“Leaving so soon?”
I looked up at Cliff, who’d leaned over and propped his arm on the edge of the tub. It wasn’t lost on me that somewhere during the past hour, Milo had slid in next to Dutch and Cliff had inched closer to me. In fact, his thigh brushing mine a moment ago had been the tipping point. The guy was nice enough but getting booted for fraternization wasn’t on my list of things to do this week. Tony, Fiona, and others might have been able to get away with breaking that rule, but I knew better than to think I wasn’t being scrutinized in a way the others weren’t.
“I have a lot of reading to do,” I said.
“Maybe I can help,” Cliff said. “Split the work. You read half, I read half?”
Behind Cliff, I could see Milo giving me “the look,” which was a universal nonverbal cue to “get laid, sista,” but I ignored him.
“Maybe next time,” I told him.
He flashed me a smile. “I look forward to it.”
That’s what I was afraid of.
“Hey, you want a chaperone to walk you back?” Milo asked as I pulled my joggers on over my wet suit.
“No, stay,” I told him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sweet dreams,” he called as I slipped away.
The stairwell was dark, lit only by red exit signs on every floor. A flashlight, even the one on my cell, would have been nice. Or fae sight. But I had neither. Using the handle for reference, I went slowly until I reached the access door that led back to my dorm room.
The handle didn’t budge.
I cursed silently as I realized they must have locked the doors for security purposes. Which meant Cliff was the only one with the damned code, and I was not going back up there to ask him for it. Not that I’d get back onto that roof anyway since it was locked now too.
Doubling back to the floor above, I tried the door there. Also locked.
Shit.
Descending again, I passed my floor and went all the way to the ground level. The instructor wing.
Of course that door opened right up.
I eased my head into the hall and looked right then left.
The sconces mounted to the walls cast the space into a yellowish haze. Nothing moved, and I slipped into the hall, carefully pulling the door shut behind me.
The soft click echoed in the silence. On its heels, I heard another noise. Small and far off, but definitely there.
My pulse sped.
Eyes scanning for movement, I hurried on.
If there was someone else moving around on this floor, all I had to do was get to the elevators. Being discovered there was an easy explanation compared to being caught wandering the staff quarters.
But three turns later, I knew I was lost.
The maze of halls was worse than my floor. At least there, signs pointed the way out. Down here, I was walking in circles for all I knew.
Behind me, something shuffled, and I turned, only to find the hall empty.
Doubling my pace, I made a left and then a right, hoping I’d changed it up from before.
This time, I heard distinct footsteps.
Again, I turned to look and found no one there.
“Oomph.” I face-planted then quickly backed away when I realized I’d smacked into, not a wall, but a body.
I choked, swallowing my scream, and found myself eye level with a pair of the biggest nipples I’d ever seen.
“You not be here.”
The voice was more of a throaty grunt than anything.
I looked up into the face of the same creature I’d seen the day I arrived. The ogre, though I still couldn’t believe I was seeing one in real life.
“You’re extinct,” I blurted.
Cold fear washed over me as I realized I’d just run into the one creature I probably couldn’t fool with reason. And I’d just insulted him.
The ogre’s bushy eyebrows crinkled in confusion. “What . . . eshtinct?”
Relief. A second chance.
“Uh. It means . . . handsome.”
His lips pulled back to reveal two rows of squared teeth, yellowed around the edges. I shrank back, wondering what it would feel like to get eaten by a creature whose teeth were as big as my fist.
“Ollie handsome.” It took me a few seconds longer to realize he was smiling.
“Yeah.” I forced a laugh. “Ollie handsome.”
He grinned wider until I caught a glimpse into his cavernous mouth. My laughter abruptly died off.
His smile faded. The confusion returned.
“You teach to kill demon?”
“Uh, no, I’m a student here.” Shit. This was the part where I needed to get creative with my story.
His friendly expression vanished. “You no be down here.”
His voice boomed, and I couldn’t believe no one came out into the hall to see what the noise was about.
“I know. I got lost.” I forced my knees not to buckle as I imagined him picking me up and tossing me around like a doll in his too-big hands.
“You new.”
It wasn’t a question, but I nodded. “My name’s Gem Hawkins.”
Maybe if I told him my name he wouldn’t eat me. Maybe ogres had a thing about eating food with names.
“Hawkins.” His eyes lit up. “Vic Hawkins good friend.”
“Vic was my dad. You knew him?”
“Vic Hawkins good friend,” he repeated. “Vic bring me jerky.”
I laughed. “You like jerky?”
“Ollie love goat jerky.”
I tried not to wince. Dad had been a foodie beyond any human comprehension. As a supe, he prided himself on having tried all sorts of delicacies the humans deemed uncivilized.
“Goat jerky. Got it. Hey, maybe I can bring you some when I make detective.”
Ollie shook his head. “No see me. Starla tell me always hide.”
“The agency doesn’t want anyone to know about you.”
“Starla says Ollie special.”
I smiled. “You are special, Ollie. I’m really glad I met you.”
