He nodded. “It's a sad story,” he said. “But one I've heard all too often. Being in the shit in places like Afghanistan, does something to you. Changes you on a fundamental level.”
“Things that seemed fine and normal before you shipped out,” I said, “are suddenly not so fine and what's considered normal holds no value anymore. Honestly, I just felt kind of rudderless out there. Lost at sea with no idea where dry land was. At least, not until I found you and your crew, sir.”
“Exactly right,” McCoy said. “Something else I've heard far too often. But tell me, what do you think of what it is we're doing?”
A wry chuckle escaped my lips. “When Cisco told me what the deal was when he recruited me, I thought he'd gone off the deep end, honestly,” I said. “I mean, I'd always thought shifters were nothing more than movie monsters. Needless to say, my eyes have been opened to an entirely different world than the one I thought existed.”
“But what do you think of what we're doing?” he pressed.
“I think we're doing good work, sir,” I said. “These – things – are dangerous. They pose a clear and present danger to society. To the world, actually. By helping take them off the board, we're doing our duty as soldiers. We're upholding the oaths we took.”
He nodded approvingly. “Well said. Very well said,” he replied. “And I'm glad you feel that way.”
Honestly, that's not how I felt – but I couldn't say that to him. I actually hadn't stopped to think about the ramifications for society or the world knowing that shifters were out there. Among us. I hadn't had time to really stop and give it thought. I was too focused on my mission – the only thing that mattered to me.
But I had a role to play and I had to play it very, very well. Men like McCoy weren't fools. They weren't stupid. They could smell bullshit a mile off. Which made what I had to do extraordinarily tricky because I had to be one hundred percent convincing. I had to make them believe, with everything in them, that I was like them – a true believer.
Which made my skin crawl only because McCoy and his men talked about what we were doing like it was some higher calling or noble pursuit – when all we were really doing was running a human trafficking ring. We were abducting and selling people and none of them, not even McCoy himself, could convince me it was making our country better or safer.
All we were doing was profiting off the sale of people – which made me nauseous to think about.
“I don't know that there's another way to feel, sir,” I said. “Not if you want what's best for our country and our people and feel like its your duty to protect them both.”
“I have to say, you've impressed me, Olivia,” he said. “With your work in the field and your conduct as a member of this team.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I want you with us when we transfer the prisoner tonight.”
I nodded, but inside, I was screaming. This was what I'd been biding my time and waiting for. As a part of the transfer team, I'd be helping transport our – prisoners – to the people who'd hired us to take them down in the first place. And it was there, that I'd hopefully begin finding the answers I was looking for.
Where ever we were headed to make the transfer, I was hoping that I would begin to unravel the mysterious disappearance of Emily – my little sister.
Chapter Four
Luca
We sat at a table near the back wall of Annie's Sunshine Diner. The diner had been part of the Black Salmon Falls community for time out of mind and had always been Asher's favorite place to have breakfast. Not that I was complaining – the food was always good. Far better than anything I could make, that was for sure.
Annie's was an institution – one that almost ceased to be. After the original Annie died, the place almost shut down. Annie's daughter was too young to run the place and she had no other children. Without somebody there to step in and save it, Annie's would have gone belly up.
Asher loved the place so much, that he convinced his dad to save it. He hired a general manager to run the diner until Diana was old enough to take over, and when she was ready, that's what she did. To Diana's credit, she kept the man Asher's dad had hired on to continue overseeing the operation of the place and keep things on the right track, and it had flourished ever since.
And given that Diana had a whole mess of kids, it didn't seem like Annie's would have the same problems they had a few years back. Which made Asher a very happy man.
I sipped my coffee and looked over at Asher, wondering why we hadn't ordered yet. I was hungry and really craving Annie's country fried steak.
“We're waiting for one more,” he said, answering my unspoken question. “And she's late – as usual.”
As if entering on cue, the front door of the diner flew open and Mariana sauntered in. I had to physically keep myself from rolling my eyes. Dressed to the nines, Mariana looked around with obvious distaste on her face. Spotting us, she started to sashay over to our table.
“Have I mentioned lately that I'm wildly ecstatic you didn't marry her?” I muttered under my breath.
Asher chuckled and shook his head as he took a sip of his coffee.
“Don't think I didn't hear that, cretin,” Mariana said as she arrived at the table.
I shrugged. “Oops.”
“Didn't know you were bringing your boyfriend, Asher,” she sniped.
I shrugged again. “Oh, you know, we like to have a little breakfast after we roll out of bed in the morning,” I said. “Oh, sorry. I guess you wouldn't know that, would you? My bad.”
She glared at me, looking for all the world like she wanted nothing more than to stab me with a fork. I just smiled wide and gave her my most innocent expression.
“Too soon?” I asked.
“Screw you,” she growled.
“Children,” Asher said, doing his best to stifle a laugh. “Can we sit down and talk? Please?”
She rolled her eyes and cast a baleful expression at me and all I could do was keep grinning. I wasn't about to apologize. It was the truth. Rose was a much better woman for Asher. Hell, she was a much better woman than Mariana, period. She'd become somebody I didn't care for all that much – somebody who was elitist and looked down her nose at people not of her “station” in life. In a single word, Mariana was a bitch. And Asher deserved more than she could have ever given him.
