“There was a small Agency recruitment effort on campus,” she explained. “A lot of my friends didn’t want to have anything to do with them, but I went and listened. This was sometime in 2003, and the intelligence failures of 9/11 were all anyone talked about those days. What they told me changed my entire outlook. I signed up a few months later and went straight into the CIA right after graduation. With my background, I thought I’d be doing analyst work, but I ended up in the field instead.”
Trevor had still been in the army at that time and clearly remembered what those years following 9/11 were like. Those events had changed a lot of people’s outlooks.
“What did your family think of your career choice?” he asked.
Alina sipped her iced tea. “My brothers and sister weren’t thrilled, but they respected my decision. But when I told my parents I was joining the CIA, well, let’s just say they were disappointed. I think they had visions of me running around the world, inciting coups, toppling governments, kidnapping people, and assassinating world leaders. There was a period of time in the beginning when both of them stopped talking to me.”
Trevor winced. “And now?”
“It’s better,” she admitted. “But now, when I visit for the holidays, my profession is strictly off-limits. I don’t talk about what I do, and no one brings it up.”
Damn. That sounded really screwed up. “Must make for some tense dinners.”
She laughed. “Not as bad as you might think. I love my family to pieces, but sometimes they act as if the real world doesn’t exist. They’re comfortable believing everyone and every situation, anywhere in the world, can be handled through reasonable political debate and a nice, civil voice. You and I both know that, sometimes, things don’t work out like that. My family would simply rather not talk about those things. They’re comfortable not knowing what I do, and I’m comfortable not telling them.”
Alina might have seemed cool about the whole thing, but the slight elevation in her heart rate told Trevor she wasn’t as chill with her family’s opinion of her chosen career as she might try to suggest. He could get that. Family was family. If you knew they were disappointed in you, it was hard to act like it didn’t matter.
“Are you from the DC area, or did you move here after the DCO hired you?” he asked.
“I grew up in Sacramento, but the Agency had me based out of DC for the past five years. I have an apartment in Del Ray, near Reagan National.”
He reached for another slice of pizza. “Del Ray? That’s practically at the end of the airport runway. You don’t mind living near all that noise?”
She shook her head. “It’s not that bad. I don’t even notice it anymore. Besides, it was really convenient while I was in the Agency, since I practically lived in the airport.”
He chuckled. “I feel ya. Sometimes I think it’d make more sense to live in an RV. That way, I could park it at the airport whenever I go somewhere. Any plans to move closer to the DCO training complex at Quantico so you won’t have to deal with that morning commute?”
“No. I like my apartment, and my neighbor is my best friend. No way am I going anywhere.” She shrugged. “Besides, I still have no idea if this gig in the DCO is going to work out. It would be stupid to move then find out I don’t like the work that much.” She motioned at him with her half-eaten slice of pizza. “How about you? Do you live near Quantico?”
“Yeah. I have an apartment in Woodbridge that I was lucky enough to get into called Kensington Place. I can stumble to my car ten minutes before work and still make it there in time.”
She blinked. “I’ve heard of that place. It’s kind of fancy, isn’t it?”
“It’s a little pricey, I admit. But shifters do get a bonus over the regular GS wage scale. The DCO actually found the place for me.”
She laughed. “The perks of having fangs and claws, I guess.”
Trevor didn’t sense a trace of bitterness in her words, which was what he usually got from a lot of the other regular agents working in the DCO when they found out that the freaks got paid more than they did.
“Okay, now that you know all about me, what’s your story?” Alina asked. “How’d you end up in the DCO?”
He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “It’s a long story.”
She gestured at the pie in the center of the table. “We still have half a pizza left to polish off, so feel free to take your time.”
“Well, in that case, I suppose I should start with the fact that I was born to be a cop,” Trevor said, grabbing another slice.
Alina lifted a brow. “That seems like a tough burden to put on a newborn, don’t you think?”
He chuckled. “I’m serious. My dad, uncle, all three of my brothers, and my sister are all cops in Portland, so I’m not exaggerating when I say my life was planned out for me. From the time I was ten years old, it was a given that I’d either go in the army and serve as an MP, then get out after my first tour so I could become a cop like everyone else in my family, or I’d go to the local junior college and get my associate’s degree in criminal justice, then get a job as a cop like everyone else in my family.”
Alina made a face. “Crap. And I thought my life had been tightly scripted out for me. That had to have been a little claustrophobic.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” he agreed. “But it turned out that in my case, I had even fewer options than that. See, I was a wide receiver for our high school football team, and I was good enough to get some attention from the local universities. I got a couple of looks from recruiters at both Oregon and Oregon State during my junior year, and everyone was talking a full scholarship if I could make it through my senior year without getting injured. I have to admit I was kind of psyched about going to a big school and playing in front of thousands of fans. Unfortunately, my mom and dad weren’t planning on letting me get near any of the big schools. They’d already locked their sights on Western Oregon University. It was only an hour and a half from home, and it offered a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a full scholarship. Dad was practically salivating at the thought of his youngest son hitting the detective ranks before the age of thirty. So at that point, even the military was off the table.”
“I’m hearing a but coming,” Alina said, taking a bite of pizza.
“Yeah. It was definitely coming.” He waited for their server to refill their teas and leave before continuing. “Because in between my junior year and senior year of high school, I went through my first shift. In a flash, my whole life changed.”
