This was only the second day I’d had access to the site since the caterer had done a rehearsal the day before hiring me. I’d never known there were actual rehearsals for something as simple as serving food, but apparently the level of grandiosity the brothers required meant every detail had to be gone over once, twice, thrice.
Rich people were absolutely wild.
Still, I was grateful for the extra time, and once I set the box down, I headed off toward one of the doors on my list, gripping the can of air cleaner in my apron pocket.
One of my jobs was to break locks on certain doors. It wasn’t like we had a hard and fast list of which ones would be useful, but we had found records from when the mansion first was codified, and we were going off those to eliminate choke points or places we could get cornered.
So, yeah, it was a pretty damn important job for someone who worked in a grocery store.
Just stay cool, I thought to myself as I walked toward my target. I intended to simply pass the door, since there had been a guard right by it every other time I’d checked, but it seemedhe’d either moved to another position or gone to the bathroom, because the coast was clear.
I pulled both my phone and the can of air cleaner out of my pocket. Hopefully, if someone did stumble across me, I could play it off that I’d found a quiet corner where I could text while on the clock. Still risky considering our client could possibly turn me into a frog, but better than being caught in act of subterfuge.
With my cover established, I turned the air can upside down and pulled on the trigger. Not everyone knew it, but when you did that, it let out a freezing spray that could do a lot of damage to anything with tiny mechanical parts. Like a lock. I emptied the whole bottle as quickly as I could, then turned the knob back and forth until I heard a slight cracking sound.
Perfect. Maybe it wouldn’t be enough for a human to open it, but a shifter? It definitely weakened it enough that they could break it with a hard jerk.
Pleased with myself, I slid the air can back in my pocket, only to hear footsteps rapidly approaching me.
Shit!
“What are you doing? You’re not supposed to be in this area.”
I whirled around to see one of the staff. Thankfully not a guard, but not exactly great, either. I opened my mouth to say I was texting my friend, when they kept right on speaking.
“What’s that you’re holding in your pocket?”
Jeez. Observant, weren’t they? Time to go with Plan B.
“I was just trying to find the bathroom,” I said, trying to force a blush to my cheeks as I subtly let go of the can and pulled out one of the tampons I’d shoved into my apron. “I’m kind of in a hurry.”
The woman’s expression changed entirely, and I cringed at using the girl code like this, but I had to do what I had to do to make sure the mission went off correctly. Besides, if abusing girlcode meant that a lot of shifters and magic users didn’t end up trafficked to who knew where, I considered it worth it.
“I warned them that not having any menstrual disposal in the staff restroom by the kitchen would bite them in the ass. Don’t tell anyone, but I’ll show you my favorite bathroom to use when I know I’m going to be a while.”
Yep, definitely abusing girl code, but I wasn’t going to stop her. I nodded eagerly, and she took me down another hall, then through a mini library, before we reached a dead end.
“If you go gabbing about this, I will make sure you are removed immediately,” the woman said sternly before gripping the frame of giant painting hanging on the flat wall. She pulled it, and it opened to reveal a polished, cherry-wood door. I couldn’t do anything but gape at it. It was like something out of a movie.
“There you are. Make sure to close it when you’re done. And if you leave a mark, I’ll know who it was.”
“Understood. Thank you.”
“Don’t worry about it. Us girls gotta stick together. And I wouldn’t want you to have to try to move through some of the party areas to get to one of the other bathrooms.”
Although she said it politely, I couldn’t help but wonderwhyshe wouldn’t want that. Certainly it couldn’t have anything to do with the awful caliber of guests that were going to be there.
Thankfully, the woman left quickly after that, and I went into the bathroom so I wouldn’t ruin my cover. I lingered there for a moment, catching my breath and staying out of sight. I was in a situation that was far more high stakes than one would ever expect of me, a college dropout with social anxiety, but I felt like I was doing really great. Who knew, maybe I’d missed my calling in life. It was too bad no one had ever mentioned being a spy on career day.
Hopefully, the woman wouldn’t check the wastebin after I left. Otherwise, she would probably be curious as to why therewas no dirty tampon in there. Maybe I could convince her I was starting my period a day early, but still, I had to cross my fingers and hope she wouldn’t be that meticulous.
When an appropriate amount of time had passed, I slipped out of the bathroom and went back to work. I was fortunate enough that no one seemed to have noticed I was gone, and I got back to the little tasks I needed to do until it was time for the grand event.
Normally, people were usually either set up back of house or front of house, and that was that, but the mindwalker had worked her magic to make sure I would be able to help with setup on both, which gave me time to scout and work back of house during the event so I could be in the proper position once things happened.
As scary as it was to be the only human on our side, I wasn’t completely alone. I had two allies who were on the campus with me. One being the young eagle shifter who was hiding somewhere in the trees toward the edge of her field of vision. Although America was furious that her adopted teenage niece had gone off on her own, she had allowed her to play an auxiliary role. Her only task was to fly off and sound the alarm if something went south early, but it was still a comfort to have her there.
My other ally was a guy named Chris, who Miranda had contacted. I didn’t know whether they were family, but they obviously had a connection. I had been surprised when I heard he was a wolf shifter and would be helping out with the setup, but then Leo explained what a latent shifter was and how it made the man a perfect teammate to help set up with me.
