“Did it look like I wanted this?”
“How could you not?” I ask, setting Pocket Lint down to take my gun back.
“That thing is demonic,” he complains as he points at the white ferret.
“Maybe that’s why we get along so well,” I say while I scritch the top of her head. She closes her eyes, enjoying the attention.
“I apologize that my mother was having you looked into.”
“It’s fine. But if you want to know anything, all you need to do is ask,” I assure him. “I’m an open book.”
“You’re like one of those books someone would find in a crypt and be like, ‘Will civilization be cursed for a thousand years if I open this?’”
I laugh, loving the comparison. “The possibilities are endless.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You okay?” I ask, noticing he looks a little pained.
“Fine, I just got out of the car a bit too fast.”
“I apologize. I will ask next time someone’s following us if they were sent by your mother. Maybe our mothers have more in common than I thought. My mother sent an assassin after me tosee if I was good enough for the coming-of-age trial. Yours sends them after your friends because she’s nosy.”
Ellison hesitates. “Like… to test your fighting? They weren’t actually going to kill you if you failed… right…right?”
“Oh no, it was kill or be killed for sure. She didn’t want to be disappointed in me when the trial began. Better to just cull me early in that case.”
“Did… did your mother hate you?”
“HA! Probably. We weren’t supposed to know who our parents were. I found out and I think she did what she could to make sure I never felt overly attached to her.”
“I’m starting to wonder if my own mother isn’t as bad as I thought.”
When we reach his home, I follow him inside. It’s an extremely expensive home that is very modern, even from the outside. There are a lot of windows on the first floor, which… doesn’t that just give a sniper ample opportunity to off you?
Inside, everything is black, white, or cream. There’s no color to any part of the rooms and the stairs leading up to the second floor are made of glass. The second floor has a thin black railing that allows people to look down on the living room since it’s completely open until one reaches the bedrooms.
Ellison waves me toward one of the rooms. The bed is perfect, corners tucked in; the towels in the bathroom are folded neatly and the toilet paper has a little V on the end. The odd thing is… I can’t quite tell whether Ellison’s stick-up-her-ass mother has it arranged like this or Ellison does.
“Please don’t let that thing wander around, it’s going to shit all over,” he says as he eyes Pocket Lint who is galloping after me.
“It’s okay, I got her litter boxes.”
“And a cage?”
“She is a free woman. She cannot be contained.”
“Do you even know if it’s a female?”
“That’s what she told me,” I say, which translates to, “I sure as fuck don’t know.”
Ellison picks up the ferret, looks her over, and hands her back. “So you speak to ferrets now.”
“Of course,” I tease, knowing that Ellison is confirming she’s female. I set her down on the floor where she takes to biting my sock.
Ellison waves me off and heads toward his room where he plans to retire early.
Pocket Lint gallops after him and tries to bite his ankles the whole way. “You damn vermin,” he hisses while he hurries away.