“Glad I met you, Gem Hawkins.” He lifted his enormous hand, and I had to jump to reach for a high five.
I narrowly avoided face-planting into his hairy nipple when I landed. This whole magic-stripping thing was seriously dangerous.
“Well, I’m headed up to bed now,” I said, and he nodded, pointing at the hall on my left.
“Elevator.”
“Thanks,” I told him and waved as I started off.
“Sleep tight.” Ollie’s voice echoed behind me, friendly but still. Coming from an ogre, it was also the most ominous thing I’d heard in a long time.
Chapter Nine
My legs burned, and my muscles screamed for relief. I grit my teeth, pushing with everything I had until the magic finally burst from my tired hands. Across the training arena, the demon howled as the ball of fire engulfed its slimy body. A moment later, the howling ceased and the demon melted into a pile of bright green goo.
From somewhere in the shadows of the balcony viewing area, a slow clap sounded.
I rolled my eyes.
I knew exactly who that clap belonged to. And the sarcasm behind it.
“Nice job, Hawkins.” Rigo stepped forward and looked down at me, a nasty gleam in his eye. “Only took you twice as long as the others.”
Irritation boiled up and over.
“Faith took almost twenty minutes and nearly burned the place down,” I called back. “I saw her limping to the nurse on her way out.”
Faith. The brunette who’d lectured us during first-day orientation. She’d been just as annoying and brownnosing as I’d predicted. It didn’t help that she was good—and I was constantly her runner-up.
Rodrigo’s smile turned sour.
“My point is that you’re improving, and that’s in no small part thanks to my feedback. Without me, you’d have flunked out weeks ago.”
This guy.
I bit back my retort and reminded myself I was almost there.<
br />
Four more weeks.
I only had four more weeks in this place. Then I was free.
“Fine. Any more feedback for me?” I asked, acid-sweetness dripping from my words.
Rodrigo responded by swinging his body over the railing and dropping to the training room floor. He strode over to me, arms swinging with whatever swagger he was attempting to exude.
I made sure to keep my face carefully blank.
He wanted a response. Any response. I’d learned that on day one. The same day Fiona had learned Rodrigo thought training us included touching us in places we hadn’t asked to be touched.
Tony had threatened to kick his ass, but Fiona had insisted she could handle it.
She’d flunked out three and a half weeks ago.
Rigo claimed she’d failed an exam on evidence protocol. But I had a feeling she’d finally made it clear she wasn’t interested in being teacher’s pet. Since then, Rigo the Ego had made it a point to single me out. His behavior alternated between sleazy flirting and spiteful bullying. Sometimes both at once. It would have been impressive that he could pull off both at once—if it hadn’t been so infuriating.
Now, his eyes flitted over my frame in a way that made my skin crawl. For weeks, I’d been reigning it in just enough to keep from earning his wrath. I was walking a fine line between outright refusal of his advances and landing a punch in his throat. But as graduation neared, he only got worse and maintaining my control only got harder.
Now, I fisted my hands, clenching my magic tight. Exhaustion or not, I would never not want to kick this guy’s ass.
“You’ve gained weight,” he said without a shred of propriety.
“I’ve gained muscle.” I flashed him a feral smile.
He grunted then went back to perusing me like I was merchandise rather than an agent-in-training.
Where had they found this guy?
“You look tense. Here, let me.”
His hands landed on my shoulders and began massaging. I jerked free the moment his hands began to move across my back and spun to face him.
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed, rage sending sparks of magic from my fingers.
His eyes widened.
“Whoa, cadet. Cool it,” he ordered, his expression flashing with temper.
“Touch me again and I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” he demanded.
His eyes narrowed, and his smile curled confidently. Fur sprouted along his arms and face. His nose elongated into a snout and claws sprouted at the ends of his nails.
My nostrils flared with the scent of coyote in the air.
“Your words sound threatening, Hawkins. And you know how I feel about threats.”
He drew a single claw along the underside of my chin. I grit my teeth to keep from outwardly wincing at the sting, refusing to budge. The feel of something wet trickled down my neck and underneath my shirt.
It took every ounce of self-control I had not to shift into something capable of ending him right where he stood.
But I could see the challenge in his eyes, the dare.
He wanted me to react so he could finally kick me out.
When I refused to take the bait, he dropped his hand and let his beast fade. Human once again, he smacked his tongue against his teeth and eyed me with a disgusting amount of confidence.
“That’s all for today,” he said finally. “Hit the showers. And let me know if you need any help.”
His parting wink made me want to start over in my training simulation. With Rigo as the demon being incinerated.
Prick.
Magic roiling inside me, I marched off.
The moment I stalked out of the training room, my magic vanished. I blinked through the shock of it and waited for my body to adjust as I headed for my room. I pressed a hand to the scratch Rodrigo had left behind. He wanted me to go running to the clinic and rat him out, but I wasn’t interested in petty revenge.
Instead, I wiped away the blood and headed for the showers.
