“Why did you decide to come here?” He took a few steps closer to her, closing the distance that had been created when he’d lost his temper, but stopped when he saw her chest rise and fall more rapidly. He didn’t want her terrified to the point she’d hyperventilate. He wanted answers now, not in a half an hour after he’d gone to the trouble of reviving her from a spell of nerves.
“Because I didn’t want to work for him or be near that man and I didn’t know where else to go. You were the closest name on the list I knew I could get to.”
“Closest to where? Where is he?” Lars asked, thinking maybe they’d finally found a lead on the slippery eel’s location. They’d tracked Malokin down many times to always get there just as the dust was settling from his departure.
He could see her struggling to remember and then a thought triggering an action. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a piece of paper and looked at it quickly. “The Breakwaters,” she said as she handed it to him, the name and address of the hotel stamped on top, his shop’s address and his name scribbled in messy handwriting below, as if she’d been in a hurry.
He pocketed the piece of paper. “You’re lying. He hasn’t been at that location for a week.” Lars knew that for certain. He and the guys had busted into the room he’d used four days ago. It was the closest they’d gotten to him thus far.
She looked down at the floor as if she were trying to figure something out. “I guess it was a week ago.” Her eyes glanced over at one of the mirrors hanging on the tattoo shop’s wall that was framed by pictures of people’s tattoos. She raised her hand up and tried to smooth down her disheveled hair some. She certainly looked like she could’ve been roaming around for a week and he started having doubts again.
“What were you doing if you left him a week ago?” he asked. He looked at her as his mind bounced between the possibilities, not feeling comfortable with either verdict.
“I was traveling through the woods to avoid being seen and then I got sick.”
“You weren’t sick. You’re dead. You can’t get sick now, only hurt. When he recruited you, didn’t he bother explaining any of this?” he asked, the contempt leaking out in his voice. Not only was he getting Malokin’s mess but now he had to school her, too?
She stopped fidgeting and straightened. “He might have if I’d stayed longer. And I assure you, I was sick.”
Looked like she had a temper lurking under the nervous act.
“You weren’t sick,” he repeated sternly. “You were transitioning.” And if she was telling the truth, sick was an understatement. He’d seen humans transition. The process looked closer to torture than a case of the flu. It wasn’t pretty, and to have to do it by yourself, all alone out in the elements? He thought back to the wet weather they’d been having but then shook off the feelings of pity. It was probably a bullshit story anyway. Although her appearance made a little more sense if she’d gone through it by herself out there.
“Transitioning?” she asked.
“From mortal to what you are now, one of us.”
“One of you?” she asked.
She looked like she really had no clue. “Don’t change the subject. If he recruited you, why’d you leave?”
“I couldn’t stay there with him. He was doing…” She started shaking her head as if she wanted to mentally rid herself of whatever she’d seen.
“What? He was doing what?”
“He had people, and he was doing horrible things to them. There was nothing I could do for them.”
Her face told him everything he needed. Torture. Nothing surprising there. He’d get more information on that later but let it drop for now. She was a scattered mess as it was. He could get the details after he got the more important information. “How did you get away?”
She looked surprised at the question. “I just left. I guess he figured I wouldn’t.”
He leaned a hand on the counter beside him. “So, you’re telling me you just walked out?”
“Yes.”
He turned and took a couple of steps away from her as he digested the whole story. It was so unbelievable that it almost became plausible again. If Malokin had coached her, given her a story to tell him, this one was idiotic or brilliant, because he had no idea what to think anymore.
But he knew she was scared. He could smell it on her, hear it in the fluttering of her rapid heartbeat. At least that part was something he could be confident of. You can’t fake scared. Pheromones didn’t lie. Still, the idea of Malokin going to the bother of recruiting someone and then simply letting them have enough freedom to get up and walk out that easily made his suspicions rise up and stay there.
“Go over there and sit.” He pointed to the free chair he used when he tattooed. She hesitated. He had to give it to her; she had some guts.
He barked out, “Sit,” again, but with a bit more force, and it got her moving. He was scaring her more but a certain amount of fear would be beneficial to his cause now that he had some answers. He’d get cooperation easier.
She sat in the chair he’d told her to but was pretty sure it was because he’d shocked her into action. He barked out, “Don’t move,” in a deeper tone. The last thing he felt like doing today was chasing her through the parking lot.
He dug out his cell phone from his pocket as he kept an eye on her. He walked to the farthest part of the room he could and still keep her in his line of vision. He dialed Fate, the reason he was knee deep involved in any of this shit to begin with.
“Here,” Fate said as he answered the phone.
“I got an unexpected visitor you will be interested in meeting,” Lars said and then continued on to tell him everything he’d found out so far. “I need you and the guys to get over here and figure out what to do with her, because this is not going to be my problem. I want this mess out of my shop by tonight.”
Chapter Three
Faith was still sitting in the chair he’d pointed to an hour ago, her heels perched on the edge of the seat and her knees up against her chest, arms wrapped tight around them. She looked scared.
