I roll my eyes. “Terrific. So where’s the guy who gets my paperwork?”
“On his way,” Ash says, accusation in her tone. “You’re early.”
“Look, if you’ve got some sort of stick up your ass about me being here—”
“You’re here because our partner died, kiddo, so don’t expect a warm welcome and a hug. Prove you belong here, and then the stick comes out.”
She is dead serious. I killed a girl my age in order to graduate Boot Camp, but it hadn’t occurred to me that someone else died to make a place for me in this Triad. Two deaths to get in. Three people to a team. It’s how it works.
“How did your partner die?” I ask.
She blinks, seems unprepared for the question.
Jesse replies. “His name was Cole. Found his charred remains in a furnace last week after being missing for two days. He was probably drained by Halfies first, because it was near a known hangout over on Worchester. Ash and I went in and burned the place to the ground.”
Wow. “Sorry,” I say.
Behind me, the doorknob turns. I dart sideways and avoid being smacked with the bulky metal. In walks another man, older than Jesse but half a head shorter. Black hair and eyes, a five-o’clock shadow on his chin and jaws. Dressed in khakis and shirtsleeves, he looks like he’s more at home Uptown among the nine-to-fivers than here in Mercy’s Lot. Might even be cute if he stops looking so annoyed.
“You sure as hell know how to make an impression,” he says to me without preamble but with the same once-over treatment I got from Ash.
I glare. “Excuse me?”
“I stepped over a guy downstairs moaning about a blond bitch and a misunderstanding, so I can only assume he meant you.”
I cross my arms over my chest, plastic bag swinging. “I’m not a fucking whore, and he’s not likely to forget it anytime soon.”
He slams the door hard enough to make me jump, then steps closer. Sinister. “The first thing you need to remember, Evangeline, is that Triads work best when we aren’t remembered. We require secrecy to be effective. You keep going around dressed like that and nut-kicking drunk idiots, you’ll end up just another name carved into the wall.”
Everything about him makes me want to punch him. He hasn’t introduced himself, but he has to be the Handler. He looks like a Wyatt. And a prick.
“Where are your papers?” he asks.
I dig the envelope out of the bag and hand it over. He rips into it, scans the contents. I have no idea what’s written there, but it doesn’t seem to impress him. He folds it, then tucks it into his back pocket. From the other pocket he produces a cell phone and holds it out. I take it gingerly. I’ve never owned one before—they’re expensive as hell.
“Your number is stored in the memory, so memorize it,” Wyatt says. “Memorize the other three numbers on speed dial. I’m 1, Ash is 2, Jesse is 3. You are never to use this phone for personal calls unrelated to work, and you are not to divulge your phone number to anyone outside of the Triads under any circumstances. Understood?”
“Yep.”
“The work schedule for each team is four days on, two days off, on a rotating basis. When you’re on, you’re on for twenty-four hours. You are to be available and answer when I call or text you. If more than fifteen minutes pass without a response, and you are neither dead nor seriously wounded …”
His poisonous stare fills in his unspoken words, and I nod. He is seriously scary when he tries hard. “I might as well be, right?” I say, perhaps a bit too glib. “But those two days I’m off, my time is my own?”
“Yes. Just don’t call attention to yourself. The Dregs may be animals, but they do remember faces. You flash yours around town too much when you aren’t working, and you’ll make yourself a target.”
“Right. And no more kneeing drunk assholes.”
The corners of his mouth quirk. “Exactly.”
“So are we on or off right now?”
“We’re off rotation at the moment. We’ll go out tomorrow and show you the ropes—”
“I grew up around here. I know the Lot.”
Ash snorts loudly. “Which clubs within thirty blocks of here are most often frequented by Halfies?” she asks. “Which apartment building north of us exclusively houses a population of were-birds?”
I really don’t like her. How the hell I’ll work with her is beyond me, so I stay quiet. Because I don’t know those answers.
“We show you the ropes,” Wyatt continues, “and then you go out patrolling tomorrow night with Jesse and Ash. You survive the night, even bag something bad, and we go back into the rotation.”
“Fair enough,” I say. I look forward to bagging something. It’s why I’m here. And to wiping that sneer off Ash Team Senior’s face.
Wyatt smiles. It’s the first crack in his otherwise serious veneer, and he proves my theory correct: he is handsome when he smiles. He walks over to the kitchenette. I wait mutely, not sure what’s next. Jesse and Ash don’t move.
In the kitchen, Wyatt pulls five small glasses out of a cabinet, followed by a bottle of whiskey. He pours a finger of liquor into each. Only when he’s finished do Jesse and Ash approach the counter. They each take a glass, Wyatt a third. I feel as though I’m intruding on something private, so I stay put. Until Wyatt pushes one of the remaining glasses toward me.
I set my bag on the floor near the door, approach, and take the offered glass. I don’t like straight whiskey but am willing to play along. They look so serious. They raise their glasses over the fifth, so I do the same.
“To Cole,” Wyatt says. “And to Evangeline.”
“Evy,” I say.
He nods. We drink. The whiskey scorches my throat and sears my stomach. My eyes water. Nasty.
We move on to other business, and the fifth whiskey glass remains untouched for the rest of the night.
Chapter Six
10:30 A.M.
Kismet’s stomping footsteps preceded her by a good thirty seconds. She rounded the edge of the exam table’s pristine white curtain, eyes blazing as hot as her flaming hair. She stopped at the edge, took a moment to look me over—needlessly bandaged forearm, healing bruises on my face and shoulders from my tumble to the concrete—then laid into me.
“What the hell happened down there, Stone? Three cars destroyed, and now Truman’s in surgery?”
I flinched internally but was able to keep my expression neutral. “How many Halfies have you met who run around with grenades in their pockets?” And I wasn’t asking as sarcasm; the unexpected explosive had me thoroughly flummoxed.
“You’re lucky we were still upstairs, or you’d be trying to explain all that to hospital security.”
“Hey, I didn’t invite him to the party, Kismet; he was waiting. He knew where to find us.” I briefly filled her in on the Halfie’s familiarity and the few tidbits of information he’d shared, all of which helped morph Kismet’s glare into puzzlement.
“Someone’s still trying to kill you,” she said.
I rolled my eyes. “Someone’s always trying to kill me. My problem with it is that this someone is using the same people the old someone was.”
“Are you certain you were the target?”
My mind shifted gears, spinning back to the first few moments after the explosion. On my back with Wyatt pinning me down. Smoke stinging my eyes, making it hard to breathe. Struggling to stay conscious. Losing the fight.
