by D. N. Hoxa
She used to be a freelancer for Finn, too. We did two jobs together about a year and a half ago. I worked with her better than with anyone. We’d even hung out at the bar a couple of times. A Green witch, she used to calm me by just telling me stupid stories.
But when her boyfriend moved to Ireland to take on the family business, she decided to follow him, too. I’d gotten so used to having her around that it sucked to watch her go. We talked on the phone every now and then, and I would have called her by now, just to get all of this off my chest, but if I’d been hunting someone, I would have tracked their phone first. I had no doubt the other freelancer was tracking mine. That’s why I’d turned the phone off.
For now, I was going to have to keep all of it to myself.
When I got off the bus, it felt like everybody was watching me, though nobody was. Every step I took seemed extremely loud to me. I swallowed hard, trying to clear my head and wishing anger would come back at the same time. When angry, I was a lot less paranoid.
Finn’s offices hid in plain sight. The busy street was lined with stores of all kinds, and Finn’s building was the only one with just one light above the door. The name of the Agency was written in miniature letters. No human passing by even saw it, though the four-story brick building was massive. From across the street, it didn’t look like anybody was in there. The place was spelled to look abandoned, even to Paranormals.
It wouldn’t be long before Finn left for the night. He was the only one who stayed in the office from six in the morning until seven at night—first to arrive and last to leave. I would’ve stayed in there, too, if I had an office like his. He had the whole top floor to himself, and he even had a pool table in there, not to mention the floor to ceiling TV and his awe-inspiring light and sound system.
Half my attention was on the people passing me by, though I doubted anyone would think I’d be there in front of the Agency that was hired to hire people to kill me.
As I waited, my thoughts took me all the way to Harlem—and to Julian Walker. The hairs on the back of my neck rose when I remembered his picture perfect face. It’s everyone’s flaw, I think, to believe that something beautiful can’t be bad—or insane. Because that’s what Julian was: insane. I’m not going to lie, all that talk about dragon blood and the Fairy realm terrified me. Especially since I could easily imagine the ECU wanting to create something better than what they had. They were always there, lurking in the background, so secretive one could come up with all sorts of conclusions about them.
Good thing I was also a hundred percent sure that everything Julian said was a lie. There was just no way he could have gotten that blood from the Fairy realm because there was no way to and from it. Period.
That didn’t mean that my mind didn’t linger on the idea of Julian’s promised super-power as I waited alone for Finn to come out. Or on Julian’s lips.
When my former boss finally made it out, he wasn’t alone. I couldn’t seem to catch a fucking break. Finn was a big man. His wide shoulders barely fit the door and his downturned lips gave you the impression that he was going to send you to hell and back as soon as he opened his mouth—which was usually the case. I didn’t even think the guy knew how to talk quietly.
He turned and walked down the street, his companion following him. I was right across from them, though I was far enough away and wearing a hood so it wasn’t likely they would see me. I analyzed the other guy, wishing with all my being for him to get the hell out of there already so I could sneak up to Finn. He was tall and walked with his shoulders hunched. I couldn’t see much, but I did see the one thing that made my stomach turn: his pointy ears. If I could have seen his eyes, I bet they’d have been that strange violet color, too.
Finn was talking to a fairy. Was the world coming to an end?
I rushed my steps and walked closer to the road in the hope of getting a better look, half sure that my eyes had played tricks on me, but no. Every time the light from a lamppost fell on them, I saw his pointed ears with clarity. Maybe it wasn’t all that strange for Finn to be working with a fairy—he worked with everyone—but leaving his office with one after working hours? I never thought I’d see the day. Nobody wanted to be seen with a fairy and Finn valued his reputation above all. It must have been important; otherwise he wouldn’t have risked being seen with one.
Finn lived in the Upper East. He drove from home and back every day, but that night, it didn’t look like he was heading towards his car. With my heart in my throat, I followed him and the fairy all the way to a bar.