Mariana looked down at her chair and grimaced. Taking the napkin off the table, she brushed off the imaginary crumbs from her seat and then laid the cloth down on it before sitting down herself. The three of us had a long history together. We'd, in essence, grown up together. And although we were from different clans, the three of us had gotten on pretty well. When we were younger.
Although Asher and I were still beyond tight, as Mariana began to move into her spot atop the leadership of the N'gasso, she began to change. And when she and Asher had been matched and then betrothed, she changed even more. Once upon a time, she'd been pretty down to earth and level headed. At one time, she had actually been a kind and compassionate person. Back in the day, she was actually – sweet. More or less. The three of us used to hang out, pull pranks on people, and spent a lot of time laughing. We'd been like the Three Musketeers.
It was hard to see any of that girl in the woman before me now though.
Marian had become far more concerned with status and material possessions than anything. She was the Chief of the N'gasso – a fact she lorded over everybody. Although, she fails to mention – or even acknowledge – that there might not have been a N'gasso Clan at all had it not been for Asher and even Rose. Without those two lending a big assist, those men in the black uniforms might have wiped Mariana's Clan off the face of the Earth.
Though, given how she was acting and the person she'd become, I might not have minded seeing the N'gasso go the way of the dinosaur. But I knew that Asher still had something of a soft spot for Mariana. He knew he'd hurt her and still felt bad about it – and it was something that she used to levera
ge Asher into doing things for her he might not otherwise do. Which was another source of irritation I had with her.
Diana herself came over and delivered our food – two plates heaped with food. We had country fried steaks and biscuits smothered in Annie's famous gravy, three eggs over easy, sausage, and on a side plate, a short stack of blueberry pancakes – in other words, our usual.
Mariana looked at us with an expression of obvious distaste. Diana gave her a smile.
“These two are easy – same thing every time,” she said. “I wasn't sure what you might want though. What can I get you, hon?”
Mariana looked thoroughly disgusted. “Just a coffee,” she said without even bothering to look at Diana. “In a clean cup if you can manage it.”
Diana chuckled and shook her head. “I'll see what I can do,” she said. “We might have one we can scrape the dirt off of – but no promises.”
Diana turned and walked off, still chuckling to herself. She was used to Mariana's haughtiness and handled it with aplomb. And I had to applaud her for that. She had a temperament I sure didn't have.
“That's what I love about this place,” I said. “Diana always knows what we want without us even having to ask. She just gets us, right Asher? I mean, it's like a good, strong marriage. When two people – oh, sorry Mariana. My bad. I brought up the “M” word again.”
She looked at me with more disgust than she had looked at our food with and gave me the finger. I chuckled and scooped a helping of the warm, fluffy biscuits slathered in gravy into my mouth, rolling my eyes in bliss as my mouth exploded with flavor.
“I swear, Asher,” she said. “This is one of the things I don't miss about being with you.”
He looked up and grinned. “What? Bantering with Luca?”
“That too. But it's your devotion to greasy little dives like this,” she said. “There has to be a dozen health code violations I can see. And there is so much grease and fat in that mountain of food you're both shoveling into your mouths will likely be the death of you.”
“Man can't live by wheat germ alone,” Asher said.
“And we're all gonna die, Mariana,” I added. “I'd rather die with a sumptuous, delectable feast like this in my belly than whatever organic, flavorless gruel you shoveled into your own piehole this morning.”
“Amen. A life without good food is not a life worth living,” Diana said, setting a cup down in front of Mariana and filling it with coffee. “Fresh out of the washer, Mariana.”
Mariana still looked at the cup like it was coated in grease and food particles. Diana gave me a wink before turning and walking away. Mariana was a physically beautiful woman – but her personality and attitude combined to make her, quite possibly, the single most unattractive woman on the planet.
“As much as I'd love to sit here and trade insults with Luca all day, I do have things to do,” she said. “So, can we get to the point of this little meeting, Asher?”
“Oh, is there a sale on shoes you need to get to or something?” I asked.
“Luca,” Asher said, letting me know that the time for banter was over. “We have a problem, Mariana. Are you aware that one of your guys went missing last night?”
“Missing?” she asked. “Who?”
“Jake Burrows,” he said.
“How do you know this?” she asked. “I hadn't heard anything about it.”
“Because unlike you, Mariana,” Asher said firmly, “I am actually trying to be a good Chief. I'm trying to do a good job not just for my own clan, but for all of our clans. I stay connected to what's going on in this city and with our people.”
It was the closest I'd ever come to hearing Asher rebuke Mariana – for anything. And sure, it was petty and immature, but I kind of enjoyed hearing it. Personally, I thought Mariana got way too much slack for the crap she pulled.
But that was up to Asher's discretion. He was in the Q'lapa's big chair and as such, he made the rules. The Q'lapa were the dominant clan – the clan in charge. Then, in terms of size and sway, came the N'gasso, and then my clan – the Langayan. Though honestly, if Mariana kept running the N'gasso the way she was – which was straight into a ditch – they might lose not just their size, but their influence and stature.
