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Tarin thought that she was better company than his clients, did he? Normally she would agree with that. Normally these visits to the shop went very differently than this.

"I'm not sure that's true today," Lee said, smiling slightly as Tarin took her hand. Because this really wasn't anything like their normal meet ups during the day.

But Tarin didn't need to do anything else before they left. "We might as well go, then," Lee said with a slight nod. The sooner they left and the faster she finished her stuff, the fewer clients Tarin was going to have to cancel that day.

Turning to the door, still holding Tarin's hand, Lee shrugged. "Like Kevin's said before, it's really not that interesting or exciting," she explained as they made their way out of the shop. "Mostly inventory, payroll, and reconciling the money. Though, I do need to put a liquor order in for the weekend. You might be interested in how much alcohol I keep on hand for a normal weekend."

Tarin didn't say anything when she explained that what she needed to do at the bar would take a while. He didn't say anything, just simply moved his arms from around her.

And immediately pulled his phone out.

As she watched, Tarin tapped away on his phone. Then told her that he now had the next few hours free. Tarin had just actually cancelled appointments without hesitation so that he could walk her to the bar. Even though she had only felt that the adapted was outside of their building.

But that didn't mean the adapted wasn't following, just further away, the catastrophic worrying part of her mind reminded her.

"Thank you, Tarin," Lee said. Part of her felt that it was ridiculous that she needed to have him walk with her. But at the same time, knowing that he was going to be with her, Lee felt much more comfortable and safe about going back out onto the street.

"Should we go now? Or is there something you need to do here first?"

Lee had no doubts that Tarin would do better. That was not even a question in Lee's mind. When he had made mistakes in the past, or done something Lee hadn't liked, that had been it. Tarin hadn't done it again.

"Not the only one," Lee said with a slight shake of her head. "It is a good idea. I think it's just the idea of being watched on top of everything else right now."

It was his job to watch her. Now that part Lee liked.

Lee took a breath as she looked up at Tarin. "I'll feel better once we future out who this is and what they want," she told him. "I would feel better with it being them, though."

Tarin said that she didn't have to explain. Lee simply nodded against his shoulder. Maybe she didn't have to explain, but it was still something that she had needed to do. Something that she didn't think she would be able to stop herself from doing anytime she knew that an adapted was near.

Tarin also acknowledged he knew she wasn't used to feeling like she was then. But this, now, went far beyond simply being scared. Lee had been scared so many times in her life. She had been scared the day of the building collapse that Tarin had been hurt, or worse. Terrified after she'd found him and he said not to touch him. Scared and worried about what her powers were doing to Kevin through most of her pregnancy and his first few years. Terrified during the Registration Act.

This went beyond any of that. Lee felt scared and helpless. She knew what she was capable of in terms of her powers and to protect herself. But with an adapted, none of that mattered.

Lee tensed slightly in Tarin's arms when he continued speaking. He didn't want her to go out on her own anymore? Normally, the suggestion that she couldn't take care of herself, that she didn't know what she was doing, that she shouldn't be allowed to make her own decisions about what she did and where she went would be met with at least some anger and defiance.

A moment later, though, the tension left Lee's body and she nodded against Tarin's shoulder again. If this was Anton and she just hadn't seen him, or it was another adapted with a similar goal, Lee couldn't take care of herself. "Alright, I won't," Lee agreed.

After a few moments, Lee took a breath and started speaking again. "It's not just that I can't siphon," she explained. "I could have enough energy that I would be awake for a week. I can still feel all of that energy in me, but the moment I enter the field, I can't use any of it…"

When Tarin spoke, Lee just looked up at him at first. Why hadn't she told him sooner? So he didn't think that she was worrying excessively over something that was probably nothing?

Lee squeezed Tarin's hand as he went on to ask more questions. And then he went on to say that she had every right to worry about this. Closing the last little distance between them, wrapping her arms around Tarin as she laid her head against his shoulder. "I was trying to tell myself it was nothing at first," she explained. "We're bound to run across adapteds sometimes. I tend to head to the bar at around the same time most days, so when it happened Tuesday, I told myself I must be just crossing paths with them with their daily routine."

"So I left a bit earlier yesterday," Lee continued quietly, leaning into Tarin. "I'm not in the field long. It was really unnerving that it happened again, but I was trying to not worry. Then today, I left a good half hour later than normal, and was still in whoever's field outside the building."

Lee stopped speaking and slowed her eyes as she took a slightly shaky breath. "It's not him," she whispered after a few moments. "I've looked and haven't seen him. But…"

It didn't take long for Lee to get a reply back from Tarin. It rarely did unless he was literally right in the middle of a session. And while the quick response wasn't surprising, the fact that Tarin did have time, and right then at that, was a little. He had been quite busy at the shop recently, which was both a good and bad thing, Lee knew.

Still, Lee was very glad that he had some space in his schedule that day.



Tucking her phone away again, and quickly made her way to the shop. She was still siphoning, so that told her that whoever the adapted was, they weren't close to her. But she still glanced over her shoulder every so often, actually worried for one of the few times since she had first moved to New York that she was being followed.

The problem was, Lee wasn't sure if there was actually some reason for her to think that, or if this was all just her worrying getting out of hand.

It didn't take long at all for Lee to reach the shop, the apartment wasn't that far, and as she pulled the door open Lee took the opportunity to look back the way she had come once more.

As she finally set foot inside the shop, Lee felt herself relax slightly, actually feeling safer now than when she had still been on the street.

The door now closing behind her, Lee turned and have Tarin a small smile.

After all of the craziness with the mystic and ankh at the end of the summer, life had finally settled into a nice, normal routine. Morning runs with Tarin, a bit of work for the bar, and volunteering through Haven a couple days a week.

Then there was Kevin at the mansion. Lee had been going to visit Kevin on a regular basis, sometimes on her own and sometimes with Tarin. And Lee had made the trip back and forth with Kevin a few times so he was comfortable with the subway to come home on his own.

At least things had been in a nice, comfortable routine until that week. On Monday, Lee had left the apartment to head to the bar, she had found herself in an adapted's field.

It had definitely set Lee off balance for a while, but with how many people there were in New York City, running across a random adapted here and there was bound to happen occasionally.

Except that it also happened when she came out of the building on Tuesday. And Wednesday. She had looked around the people on the street each day and didn't recognize anyone, which was a relief. But she also hadn't been able to figure out who it was that might have been the adapted.

And then it happened again on Thursday.

Occasionally, Lee could brush off as random happenings, but this had now happened four days in a row, in the same place. That wasn't just random happenings or coincidences anymore. This was becoming a pattern, and Lee was really starting to worry.

The only thing that had kept panic at bay is that not once had she caught a glimpse of someone that might have been Anton.

As Lee quickly strode down the street, she pulled her phone out on Thursday morning, breathing a sigh of relief as she felt her siphoning start again, and shot off a quick text.