(FREE TO READ) Bad Moon

chapter 9; rosé

It was Tuesday. Two in the morning. Matt had promised his aid in the library's monthly cleaning. The one day a month when all work was to be put aside and a thorough scrubbing was expected of all library personnel. A custodian came in during the mornings, but only long enough to sweep the floors and dump the trash, so dust collected like a film on every book and magazine in the place. The day-shift crew had taken it upon themselves to handle the bathroom—and thank God for that. Just the stench of the lemon cleaner they'd left him had Jaylin's nose and stomach in strife.

Matt didn't help one bit, of course. He spun in the chair, texting and singing along to Camila Cabello and finishing off the last of Jaylin's soda. Then he left to meet a friend for late night fishing and Jaylin was alone with two floors to scrub and scour on his own. It was the price to be paid for a friendship with a lazy asshole like Matthew Richards.

The moment he'd left, Jaylin went to work with a bristle brush and that bottle of lemony chemicals. Music played from his computer speakers, but as he crawled on, the tune fell mum. In fact, Jaylin couldn't hear a sound beyond the scrubbing of his cleaning brush. So many aisles of books existed within this place that he was easily lost within the catacombs. The shelves farthest from the doors were the most neglected, and the deeper Jaylin crawled, the more it felt like a graveyard where lonely old scholars read themselves to dust and bones.

As he dug at a stain in the hardwood, Jaylin heard a thud in the distance. It was an undeniable sound—the crack of a heavy book hitting the floorboards. He stood warily to his feet and listened to the silence. Then another thud echoed from every expansive wall of the old hollow library. Jaylin spun to the sound and for a moment, he wore he saw a flash of white pass between the gaps in the bookcase. Heard the woosh of the breeze it left behind. His heart bucked in his chest.

The lights were dimmed at night and the control room required a key, so Jaylin relied on the glow from his phone to search the area. And as he crept onward, he saw nothing but flecks of dust, floating specks in the light of the nearby window. He pushed himself to his feet and wandered along the bookcase, clinging to the grimy wood. Between the gaps in the old worn novels, Jaylin watched another flash of white whip past. He clung to the case and sought his way like a blind man, breath quivering and wood creaking beneath his feet.

He couldn't see a thing. Whatever it was moved too fast. But he could hear a tac, tac, tac—the strummy sound Tisper's nails always made when she tapped them against the table at the café downtown. But it wasn't Tisper, rolling her expensive manicure impatiently on the table top; Jaylin was all alone here. Or maybe not so alone as he thought.

He didn't want to pursue the sounds. He really didn't want to, but it was his job to make sure no one disallowed entered the library after hours. So Jaylin followed the little noises, until eventually, they stopped altogether.

He searched the area with his eyes for a long while but Jaylin saw nothing beyond the crowded bookshelves. Then he heard a creak on the floorboards just behind him.

Jaylin turned and swung a fist. He felt the collision of knuckles to jaw before he heard the hiss of pain that followed.

When Jaylin recognized the face his fist had found, he clapped his hands over his mouth and gaped. Quentin Bronx stood before him, clutching his wounded jaw. He looked so different than he had at the party when he was peering over the banister like something royal. So different than the night he sat on the bathroom floor with French wine and eclairs. Tonight, he was somewhere in the middle. His hair was a shaggy black, hand-tussled mess and he wore sunglasses that hung from the neck of his shirt by their folded arms.

It's night, Jaylin wanted to say. Why did he had sunglasses at night?

Quentin was suffering through the pain, rubbing his jaw with half his face hidden away in his hand. "You've got a hook," he laughed.