Someone knocked on the front door, and a sharp pain dug its way down my spine. I couldn’t help but feel like the moment that door opened, something would come in that needed to remain locked away. I could feel some kind of aura radiating from the other side of the door, and there was only one explanation for that. 

The cubbi followed me home. There was no doubt about it. Who else would knock on my door at around eleven at night? No one was that insane to expect someone to be awake at around that time. The only explanation left was the cubbi. 

Harmony stood up, turned the television off, and pulled on a skirt. She hid her tail just underneath it and went to answer the door, but I shot her a look. She froze and looked at me like I was imagining things, but I couldn’t help but feel that way. Did she not feel it also? She’s a cubbi, so she has to know about the danger behind that door. 

She ignored my desperate pleas and moved toward the door. She grabbed onto the knob, and I reached my hand out and screamed. 

“Don’t open that door!” 

I failed to warn her in time. She opened the door, and true terror was let into my home. 

“Hello there!” 

A large man in a trench coat stood in my doorway. A bright smile stretched from ear to ear, and just behind him was a familiar-looking redhead. I immediately calmed down, thankful that my overactive imagination proved itself to be wrong. However, Harmony’s face twisted into one much more frightening. 

“Richie? Jessica? What are you doing here?”

The man, Richie, widened his eyes as soon as he registered who was at the door. 

“Oh, is that you Harmony? I haven’t seen you since that little contest of ours at the bar. How’ve you been?” 

“Fine. I’ve been fine.” Harmony took a deep breath and moved out of the way. “You two can come in.”

Richie stepped in first and Jessica trailed after. Jessica looked as if she would rather be anywhere else except here. There was a hint of irritation with every twitch of her brow, and even when she sat on the couch her knee bounced repeatedly up and down. 

Harmony closed the door and sat back in the seat she was in before. With everyone sitting down, we could get to business discussing why in the everloving hell they showed up at my house at midnight. Richie looked at me with that grin of his, and my tongue caught in my throat before I could start going off on them. 

“So you’re that Ty I’ve heard about,” Richie said. I pointed to myself, utterly confused. “Yeah, you. When Jessica and I were paired together, she couldn’t stop talking about how she wanted to knock your lights out.”

That sounded like her alright, but she had told me that she moved past the situation thanks to therapy. How many more lies was I going to have to go through before I could settle on the truth?

“Why is it you’re paying us a visit this late, anyways?” I asked. Out of the corner of my eye, Harmony latched onto the arms of the chair she sat on. I didn’t understand why she was getting so tense, but I decided to ignore it for the moment. 

“Well it’s because of this missy here,” Richie pointed his thumb at Jessica. She tried to say her piece, but Richie spoke before she could. “I think it’s time for her to get a break. Just moments ago, she randomly walked out of the base and couldn’t remember why. When I asked her how much sleep she’s been getting, she wouldn’t give me an answer, so I just assumed it’s been some time.”

Jessica gritted her teeth and clutched at her knees. Her face reddened in embarrassment and I couldn’t help but chuckle at her incompetence. It was strange being on the other side of the coin, but I could get used to it. 

“Just for your information, I had some rest last night.” Jessica piped up. 

“For how long?” Richie asked.

She didn’t even have a retort for him. She just kept her mouth shut and pouted, turning her head so he couldn’t look into her rage-filled eyes. I didn’t understand what had gotten her panties in a twitch, and I was sure this Richie guy had the answers. The question was, should I wait for him to get to it, or should I have just asked.

“Getting back on track,” Richie said, answering the question for me. “Could you let her stay here for about a week?”

Richie waited for my response, but I couldn’t respond with any answer. I was sure I had water in my ears, cause there was no way I heard him right. 

“Can you repeat that?” I asked.

“It comes down to this,” he began explaining. “If I let her stay at her home, she’ll just get back to doing work. She’s already been given a week's paid vacation upon my request and her behavior, and I want to make sure she enjoys it. If she stays home, she’ll just go into her office and get straight back to work. Have you seen it? She has a whole pinboard hanging behind her desk with thread and pins sticking to it like those B-list mystery movies.”

Jessica growled in response. I could easily imagine her just standing in front of the board, a finger to her chin, as she gazed at all the nonexistent evidence she obtained over the course of the investigation. Then there would be something she’d look at, and she’d hit a eureka moment where she realized she overlooked one piece of evidence that at the time was small in comparison to everything else. And it turned out that a small piece of evidence led them to the murderer.

“I want her to stay here so you can watch over her. Keep her from working for the time being. Let her relax for a bit.”

Jessica slammed her fist on her knees. Everyone looked at her, and she scowled at everyone in the room. 

“I can’t take a break. If I’m here for a week, then there will be two more murders in the time while I’m ‘relaxing’. If I’m not there for it, then how can we catch the murderer?”

“How can you catch a murderer when you can barely keep your eyes open?” Richie asked. Jessica raised a protest, but I had to admit, he was in the right there.

“I can catch the murderer by doing what I’ve been doing this whole time. We’re nearly there. I caught them trying to kill Thomas! I was so fucking close.”

That information took me back. I thought Talia was the murderer, but if what Jessica said was true, then it couldn’t be her. Yeah, she had super speed, but there wasn’t a smidge of blood on her anywhere. Not only that, but Talia seemed completely sane in the head. If the three-day intervals between corpses were right, and there was a murder just earlier in the day, then why was Thomas attacked.

Jessica took him in for questioning, so I wondered if he had any knowledge about the murders. Maybe they were going to kill him before he snitched? 

“But did you catch them,” Richie retorted. “They made a break for it despite you having a gun in hand. You're tired, and it’s keeping you from doing your job.” Richie looked at me. “I’ll pay you if you want money. Just let her stay here so she can get some rest.”