“Fucking hell,” I hissed at myself as the fairy closed the door behind him, and I could no longer see them. This wasn’t like Finn. Going to a bar with a fairy? Shoot me now. Enough time had already been wasted. Dylan was in the hands of Alexandra. She wouldn’t kill him—not without me watching, anyway—but he was suffering. I was sure of it. Having to wait for Finn outside a bar all night wasn’t going to help him.
Feeling even more stuck than before, I almost caved and went to my aunt, but I managed to control myself. Amelia was my mother’s sister, but I didn’t really consider her family. She was never there for us, only ever fought with my mother every time they met, until eventually my mother stopped taking her calls. My aunt was against everything my mother stood for. She was ready to die for her coven, and to her, when my mother agreed to leave, it was an act of treason. She never could get over it, and my mother never really tried to explain other than to say she believed I was safer away from witchcraft and the people who wanted her out. It wasn’t a good enough reason, or at least Amelia thought so. I didn’t have an opinion about it, having known no other life than the one I’d lived. I had no idea what it was like to be part of a coven.
My aunt never really talked to me. She never made an effort to connect with me, even as a little kid. On the contrary—every time she looked at me, all I saw in her eyes was pity and regret. So it was natural for me to not have even spoken to her after my mother’s death. Going to her was the option after the last. Even then, it was a big question mark. I was still standing so for now, I’d handle this on my own.
When the bar door opened and a girl with pink, short hair came out, a cigarette burning between her lips, I saw my opportunity. It didn’t matter if she worked at the bar or if she was a customer—she could get my message delivered just the same.
With my hands in my pocket and my head down, I crossed the street and walked toward her. The closer I got the paler she grew. A vampire.
“Hi,” I said when I was close enough. She’d heard me coming, but she chose not to acknowledge me until I said the next words: “Care to make a hundred bucks?”
That definitely got her attention. She turned to face me, curiously searching my face. “Doing what?” Her voice was high pitched, her thin brows completely drawn with a black pencil on her skin.
“Delivering a message for a guy that just walked in.”
The girl shrugged and threw the cigarette butt behind her. “Might as well.” Then she raised a fake brow. “Money first.”
With a tight-lipped smile, I put a hundred dollars on her waiting hand. “The big guy that came in with the fairy?” The pink-haired vampire nodded. Finn was pretty hard to miss. “Tell him there’s a Bone for the wolf in the alley down the street.”
If the vampire thought the message was weird, she didn’t say so. It was a name Finn sometimes used to reproach me for whatever—seriously, the guy could find a thousand reasons per hour to shout at you—so he would know without a doubt that it was me. I backed away as far as I could without losing sight of the bar. When the pink-haired vampire disappeared inside, my stomach began to roll. I had no idea what to expect, but this could go a thousand different ways. Finn could even call on his Agents to come find me right there. It was why I didn’t go wait for him in the alley.
A moment later, the door of the bar opened again, and Finn came out. I was far away, but if I’d had to guess judging by his posture, his eyes were probably bloodshot with a
nger. He looked around the street but didn’t see me. I was well hidden in the shadows. When he turned and walked towards the alley a couple of buildings away, I followed.
The feeling that somebody was watching me was still there, nagging at my brain. So annoying. I pushed it away as hard as I could, though. Getting paranoid now wasn’t going to help anyone.
When I made it to the alley, heart racing in my chest, I stuck to the shadows. Finn was nowhere to be seen, though I’d watched him turn the corner. That meant he was hiding, and it could either be a good thing or a very bad one. Considering the circumstances, I was sticking to staying positive.
As silently as I could, I moved deeper into the dark alley. If things went awry, the emergency stairs of the building to my left would make for my first escape plan. The fence at the end of the alley was the second. Let’s just hope I won’t have to escape, I said to myself as I neared the dumpster right in front of the high fence. Nothing else in there, so that was the only place Finn could have hidden.