Rage pumped through me, chasing the adrenaline left behind by my need to defend myself. I had to cool it, to keep from doing something stupid. I had to calm my emotions enough to keep from tracking down Rigo and feeding his testicles to him through a straw.
I needed a reminder about why I was really here.
Alone in my room, I pulled out the cell phone that would get me booted if anyone ever found it. When I was sure I was in the clear, I powered it on and hit play on the message.
“Hey, Gem. It’s Dad. Listen, I don’t think I’ll make it to dinner after all. I have a meeting that’s run late, and I can’t leave with this last thing still on my plate. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow. Maybe we can do the beignet binge challenge. I know your mother hates that.” Laughter. “Okay, I gotta run, but I’ll call you in the morning, and we’ll make a plan. Love you, beastie.”
The call ended.
I hit the button to replay it again.
And again.
And again.
A few minutes later, I shut the phone off again and stowed the phone back in its hiding spot. I had no doubt there was some kind of spellwork in place to detect calls, incoming or outgoing. But nothing stood in the way of listening to old voice mails. Or at least, no one had come barging in to bust me for it yet, so I assumed.
Someone knocked, startling me. I swiped quickly at my wet cheeks and wondered if maybe I’d been wrong about the spell detecting my phone.
“Come in.”
The door opened, and Milo walked in.
I blew out a breath.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“The first thing I’m doing when I graduate is having a voodoo doll made of Rigo’s dick,” I announced.
“And the second thing?”
“I’m going to feed the voodoo doll to a meat grinder.”
He winced. “That bad, huh?”
I sighed. “It was fine. I aced it. I mean, Rigo the Ego still found a way to be a sleaze, but I passed.”
He lowered himself onto the desk chair—the only other space to sit in the small room. “We expect nothing less from that guy. As far as the test, that’s good news. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just . . .”
Milo was the closest thing to a friend I’d made in here. But even he didn’t know everything. It wasn’t personal. Over the last couple of months, he’d more than proven he could keep a secret.
It was more about me not wanting to say the words aloud. Words like: my dad’s dead, and I think the SSF knows who killed him but is covering it up. And someone—possibly an agent—is trying to scare me into silence.
Those were words better left unsaid—at least while we were still inside the walls of the Tiff.
“My ex came looking for me, and Starla pulled me aside for questioning.”
Milo’s eyes went wider than I’d ever seen. “Are you kidding me?”
I shook my head.
“When?”
“A couple of weeks ago,” I admitted.
“And you’re just now telling me?”
“For your own protection,” I said.
“I can handle a secret, Gem Hawkins.” He arched a brow. “I think I’ve proven that already.”
“You have. Sorry. I’m just not used to having someone to tell.”
He studied me. “You strike me as the type to not let people in so easily.”
I shrugged. “I’ve got a lot to lose.”
“Maybe. But there’s a flip side.”
“What’s that?”
“You also have a lot to gain. If you choose wisely.”
I smirked. “Let me guess. You’re the wise choice.”
“You could do a lot worse.”
“I have,” I admitted, and he leaned in, eyes wide.
“Do tell.”
“Z, the guy who came looking for me, was nothing but trouble.” I blew out a breath. “You would have loved him.”
“Nah.” Milo shook his head. “If he hur
t you, I’m not interested.”
I was struck by his words. When was the last time I’d had a friend like Milo? Lila, maybe, but she was human. There was only so much I shared with her. Only so far I let her in.
Dad.
He’d been my last true confidant. The last creature in the world to truly understand me.
“Thanks, Milo,” I said quietly.
Moisture stung my eyes.
Milo squeezed my shoulders.
“Don’t mention it. This place is a hellhole of stress.” Milo stood and rubbed his hands together, breaking up the emotional moment. It was more proof he was a great friend because the last thing I intended to do was let this mushiness drag on. “Did you eat dinner at least?”
“First dinner, yes.”
He grinned.
“Perfect. Tony just asked my advice about how to win over Fiona when he gets home, and I need to eat my feelings.”
“Milo.” Sympathy softened me.
“Second dinner’s on me. Come on.” He tapped my foot as he rose and led the way out.
“Dinner’s free here, you tool.”
“Well then, I’ll carry your tray.”
“My hero.” I snorted and pulled my door shut behind me as we headed for the dining hall.
Chapter Ten
“Detectives make decent money,” Tony said as I sat down with my burger and fries after a long day of training.
“Paying us well is the least they can do considering all the shit we’ll take from the rest of our kind,” Milo pointed out.
Tony didn’t argue.
We all knew what it would be like for us out there once we graduated. Half the supe population was like Faith: loyal and supportive of the agency who worked to keep the planet safe from monsters. The other half still harbored resentment for an organization that had a history of marginalizing the misunderstood and persecuting anything perceived as a threat. They’d done more than their share to pit supes against one another over the years.
“Whatever,” Tony said, waving off Milo’s negativity. “My point is this job will give me the means to get up and out. That’s what matters. When I’m out of here, I’m renting an apartment. Something with my name on the lease. Something no one can take from me.”
“That’s a good plan,” I said.
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