Assassin's Bride

by C. J. Scarlett

  “I need you to come over,” she said urgently.

  “What’s wrong?” Suddenly he was awake.

  “I had a group of people, I think they were shifters. They broke into my apartment. Literally. My door is hanging off its hinges,” she said.

  “What the hell? Are you okay? What did they want?” She could hear that he was moving now, putting on pants maybe, getting his keys.

  Now came the part where she broke his heart just a little bit more. “They took Drake.”

  There was a pause, inside of which were several silent questions that he asked all at once. Yes, he was at her apartment. Yes, it was late. Yes, they were doing exactly what he was afraid they were doing. She waited, wondering if he would rescind his help, if he felt vindictive. She knew it was cruel, to ask him for help in locating a man who he didn’t like, who was his rival. But she needed the help of her friend, and she hoped that was what he focused on.

  “I’m on my way,” he said finally. “Don’t go anywhere or mess with anything until I get there.”

  “Okay. Thank you, Erik. So much.”

  “Any time, Les.”

  He hung up the call and she stood there waiting, feeling strange levels of both guilt and gratitude for her friend.

  #

  “Holy fucking hell,” Erik said when he finally got to the hole where the door once was. “Did they think it was made of fucking steel?”

  He stepped in and over the wood chips and splinters that littered the first few steps of her apartment. He looked at the damage from inside the apartment and shook his head.

  “You’re okay?’ he asked, turning to her.

  She’d been sitting on the couch, her legs pulled up and in on herself, the sleeves of her loose flannel pulled completely over her hands which were tucked away. She looked and felt like a child but someone had invaded her home. The monsters in her closet were far worse when she was an adult and her mother wasn’t here to make it better. Erik walked over and kneeled in front of her, taking her tucked-away hands in his own. One of his hands went up to brush some stray hair from her face back behind her ear. For once, he had no agenda; he wasn’t doing this because he so desperately wanted to kiss her. He was doing it because he was her friend, he wanted to help her. That made her all the more guilty.

  “First things first,” Erik said, getting up. “We need to make sure they didn’t bug this place.”

  “Bug?”

  She didn’t remember seeing anyone place anything. But a lot had been going on, placing a microphone or camera would have been easy, and if they were watching her the entire time and willing to break into her apartment, she didn’t doubt that they would have planted something to keep their tabs on her after they left. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

  They both set to work, looking for the illusive big. Erik said it was usually found wrapped in some way around electronics, hidden where other wires would be. So he took to dismantling her lamps and the TV. She looked in the less likely places like under a table and in cabinets and all the places she saw bugs planted in movies. She just wanted to feel useful in some way and this was all she had.

  “Gotcha, fucker,” Erik hissed and she turned.

  From behind her DVD player, he pulled a small disk, maybe the size of a thumbnail, with a wire tail attached to it. He brought it over and set it on her kitchen table. It looked harmless, something she would easily overlook. But she saw the mesh in the metal across the surface that told her it was built to take in sounds. They would try to spy on her some more.

  “Well, this is our only clue,” he said.

  “It’s not really giving away much.”

  “No. But it might if we take some long hard looks at it.”

  He did just that, turning it over in his hands and looking it over for signs and hints. She didn’t know what he was looking for, so she stayed back, waiting. It was possible he didn’t even know what he was looking for, maybe he had just seen one too many spy movies and tried to make something work out of that.

  “Well,” he said, staring closely at the device in his hands. “We’ve got a manufacturer at least. It might not lead anywhere since anyone can go into an Army surplus store, but it’s a start. This is a local brand, which means our baddies are from around here.”

  That was one point for the chance that they were part of Drake’s organization. That wasn’t incredibly revelatory, Alessia was pretty sure they’d been watching her and now it was confirmed. It didn’t tell her anything concrete. The only real thing they could get from this was that Drake had been taken somewhere local, most likely.

  “I need to tell you something,” she said.

  “Please don’t tell me you’re pregnant.”

  “Jesus, no.” She glared at him. “That day at the fall festival. That shifter group took me hostage.”

  “What?”

  “They didn’t hurt me. If anything, they might have saved me from getting trampled. But they took me to some underground bunker or meeting place. Drake was one of them. He got them to release me.”

  A lot of things flashed across Erik’s face and the look of “I knew it” seemed to be among them. But it was replaced quickly with anger and horror. He took to pacing through the apartment.

  “You were kidnapped two weeks ago and you didn’t feel the need to tell anyone?” he asked.

  “It’s not like it was some guy on the street in a candy van I could pick out from a line up,” she said. “This was a terrorist organization. They said as long as I didn’t say anything and acted like nothing happened, then everything would be fine. I knew they were watching me.”

  “So, you clearly didn’t play by their rules then,” Erik said, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall.

  “No,” she said, her face turning red. “I think that’s evidenced by them breaking into my damn apartment and taking Drake from right in front of me.”