“Finn,” I whispered, tired of this already, not to mention scared that he might pop out on me and attack me. Not likely, but I was considering every possibility.
“Foolish Bone,” came Finn’s whisper, and a split second later, he came out from behind the dumpster.
“I did nothing wrong,” I said, my hand around the handle of my gun and my beads ready to attack his face if I ordered them to. So far, though, Finn didn’t attack. The half moon didn’t provide much light, but I didn’t need to see his face clearly to know how mad he was. The sound of his voice said it all.
“You being here, talking to me, is just one of the many things you did terribly wrong,” said Finn and took a menacing step forward. I didn’t want to fight him, and not just because I didn’t know if I’d live through it. I also didn’t want to fight him because I liked the man. Always had.
“I took a job. I did the job. This is just a misunderstanding,” I whispered. “You have to believe me.”
Finn laughed dryly. “It doesn’t matter whether I believe you or not, Winter. You screwed up, and now you’re wasting my fucking time!”
“I don’t care!” I said, my voice strained from trying to keep from shouting. “You sent Agents after me and you have to cancel the job. I’m innocent. Whatever they said I did, I didn’t do it.”
With a sigh, Finn’s chin touched his chest for a second. He took another step closer to me, but this time, he didn’t look like he was about to go wolf on me. I stayed put. “I know you didn’t, Bone. You’re too naive to do anything like this.”
Tag me surprised.
“Then why did you send them after me?” I said, a bit shocked, to tell the truth. “And Alexandra of all people?”
“Do you think I had a choice?” Finn shook his head like he couldn’t believe what I was saying. “You messed with the wrong people. Even I can’t stand against them.”
The words brought shivers down my back. Finn was an important man in the Paranormal community. Hearing him say that made every alarm in my head go off.
“I didn’t mess with anyone. I just delivered a freaking package!”
“You delivered the wrong package to the wrong person,” Finn said, his eyes wide as he looked at me, almost begging me to understand what he was trying to say.
“His name was on the damn package. How was I supposed to know?” My voice came off tired now. I was officially exhausted.
With his hands on his hips, Finn looked away from me for a moment, shaking his head. My eyes filled with tears as if I had just realized how fucked I was. But I’d known. I’d known the moment those werewolves had pointed their guns at my head.
“What do you want from me, Bone? I can’t undo this,” Finn said. Was that regret I heard in his voice?
Did it matter?
“I came here to ask for your help,” I said, a bitter smile on my lips. “I’m sorry I wasted your time.”
It had been stupid of me to expect him to do something for me. We weren’t friends. I used to work for him—that was that. He owed me nothing.
“You should have run. You should have been gone from here already,” Finn said, a dumbfounded smile on his face.
“She has Dylan.” But was that even supposed to explain anything?
“So what?” said Finn, shaking his head, his brows narrowed. “You’re no longer tied to him. Disappear while you still can, Bone.”
It was a warning, and he was right. It didn’t surprise me that he knew about me and Dylan. It was Finn’s job to know everything. I’d had no doubt he’d keep tabs on me.
“It’s my fault she has him. I can’t just turn around and leave.”
Not if I ever wanted to sleep at night again. Call me naive, stupid, anything you can think of. I didn’t even care if Dylan would have done the same for me. Leaving him in the hands of Alexandra was out of the question. He might have been a cheater, but he didn’t deserve to die at her hands. And definitely not over something I did. I didn’t need that kind of thing on my conscience.
I let go of my gun and ordered my beads to stay put before I turned around to leave. What was the point in defending myself from Finn when I was about to walk right into my death anyway?
“Winter, wait,” he said, surprising me again because he didn’t sound angry. “If somebody finds out I saw you and didn’t report you, I’m a dead wolf.”
“Don’t worry, Finn. Nobody’s going to find out. I’m a dead witch already.” Who the hell was I going to tell, even if I wanted to?