Only someone with a death wish wouldn’t be nervous in this situation. He knew what they were capable of, while she could only guess. Worse, they were all standing across the room, eyeing her up as if she were the main attraction in a circus sideshow, and she looked like she was expecting the knife throw to start soon.
They might look like trouble but these four guys were solid. He’d been through thick and thin with them. Most of them had defected out of the agency that ran the Universe within a short time of each other. Fate was the only one still working for the agency, doing exactly what his name implied, helping to shift people’s fates. He was going along with the program but it was more of a ploy to keep an ear out and use any available inside information to find Malokin.
Recently it had been a rougher ride for the guys than it had been in a long time, and it didn’t look likely to smooth out anytime soon. They’d all known something wasn’t right with the Universe for a while, kind of the way you could sniff gas in the air before an explosion. But things were starting to get crazy out there. Violent crime rates were exploding. Stores were shutting their doors and boarding up their windows.
If it were up to Lars, he’d lie low and let things work out however they wanted. It was hard enough to keep their own shit together lately. But his friend Fate had an obsession with finding Malokin, the possible catalyst to it all. Fate didn’t want to ride it out; he wanted to fix things. Lars was pulled in by association and loyalty.
Lars looked at Fate. “I know you’ve got this obsession with Malokin. That you think if we can get to him, the rest of this mess will calm down. I told you, we should just let the chips fall how they will and stay out of this mess. You know I’ve got your back but now this shit is leaking into my shop.” Lars felt his irritation growing with each sentence.
“I know. What are you going to do with her? You can’t let her loose,” Fate said, looking at Lars like sh
e was his problem.
Lars loved the guy like a brother but Fate was arrogant as all hell. “You mean what are you going to do with her.” Lars shook his head. “This isn’t my problem. You’re the one that got us involved with this Malokin crap. You’re going to deal with her.” He tilted his head toward Faith.
Fate threw his hands into the air as he said, “Not unless you want her dead.”
“You sick fuck, you’d just kill her?” Lars saw Faith’s face go white even under all that dirt and realized he’d either spoken too loudly or her hearing had already started increasing with the change. He felt a moment of regret before he reminded himself she was a Malokin recruit. She couldn’t be as innocent as she appeared and was probably going to try and kill one of them in their sleep tonight with a knife clenched in a tiny little hand.
“I wouldn’t,” Fate explained. “But Karma might. She’s been trying to take out a lot of Malokin’s recruits. It’s sort of her twisted version of a bucket list. I’m not sure if this would meet her requirements but should we really put them under the same roof? I’ve tried to get blood out of grout before. It ain’t pretty. Why do you think I got my floors all redone? That shit stains.” Fate tucked his hands in his pockets and his nonchalance was a little alarming.
Karma, Fate’s girlfriend—according to everyone but Fate and Karma—had been forced to work for Malokin not long ago and had been tasked with keeping certain people from dying. Lars thought about how aggravating it was that she’d decided to take it upon herself to start chipping away at Malokin’s recruits now, just as he needed to dump one of them.
“How long ago did she die?” Angus asked.
“She says she was recruited a week ago,” Lars explained. Everyone was staring at Faith, and he was grateful since it made his interest look normal. He had a hard time not looking at her. There was something about her, even as big a mess as she was, that kept drawing his eyes back.
He saw her lip tremble. If the scared and helpless look was an act, she was damned good at it. Didn’t mean she was an innocent, though. And what pissed him off more was how it seemed to affect him. He’d never been accused of being soft but goddamn if he didn’t feel some protective instincts bubbling up in him.
As if sensing his thoughts, he watched as she seemed to mentally take a hold of herself. Her feet dropped down to the floor and she straightened in her chair. She crossed her arms and seemed to suddenly project an air of Go ahead, do your worst. You’re not breaking me.
He wanted to smile and go pat her on the back. He didn’t, but he wanted to.
Cutty broke from the group and crossed the room to where Faith sat. He bent down to eye level with her and asked, “Did he tell you what he wanted you to do for him?”
Bic, Angus and Fate decided to join him and went over to her as well. Lars begrudgingly followed them, that protective thing forced his feet to move when he would’ve preferred to have nothing more to do with the situation. He stopped several feet short and slightly detached from where they gathered around her.
He crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder against the wall as he watched the situation unfold. She looked at Cutty and shook her head, then tipped her chin up, hanging on to the bravado. The more scared she got, the larger her eyes looked. Great, he was feeling bad for the enemy. Next, he’d be lying there with his arms wide open for her knife while he slept.
“How did you find this place?” Fate asked, getting a little closer to her and not bothering to kneel or make himself less intimidating.
She tilted her head back and met his stare unwaveringly. “It was written down on a piece of paper I found on his desk,” Faith said, but Lars, who had the best senses in the group by a long shot, could hear a slight tremble in her voice.