Which, wasn't a bad thing, necessarily. It would certainly elevate the status of my own clan.
But that honestly mattered little to me. I didn't have the taste for clan politics that some did. I didn't think it was a good thing to have infighting among the clans. It weakened us all. And with so many threats out there to our kind, we needed to be a unified force.
Yeah, most the people of Black Salmon Falls more or less knew about us. Accepted us. Even liked the fact that we were there because we kept the town prosperous and safe. But there were threats from within as well as from without – and that wasn't even taking other supernatural beings into consideration.
Bear society – our clan society – was only as strong as our weakest link. And in that moment, Mariana was proving to be that weak link. It was high time Asher put her in check and made her see things as they were.
Mariana sat back in her seat and looked thoughtful for a moment. “Jake Burrows,” she said. “Are you sure he's N'gasso? The name doesn't ring a bell.”
Asher sighed and shook his head. “This is what I'm talking about, Mariana,” he said, his voice tight with anger. “If you want to keep your seat at the head of the N'gasso table, you're going to have to actually grow up and be a leader.”
“Are you threatening me?”
He shook his head. “No, I'm not,” he replied. “But there are others in your clan who are questioning your leadership. Your fitness to be Clan Chief.”
“What? How could you possibly know something like that?”
“The same way I knew your man Burrows was missing,” I said. “I listen to people. I hear things.”
“And what, people in my clan are talking about deposing me?”
Asher shrugged. “People in your clan are just looking for some guidance and leadership, Mariana.”
She rolled her eyes. “I'm the Chief of my clan. I'm not there to hold their hands.”
“That's part of your job,” Asher said, his tone hardening again. “You have to do everything in your power to lead your people.”
I leaned forward and looked at her. While I was enjoying watching Asher take her down a few notches, I could see that she just wasn't getting it. Honestly, I didn't know if she ever would. But I wanted to try – it was in the best interest of all the clans in the region if we were strong. Unified. I had a feeling that the looming threat was dangerous and that things could go bad very quickly.
“People are scared, Mariana,” I said. “And like it or not, they're looking to you to reassure them. To guide them. To make them believe that we're handling the situation and are in control. Something bad is happening and they need real leadership right now.”
She cast a hateful look at me. “Why are you even here?” she asked. “You're not a Chief.”
“He's here because I asked him to be here,” Asher said, real hostility in his voice. “And not that I need to explain myself to you, but his father will soon be taking the Walk, and wants Luca to begin taking the reins of leadership of the Langayan.”
Mariana sat back in her seat, her face red, her expression dark with anger. She wasn't used to being spoken to in that manner – especially, not by Asher. But he was right to do so. We were facing an unknown, but very dangerous threat and we needed all hands on deck. We needed everybody's head in the game.
“Tell me something, Mariana,” Asher said, leaning forward. “Did I make a mistake in saving you and the N'gasso? Do you even really want to be Chief?”
“Of course, I do,” she said. “How could you even ask me that?”
“Because the way you're acting, I honestly don't know,” he said. “Being a Chief means more than sitting in the big chair, delegating your responsibilities to others. It means being a leader. And right now, I don't s
ee any reason to think you're capable of being a leader. You seem to like having the title more than doing the actual job.”
She looked at him balefully and opened her mouth to say something – but then closed it again without saying a word. Instead, she looked down at her cup of coffee, seeming to be lost in thought. Perhaps she was absorbing and processing everything Asher had just laid on her. If so, it was a positive first step. But, I had my doubts. Given her track record, I was more inclined to think she was cursing him out in her head.
“Do you?” Asher pressed, apparently not content to let her off the hook. “Do you really want to be Chief of the N'gasso? Because if you don't, there's no shame in that. Step down and let –”
“It's all I ever wanted,” she said quietly. “You know that. I just...”
“You just what, Mariana?” I asked.
She looked at me and gone was the hateful expression she wore like armor. And in its place was something I rarely ever saw in Mariana – something I hadn't seen since she was a girl. Fear. Uncertainty.
“I just don't know how,” she said. “It doesn't come as naturally to me as it does to you. Or even to you, Luca. The people don't respect me. They look down at me. I can see it in their faces. And I don't know how to even begin going about winning their respect. Or their trust. I'm in over my head, Asher. Maybe it would be best for everybody if I did abdicate.”
She sat back and tears welled in her eyes. Mariana didn't even bother wiping them away when the rolled down her cheeks. I had to admit, such a frank admission from her was shocking to me. But it also thawed some of the ice in my heart for her. She looked like a lost little girl in that moment and my heart went out to her.
“Or maybe there's another way,” I said. “Maybe it's something you can learn – we can learn. I'm still learning how to do the job myself, Mariana.”
“To be honest, there is no one, right way to be a Chief,” Asher said. “I'm still learning every day. But the one thing I have learned quite well already is that we need to listen and we need to be there for our clan. We need to make sure they have a voice and feel that they're being heard. Especially in times of crisis.”
Saved by a Bear (Legends of Black Salmon Falls Book 2) Page 3