“I know.” He walked closer to me. I didn’t even bother to turn around. “And you never heard it from me, but you’re a better fighter than them.” Them being the freelancers he’d sent after me. The guy just wouldn’t stop with the surprises. “Here. Bomb stones. Use them wisely.”
I had my pride, yes, but I also knew that I would need every bit of help I could get. So reluctantly I offered my hand, and he put four stones in it. Bomb stones. They were expensive as hell. I knew there was a reason I liked the guy.
“Who’s the other?” I called before he reached the main street, and Finn stopped.
“Ralph,” he whispered, then disappeared from my sight.
Ralph Martinez was the new guy at the office. He joined Finn’s division barely a year ago, and though inexperienced, he was a skilled werewolf. A very good fighter. Finn might have believed I was better, but I wasn’t delusional enough to trust him. Ralph was big enough to fit three me’s between his arms. Someone that big shouldn’t be taken lightly.
What do I care, I thought, as I put the bomb stones into my braid. Like I said to Finn: I was a dead witch anyway. And with that thought in mind, I made my way to Alexandra.
Six
The day my mother died, I knew it. I wasn’t a psychic or anything; it was just a feeling I had, like I was about to lose a big part of me—the part that mattered most in my life. She’d been sick before. Breast cancer. We thought we got rid of it with good old-fashioned surgery, but it came back. The doctors said there was nothing else they could do. No healing spell worked against diseases so big and all-consuming. And mother wasn’t in pain. She was just…tired.
That morning, I made her favorite chocolate chip cookies. She gave me a smile when she saw the plate. I’d never forget that smile, especially because her smiles were so very rare. I stayed by her side all day long, and in the evening, when she lay down, I lay down with her. I put on her favorite Billy Ocean song, and I held her hand, rested my head on her shoulder, and I cried in silence. She’d sometimes hum the melody and sometimes just breathe heavily. My head kept shouting at me to call for her doctor, who barely remembered having my mother as a patient, but I didn’t. I just stuck by her side because she hated doctors. She hated the hospital. She never wanted to spend a single day in there, though she should have. Maybe they could have done something more. Maybe she could have lived another day.
But I knew that she was right where she wanted to be. At our latest home in Long Island, where we’d lived for fou
r years, the longest time we’d spent in any city. She held on tightly to my hand as the song played and calmed our racing hearts.
I felt it the second she let go of her last breath. I felt it, and there was nothing I could do but hold onto her and cry. Just cry and remember.
Some might call my mother a cold person, but she was warm where it counted. She was always there for me when I needed her, and I needed her a lot, growing up in a world that didn’t even want me to be part of it. It hurt her to see me struggle, just as it hurt me to watch her fight her disease in a battle we both knew she couldn’t win. It seemed important to me, in those first few minutes after she let go of me, to remember everything she was. Everything she stood for. Everything she taught me.
She taught me a lot with words, but those lessons were nothing compared to what she taught me with her actions. When even her family turned their backs on her for a reason she kept hidden from me all her life, she fought by taking her chances away from her coven. All alone with a little girl, with no husband and no friend. She had no one. Mother didn’t have to say it, but I knew it was because of me. She never told me this, but to her family, to the Bone coven, having a child outside of marriage at the time was big. Big enough to get you kicked out, on the streets and all alone. And she never gave me up. She stuck by me, never blamed me, always made me feel like the most loved person in the world.
That taught me a lot when I was old enough to put two and two together. You don’t give up on what you love.
I might have not loved Dylan, not anymore, but I did care about him. I cared about him enough to find myself in front of Alexandra Chase’s house for him, the memory of my mother on my mind. She did not want me to have anything to do with the Paranormal world, yes, but she also never wanted me to be a coward. She wanted me to fight my battles, just like she’d done. This was my battle. My fault. Nothing else weighed enough to tip the scale on the other side. With that in mind, I took a deep breath, and I crossed the street.