BRIDGET WAS LOOKING DOWN AT her phone as she entered the mall through the front doors. Once inside and halfway across the main gallery, she pocketed the thing, figuring she’d do the rest with her eyes. The accuracy wasn’t fantastic, and she’d learned what she needed to know, as well as what, frankly, perplexed her.
Who met at a mall? She’d been assuming a motel (a seedy one, surely) all along. Even if Ian and his secret were having a non-sexual date, the mall — the mall in the Skin District — was hardly the classiest option. Ian was better than that. Even in college, when they’d been poor, he’d broken the bank to take Bridget to the best places he couldn’t afford.
There was a fleeting moment of desperate optimism
(I guess that means he likes me better than her.)
And then it was gone.
Bridget looked into the mall. Her Zen pill had taken most of the edge off her emotions, but she could still sense a stew brewing below the surface: nervousness, sadness, anger, betrayal, definitely paranoia after she’d seen that sedan and minivan with the blacked-out windows. But she’d lost the last, and the rest was circling her mind like a plane awaiting the runway.
Of course, she might be wrong about all of this. She didn’t know what she’d find here; it was even possible he’d gone shopping for something to give his adored wife. But Bridget had never been a fool, and when something smelled like shit, it was usually shit.
She paced self-consciously through the open space, wondering where to begin. She felt out of place, overdressed, maybe even a bit delicious in front of all these necrotics.
They’re just people. Same as the bag boy at the supermarket. Same as Terri’s cousin Jack. Same as those three people in your book club. Same as, honestly, a quarter of the population.
But they were everywhere. Everywhere.
Bridget kept a neutral, somewhat friendly expression on her face and crossed the floor. She had no idea where to find Ian because he could be anywhere.
And then she saw him.
Right in the middle of the open, near the food court.
Beside a tall, thin woman with short blonde hair.
Pressed close to her, body to body, his face against hers.
Something broke inside Bridget. She’d known this was coming. She’d known for days, maybe weeks. She’d come here to confront him and get proof in her own mind, not to find out. But still, seeing it hurt worse than she’d been able to imagine.
Ian was hers. Hers.
They’d been together for fourteen years. They had a daughter. They had a home. They played board games, went for walks in the park, had made love countless times. He’d tallied the freckles on her chest, shared things with her he’d never shared with anyone. Almost literally. Ian had only been with three women before her, and she’d told him she’d been with none. It wasn’t true, but she’d said it on impulse and had never been able to take it back.
Maybe this was payback for lying.
Bridget felt her eyes wanting to tear up, but a clanging from behind distracted her. She turned to see three men in suits. The men from the car and the van’s driver, probably, not lost after all.
They’d just come through a set of utility doors and were looking right at her. They had something with them: three tall forms, covered in six-foot-tall cloaks, somehow restrained, held back, still invisible to the mall at large.
Across the space, Bridget heard Ian shout. She looked over and saw him with a phone pressed to his ear, the woman pointing right at her, maybe preparing to laugh at all of this infidelity and Bridget’s general stupidity.
But Ian didn’t look amused, or aroused. His eyes were saucers. Something changed in both of their stares, and Bridget knew that whatever they were looking at now, it was behind her.
Jesus Christ.
It all came together with the force of a punch. Bridget spun in time to see the men duck back through the doors with the pulled-away cloaks, three feral necrotics charging toward her.