He dug into a pocket from his trench coat and pulled out his wallet. It lay limp beside him, and he directed my eyesight toward it by waving it around. I could have definitely used the money. It would take some time for me to finish up my newest novel, and the rent money I got from Harmony let me just barely scrape by. That and my previous earnings and brief paychecks from the few people still buying my books helped me keep the uptake in payment. A couple hundred would help here and there.

I turned toward Harmony, and she shot a glare at me. Her eyes read like a screenplay, and they screamed the word “No” in capital letters. I looked at Jessica, and even though there was irritation in her features, I couldn’t help but feel like she wouldn’t mind staying at my home for at least a week. Admittedly, I wasn’t the best at reading people, but when they wore their emotions on their shoulders, it was hard to be oblivious to their feelings.

Bruised bags stretched under her eyes. Even if she did sleep now and again, proper rest wouldn’t let her eyes get to such a condition. If I didn’t know Jessica as well as I did, I would’ve assumed those bloodshot eyes of hers appeared after taking multiple drugs. That’s just how stained red her eyes were.

What the fuck did you do?

Those screams of hers haunted my ears. As much as I wanted to run from that terrible day, it lessened the distance significantly. With every step of my feet, it would take two steps. Three steps. Six. I could hear Jessica’s desperate screams from way back when my anger and irresponsibility destroyed both of our lives for a good long while. She took her first steps into hell back then, and I was the one that dragged her in.

Jessica was tired, and the least I could do was stand by her when she needed someone. She may not like it that much, but I promised myself by the time the week ended, she’d be well-rested for another month of trial. 

“Fine,” I said. “I don’t need your money. As long as it’s just a week, she can stay.”

Harmony groaned and Jessica shrugged. Richie smiled and held out his hand. I grabbed it and we shook on our deal that I may one day come to regret. He let go and I felt something in my palm. I checked what it was, and found a slip of paper with a phone number on it.

“Thanks, man. I knew I could count on you.” Richie stood and approached the door. Before he left, he took one look at Jessica, this time without a smile. “If I see or hear that you’re back home, I’ll convince the chief to assign someone else to the case. You’ve been working yourself to the bone. I’ll take care of things for now. Meanwhile, just get some rest.”

He opened the door and tossed a suitcase inside that's been laying against the door since they arrived. Giving us one last grin, he shut the door, and his footsteps echoed from the porch. 

Two women were inside my house, and I couldn’t get a boner. What amazing timing.

***

“You’ll be sleeping in here for your week-long stay at Casa Del Peon.” 

After I finished eating, we began making sleeping arrangements. Everything happened fairly last minute but that was inevitable considering that they showed up at around midnight. The plan we came down to was that Jessica would stay in Harmony’s bedroom, and Harmony would sleep in my room. It’s not like it was the first time Harmony and I slept together, so it was a fairly simple arrangement.

However, there were some complaints about it, though neither came from me.

“Are you sure she should sleep next to you,” Jessica brought up. “Won’t she just suck you dry in your sleep?”

“I don’t want her messing with any of my stuff,” Harmony complained. “I don’t want anyone besides me sleeping in that bed.”

I sighed deeply at my misfortune. I’ve heard of stories where roommates couldn’t get along, leading to long-term hatred, but Harmony and I never had to deal with that. There was no way I could deal with those two if they decided to quarrel, so I wanted to nip that in the bud straight away before things progressed into hair-pulling territory.

“Jessica, Harmony can suck me dry whenever she wants. Harmony, if any of your stuff goes missing, I’ll buy you a replacement.”

They both looked as if they wanted to complain some more, but couldn’t find any other reasons for the moment. I was sure they’d find more reasons in the morning, but we were all too tired to keep the farce going. 

Harmony was the first to break the argument. She said she’d be in my room, then disappeared. Jessica and I stood at the room door, and we couldn’t even look at each other properly.

“I’m serious when I say that. How can you have a demon sleep right next to you? Aren’t you afraid of ending up in the news as another victim?”

I scratched the back of my head and groaned. “You really know nothing, do you?” Jessica stared daggers at me, but I wasn’t intimidated in the least by it. “I may not know much about the cubbi situation myself, but I do know they’re not anywhere close to demons.”

“Both you and I saw it though. The way she killed that woman while we were trapped in the basement. I let her go cause she did save us in the end, but she broke your arm right after that. All the while showing no emotion. How can you be so calm?”

It didn’t take a genius to understand where she was coming from. In some regards, I could agree with her. I’ve just found out that Harmony’s been lying to me about a lot of things just hours ago, and I couldn’t tell what was real or fake anymore. She said she didn’t have a sister, but she and that other succubus looked very similar. Unless it was a case of doppelgangers, I bet she was lying to me. 

But I still felt like I could trust her, though not in the truth-telling department. I could at least trust that she and I would have each other’s backs in the worst moments of our lives, and that’s all I needed to know. 

“I’m calm because there’s no reason to freak out,” I told her exactly how I felt. “Just get some sleep. You deserve it after everything you’ve been through.”

I said my final piece and left for my room. Shutting my bedroom door, the last I saw of her was the face of someone seconds away from collapsing on spot. It didn’t matter much to me, cause at least she’d get her sleep one way or another.

Harmony laid on my bed, her back facing toward the door. I couldn’t see her face since she buried it into my pillows, but I didn’t have to guess what she was feeling. People who flaunt their emotional state are easy as hell to read, but they have the drawback of being fairly annoying. In this case, I couldn’t do anything to fix it cause the moment I sat on my bed, my eyes grew heavy. 

The moment I laid flat on my covers, my eyes closed.