “You’ve liked everything else I’ve brought over, and this stew is supposed to freeze well. I bet you have plenty of room in your freezer.”

      Yeah, right next everything else she’d brought him over the past two months—things he couldn’t