  Erik was quiet after that, maybe imagining what had gone on. She’d managed to stow away Drake’s clothes before he got there. But it didn’t take a genius to figure out what they’d been doing or at least the nature of their relationship. She felt her face settle on a constant state of blush and bit her lip, looking away. It was awkward, but they had a bigger task at hand; they needed to focus in on that.

  “We need help from more than just us,” Erik said. “This is bigger.”

  “Did you have someone in mind?”

  “A few people. Meet me tomorrow behind the old engineering building if you want to play a bit of Scooby Doo,” Erik said. “These are people we can trust, I promise.”

  She nodded. But there was still one thing wrong. “Can you stay here tonight?”

  He looked at her with a furrowed brow, but not necessarily with surprise. His crossed his arms, relaxed, and sighed.

  “I just don’t want to stay here alone,” she said. “Or if you want to go home, maybe can I stay with you?”

  “Of course, I’ll stay here tonight,” he said with such conviction and seriousness that she almost felt lightheaded. He was a good man, a great man, and one day, she’d find a way to repay him as he deserved.

  He managed to prop the door up and brace it a bit with kitchen chairs and the table to prevent them from having a giant hole all night. He slept on the couch with her spare blankets and pillows, creating an effective barrier between her and the door, and things that might go bump in the night. She curled up into a world of her own in the pillows and blankets of her bed, creating a cocoon from the harsh realities outside.

  As she fell asleep, she thought of everything. She thought of Drake’s face, she thought of the way he smiled. She thought of how powerful and vulnerable he looked all at once when they were together and naked in her apartment. She thought of the beauty of seeing him as he was, the gorgeous creature hiding beneath the shell of his skin. She thought of the fear she felt right after that. The terror at being invaded. It was a rollercoaster of emotions.

 
She needed to harness them though. She needed to make them fuel. Drake had been stolen away and she needed to get him back.

  Chapter 16

  Alessia did as he said. She popped out of bed to the sound of an alarm she didn’t need to set but did anyway. She had a lot of research she wanted to do before she and Erik met with whatever shady people he’d organized this meeting with later that day and wished that she had better tools than Google at her disposal but there was only so much she could do without arousing suspicion. She was fairly certain she was being watched. If she went into the library and started delving too deeply into the section of shifter history, they might take it as a sign of noncompliance on her part. And that was the last thing she needed.

  She swallowed several cups of coffee while her eyes grew tired focusing in on the screen. She scrolled and scrolled, passing hits and articles but she wasn’t even sure what she was really looking for. Google keywords: “shifter”, “secret organization”, “kidnapping”, and “protests” didn’t really do much to help her out at all. She returned all sorts of news hits and book and movies with that same plot.

  After about an hour of her aimless searching, she heard something shuffling behind her. She’d intended to leave half the pot of coffee for Erik when he eventually rolled out of bed but her jitters got the better of her and the next thing she knew she was an entire pot deep.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled when she turned to face him.

  She had to admit, there was something desirable about seeing him there with his hair in every direction, his t-shirt ruffled from sleep and his eyes still puffy. There was a domesticity to him that she never saw in class when he was constantly trying to outdo someone in the middle of a debate. This was Erik before he put on his ego. Somehow, she liked this version a lot better.

  She walked over and worked and getting a new pot of coffee ready for him.

  “I didn’t wake you did I?”

  “With the incessant sounds of typing?” he asked with a smirk and she cringed. “Nah. I was in and out of sleep all night. That couch is…something else.”

  “Sorry. It came with the apartment.”

  “Hey, no harm no foul. At least it wasn’t the floor.”

  “Yeah, but I made you stay. The least I could do was give you somewhere comfortable to sleep.”

  “I’ve had worse. Trust me. You can make it up with a pot of coffee that you didn’t guzzle in some paranoid frenzy.”

  “That I can do.”

  She set to work pouring out water and measuring the pile of ground coffee beans while Erik dug through her cupboards looking for a bowl to pour his cereal into and then performed the same ritual looking for milk in the refrigerator. It could be just a regular morning for them both—apart from the fact that Erik had slept in his clothes and on the couch. But they could just be a couple waking up in the morning, performing that dance around each other in the kitchen to get substance and caffeine in their bodies before they parted for the day with a promise to see each other at dinner.

  She didn’t know why she was thinking about that. She’d already refused Erik, flat out told him she wasn’t going to be pursuing anything more than friendship with him. Yet, here she was, thinking about waking up on Sunday mornings or busy workdays and having him there.

  You’re lonely, she said to herself, and you’re a little bit emotionally amped up after what happened with Drake.

  Self-diagnosing was never smart but it was the only way she could keep that nagging voice in the back of her mind at bay. She’d deal with her therapy issues later after they got some solid footing in this strange mess.

  As Alessia watched the coffee maker drip and drip it’s way into a growing pot of ink black and steaming liquid, she thought. What they knew was this: Drake was part of some kind of shifter radical movement—how radical they were remained to be seen, Drake had been part of the protest and had secured her release when they took her, Drake was no kidnapped by a group of people who did not look like police. The question was: was this his own group of people hauling him in or was he now the victim of some kind of rival group?

