“What?” I said glancing at him as I let a few tourist cross the road. “I do mean that.”
“You’d quit?”
I shrugged. “I’d resign. Look.” I glanced at Vivian in the rearview. “If I’m doing a good job, if I’m listening to the people in my town and doing everything I can to make sure they’re living in a safe and fair community, then I’m happy to be doing that job.
“But if I lose track of what it means to care for people—all people including the ones who make bad choices and mistakes—when I start seeing them as something other than a living, breathing person who deserves to be seen as human before criminal, then someone better tell me so I can resign and let someone with a better sense of ethics, morals, and heart take care of this town.”
“That sounds very…correct. Politically,” Vivian said with sniff.
“Does it? Good. Because my job is to be strong for people when challenges come storming into their lives. My job is to make sure everyone is going to come out of the storm alive and whole.
“If there has been a crime committed, then I’m going to follow the law and see that fair consequences are handed out for those actions. It’s law enforcement, Vivian. But I’m not the judge, jury, and executioner. I never forget that every person who lives in my town, or is just driving through deserves to be treated fairly.”
Ryder was watching me while I talked, and I could tell from his small smile that he had not expected me to say that. Which, out of everyone, he should know this about me.
Yes, I handled crime in the town. Yes, I had arrested people, jailed them. I’d pulled my gun before too, though I’d never killed anyone.
Yes, I judged if gods and demons could come into Ordinary, but that mostly came down to whether they agreed to follow the rules. I didn’t automatically assume any god, human, demon, or hell, ghoul who looked like me, was up to no good unless they showed me proof those intentions.
Look at Tish. They had come to town in a car that fell out of the sky. They were working for someone. They might have something to do with the theft of god weapons—might even have been the one to steal the weapons.
But until I knew that, until we had facts and proof, I wasn’t going to jump to conclusions. I wasn’t going to hurt them—ever—if I could help it.
Until proved otherwise, Tish was just another supernatural who had come to town and gotten themselves in a bit of a mess. Plenty of supernaturals did that.
Ryder reached over, and took my hand, his fingers and mine slotting together.
“I don’t think you’re going to have to resign any time soon,” he said.
“I hope not. I like my job. I love it. But if there comes a day when I’m not the best person for it, when I’m not the bestmeon the job, then I’ll step away and find another way to help the people in town.”
He squeezed my hand gently. “Like they’d ever let you retire.”
I gave him a quick grin. “Maybe if I begged?”
“What about moving on to a bigger town? A better town?” Vivian asked. “Move up in the world? Become someone?”
She stared out the window, and I wondered how she saw the place that had always been home to me. From the look on her face, there was nothing special about the weather-worn buildings, the narrow, but clean streets.
I didn’t think she saw how Athena’s surf shop had new candles displayed in the window, cleverly arranged to mimic an ocean wave. I didn’t think she could see how Zeus was still trying to camouflage the lopsided chainsaw statue of a walrus Odin had forced him to carry in his upscale boutique. I didn’t think she could see the new tea shop Ganesha, who had returned to town a couple month ago, was going to open, the sign on the window a cheery drawing of an elephant and mouse having tea together.
She didn’t see the people here, the lives here, the love here. She saw only the surface of the place.
Which was fine with me. I didn’t want anything to draw her attention. Didn’t want her interest.
Boring was good. Boring was a shield and a protection.
“I like it here,” I said. “I grew up here. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
Traffic was a little slow, so I took a side street, knowing I could cut back through the neighborhoods to the hotel.
“Delaney, you don’t want to—” Ryder started, just as I realized I’d turned down a street with the spillover of cars and people heading to the pre-show practice of the Ordinary Show Off.
Traffic slowed to a snail’s crawl.
Shit.
The lines of cars on either side of the street perked up Vivian’s attention. “Is there an event going on?”