She was on overload. Even if Malokin had trained her for this, she was reaching her limit of what she could handle. He found himself hoping she wouldn’t break, all while telling himself he was not going to get involved.
“And he just let you wander through his things at will?” Fate leaned over her, purposely using his larger size against her and invading her space, forcing her to lean as far back as she could. “We’re supposed to believe that? Malokin, the man who wants you, isn’t in the habit of recruiting nice little innocents. He chooses people rotten to the core. Why should we believe a word from your lying mouth?”
Her eyes darted to Lars, as if she somehow knew there was a tiny part of him that could be an ally. He forced himself to look away. Even stranger to him was that he had to grip the bench next to him to stop himself from doing exactly that. What was it about her that strummed some long-forgotten chord in him? This little petite thing was dangerous.
When he looked back at her again, she immediately met his gaze. Anger at what he was feeling shot through him and he wanted to scream at her to stop looking at him like he was supposed to be helping her. He didn’t know her. What gave her the right to expect help from him?
But damn if he didn’t want to swoop in and tell the guys—who he’d called for help—to get the hell away from her. He broke eye contact and turned his back on her. He should walk out of the shop and let them handle her. He tried to shake off the protective urges he was feeling, which seemed as instinctual as breathing, and moved away from the group. He got as far as the back door but then stalled.
“What else did you so conveniently find, besides all of our names and locations?” Fate pressed, and Lars could hear the lethal edge in his voice. Did he really have to say it like that? Fate really could be a bastard.
“That was all,” she answered, stammering halfway. It was too much. Fate was going to break her and it killed Lars. If her story was true, it was too much for anyone to take in all at once. The fact that she was holding up this well was a miracle.
“You came here because Malokin sent you. Admit it,” Fate pushed.
“No. That’s not it. I didn’t want to stay with him, and I didn’t know where else to go.”
“You decided to come with no prodding from him?” Fate’s voice was harsh, leaving no question he was suspicious of her story. “Tell us the truth now and it’ll go a lot easier on you than if we have to drag it out of you.”
Lars’ hand reached for the backdoor and then he cracked. He turned back around, took a couple of steps towards the group and saw her. Her eyes were glossy, as she wrung her hands in her lap, and it utterly undid him. “Fate. Back off,” Lars said from where he stood, farther away.
All heads swiveled to look at him. Lars had been with these guys long enough to not need words to read Fate’s expression. Fate threw him a, you wanted me to handle it, don’t criticize how I decide to do it look.
Lars shot back a silent, I don’t care what I said. I don’t like how you’re going about things. Then, with a tilt of his head, he motioned everyone back to the opposite side of the room again.
Fate got to him first. “What the fuck? We aren’t going to know if she’s playing stupid if I can’t press her a bit. Do you want to have to escalate things?”
Angus, Bic and Cutty were surprisingly silent.
Lars positioned himself with his back to Faith, placing him in between her and the guys. “Do any of you want to escalate things?” Lars asked, daring them to say yes and making it clear they’d have to get through him to do it.
“I know what she looks like,” Fate said, shifting modes from aggravation to acting like Lars was losing his grip on things. “But she might be working for Malokin.”
Lars suddenly realized how far he’d just taken the situation in order to protect some chick who might be evil to the core. He’d placed himself in a manner where he would bodily protect her if necessary. Fate was right but still, he couldn’t allow normal procedure in this circumstance. He wasn’t ready to do what that entailed to a tiny female who looked scared out of her wits.
“This isn’t going down like normal,” Lars said to them.
Fate huffed. “Hell, I’m not allowed to even talk harshly to her, so yeah, I kinda ruled out
the other measures.”
Angus was the first to address the problem that left them with. “If none of us have the stomach to beat her up for the truth,” Angus looked at Lars as he added, “Or even speak in harsh tones, what do we do with her?”
They all looked at each other, and Cutty added his two cents. “We can’t let her loose if she’s with him, and if she’s not, she’ll end up dead. Look at her. She’s a wreck. I mean, she’s trying to hold it together but she really does look like she spent the last week in the woods.”
When Lars had first seen her, he’d thought what a poor choice Malokin had made for an assassin. Looking at how he was reacting, and the cracks he could see starting in Angus and Cutty, he was rethinking his position. Maybe she was the perfect choice, especially to exploit him. And it was the exact reason for what he said next. “I can’t keep her here.”
“Why?” Bic asked.
“My place is one large room. It’s not conducive to company.” And he needed to get her the hell away from him, preferably to Cutty’s. Cutty had kneeled down when he’d spoken to her to make her feel more comfortable. Cutty’s place would be safe.
“You have plenty of company,” Bic said.
“Company that I fuck. Not a good idea for her. Fate has a wannabe serial killer living with him, so he’s out.” He turned to Cutty. “What about your place?” he asked, as though it hadn’t always been his first choice.
Cutty looked at her and Lars saw the softening. Yes, it had to be Cutty’s place.
Cutty shrugged. “I can take her home.”
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