  She’d read that several shifter organizations existed: the Alliance, the Freedom Fighters, the Flames. And none of them were friends. Maybe that’s why the shifters never managed to get a cohesive movement actually going for longer than it took to set off a few fire crackers and get on the news, they were too busy fighting amongst each other over who had the best way to deal with their own lack of rights.

  “So, these people we’re meeting today,” Alessia said. “Are these the helpful kind or the kind that I can’t look directly in the eye or they’ll get offended and take my kidney?”

  “You’ve been watching too much Godfather,” Erik said, rolling his eyes and taking the pot out from its spout when it beeped that it was ready. “It’s just one guy. He’s got information on a group that might not even be relevant to what we’re doing, but some information is better than none.”

  “Who is he?”

  “A shifter. Wolf. He was part of a group, not sure which one. But he was thrown out just before those bombing attacks in July.”

  “How’d you meet him?”

  “In some unsavory internet chat rooms.”

  “What the hell were you doing on those?”

  That’s when Erik’s smile and apparent smugness of information ran out. His face got a little pale and he took a nervous sip of his coffee to occupy his mouth, burning his lips in the process. He winced but kept his mouth shut and his eyes focused ahead.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” he said.

  “Maybe we should talk about it now if this guy is dangerous,” Alessia said, crossing her arms and cocking out a hip to glare at him.

  “Listen, we can have safe or we can have answers,” he said. “Take your pick.”

  He was right. She hadn’t admitting that, even in her own head where he couldn’t hear her. But she couldn’t play it safe anymore. If she did, she’d never see Drake again, she was sure of that. If she wanted to get him back and get answers they had to do things out of their comfort zone. It’s just that when Alessia imagined doing things out of her comfort zone, she pictured sky diving or finally pulling the trigger on getting a tattoo. She never thought she’d get an adrenaline kick and a life experience out of a possibly illegal meeting with a likely terrorist on school property.

  But times were strange, she should probably just roll with it.

  So they drank their coffee and avoided each other’s eyes and Alessia wondered what exactly it was that Erik was hiding beneath his worried eyes and pale face.

  ***

  They were jittery as they walked together out of Alessia’s apartment towards whatever dark alley Erik had arranged their meeting in. It was the middle of the day, the sun was out, people were out and around playing games in the quad and undergraduates were studying under the shade of trees and on benches. Music played from various speakers and open dorm windows. It was the perfect day at a Southern California college campus and yet Alessia felt like she was about to invite the devil himself into her life.

  She was going to be doing something she couldn’t go back from. It would be worse than if her supposed watchers saw her researching in the library. If they were watching her now they’d see her heading straight for the lion’s den. She was told to stay out of it, to remain the quiet doctoral candidate and obedient citizen who didn’t know a thing about any of this. And now she was stoking the fire. But like Erik said, she could have it safe or she could try to make a difference in all this.

  The question that weighed on her mind was, of course, was it worth it? Drake was her friend, if nothing else. But he was also a terrorist and a liar. He cared for her, he tried to protect her, he got her to safety when it mattered. But was it worth throwing away her career and possibly changing the trajectory of her life by getting involved in a world she knew nothing about? She wasn’t a shifter. She studied them for years and worked with them b
ut she’d never be one. Not to mention she might be making things worse for Drake if she continued.

  “Let’s hustle,” Erik said when she’d lagged several feet behind him. “I gave this guy a strict meeting time and he’s jumpy as it is.”

  “Have you ever met him before?”

  “No. But I’ve watched him ghost out of online chats more times than I can count,” he said. “If we want to chase more leads, we need to not scare this guy away.”

  So Alessia obeyed and trotted up along side him, trying to steal herself as they passed a group of young undergraduate freshman taking pictures of their ice cream cones to post on Instagram. It would be nice to have nothing but cares like those. And when Alessia was younger she did, maybe just a bit. She looked back and could see the spoiled college girl who was just interested in getting the best light for a picture and wondering who was throwing what party the next weekend.

  Maybe that was the point of college, to kick your ass and harden you up. Maybe not harden you up into someone who was ready to delve into illegal political activities and maybe get kidnapped by a group of shifters, but at the very least it pointed you in the direction you needed to go. Alessia had become a doctoral candidate for shifter studies because she learned to truly believe in it and truly want. She wanted to help. She didn’t know if this was a start or something that was going to cause a whole world of more trouble. But she was going to see it through no matter what.

  So she walked alongside Erik and held her head up high. She wouldn’t be scared. She wouldn’t show it, at least. Fear was the destroyer of thoughts and the logical mind.

  They turned a corner and the world suddenly shifted. The fun of the campus was behind them. They could hear it in the distance but they seemed to have entered a bubble where they were separate from all that. It was a dingy alleyway between a couple of clubs that were quiet for the day before opening their doors after 9pm at night.