Page 99 of Soft Flannel Hank

But this man had seen Esther. He was staring through the window at her and following her with his eyes. Just as they passed him, a wide, feral smile broke across his face.

“He knows. He saw me. Oh, fuck, Jory. He saw!”

Esther felt the sharp claws of a panic attack climbing the walls of her chest as her breath came in short, useless gasps.

“I can’t… I can’t…. You….” Esther couldn’t speak. Her breath was too out of control, her heart threatening to pound its way out of her chest.

“Esther,” she heard Jory say through the whooshing of the blood pulsing in her ears. “Esther!”

She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists.

“Oh, goddammit,” Jory cursed before pressing her right hand hard into Esther’s chest. “Breathe into my hand, Esther. Push your ribs into it.”

“I… can’t… I….”

“You’ve got to, Esther. Do it. In through your nose. Push my hand away with your ribs. Do it.”

Esther tried, feeling the firm pressure of Jory’s hands against her chest. She focused her attention on that feedback.

“That’s my girl. Another.”

Esther repeated it.

“Good. Yes. You’re doing it. Now I want you to exhale through your lips like you’re blowing out a birthday candle. But slow. Come on.”

Esther’s eyes were still closed, but she tried. She tried to slow her breath down as it streamed out through her pursed lips. She imagined blowing out ritual candles. Birthday candles. Blowing on apple crumble when it was too hot to eat.

“Yes. Keep going, Esther.”

Esther felt her breath settling into an easier space. Jory’s voice sounded clearer, like she was sitting nearby instead of talking to Esther from underwater. Esther lifted her hand and rested it over Jory’s.

“You have to take me to my car,” she managed to say. “I need to leave. I’m not ready. I don’t have a plan for dealing with them yet.”

“You’re coming to my place, and that’s final,” Jory said.

“No,” Esther said, feeling some of the panic trying to reignite. “He saw us. He could be following us. He could come to your house and hurt you trying to get to me.”

“Hurt me?”

“I’m serious, Jory.”

“I’m not human, Esther. You know that.”

“I know, but—”

“Esther. Let me help you. We’ll go to my house, and we’ll make a plan. I’m not without my own magic. He’s not going to get you as long as you’re with me. Okay?”

“But then you’ll be as trapped as I am. You won’t be able to leave because they could get you then.”

“I’d like to see them try,” Jory replied with a carnivorous grin.

Esther almost didn’t recognize her in that moment. She was still Jory, but yet… not. Her teeth looked sharper when she bared them like that. Her eyes had a feral quality as they flashed.Selkie.

As much as Jory could walk through the world in a human body, she was still a wild, demigod of a person. And if she had her sealskin, she would go back to what she’d been—a sleek, dark predator.

Esther wanted to see it. She wanted to see Jory in all of her magical, natural glory.

“But—”