“Perfect, is there anything you’re allergic to or hate? We can make it easy and order two of whatever since I haven’t eaten yet either,” I lie without remorse, Raiden picking up the subtle cue to dispose of my plate before she notices.
With a shake of her head and an indecipherable mutter under her breath, the scowl is replaced by a plastic smile, and my head is spinning from the emotional gauntlet she’s running. “Not a fan of seafood, or fancy hipster foods that take a paragraph to describe a burger. Kind of picky about sauces when I can afford to be, so prefer plain and boring, but will eat whatever when it comes down to it.”
Before she’s even done speaking, I have the delivery app open on my phone, heavily over-ordering. There’s a stapler in Raiden’s office; she can watch us seal up any leftovers so that she has options to reheat later.
When I find the bastard that added food onto her already overfilled plate of trust issues, I will make his death so slow and painful, mercenaries the world over will take notes.
***
“If I shove anythingelse in my mouth, I’ll explode.” Amara taps out, pushing another styrofoam container away to make room for her forehead thumping down onto the table.
Kodiak stares down at her with yearning, not bothering to hide his infatuation. “Poor choice of words there, ghost-mouse.”
Her face scrunches up in distaste. “Putting a stop tothatright here and now.”
Naturally, it only encourages him, and he rests a cheek on his fist. “Kitten?”
“Hard no.” Groaning, she sits up, stretching in her chair.
“I was willing to upgrade you from a mouse to a kitten, but you can’t keep skipping the line until you earn it,” he teases.
While they go back and forth, I staple shut containers and move them to the fridge. Amara catches my eye on one of my trips back to the table, giving me a small tip of her head in thanks and a shy smile that hits me like a punch to the gut.
To Kodi, she rolls her eyes. “If you’re going to give me some line about seeing what kind of claws I have to earn a tougher nickname, I’m going to put cereal in your sheets.”
“You say that like it’s a threat.” I snort. “Without Raiden around to force him to clean up after himself, I guarantee there are already enough crumbs in his bed to feed a small village.”
Kodi slaps a hand over his heart with an offended gasp. “What am I supposed to do,noteat chips while watching TV? Just because you refuse to have any joy in your life doesn’t mean the rest of us have to deprive ourselves.”
Raiden strides into the room, not even looking up from his phone as he starts barking orders. “Kodiak, quit starting shit and go run a vacuum before you wake up with a mouse in your bed.”
The joke is on the tip of his tongue, but the warning look Amara throws at him has Kodi zipping his lips, chuckling all the way to his room.
“Stone,” Raiden asks, efficiently typing away, “are you picking up another rotation after we’ve handled our current predicament? I have a few things on the books in the coming months that I’m not sure I can get out of and need to know if I should start bribing my sister to cover for me.”
I run the tip of my tongue over my teeth in agitation, unable to call him out on the dick move of putting me on the spot in front of Amara. Do I lean into the idea that we’re not going to ruin her life and act like these marks change nothing like she’s been, or embrace the fact that she’s already become the sun in our universe, and I’m balking at the idea of returning to a depressing life without her there to brighten my dreary existence?
Once Amara’s stalker is a non-issue, there’s no reason we can’t all go back to our lives, minus a few precautionary adjustments. Raiden and Kodiak can be with her when I’m at work, and vice versa. Simple. Logical. Yet the idea of a forty-eight hour shift at the hospital, running ragged with barely enough time to take a piss, let alone check in at home, has the pressure in my chest I’d just shed threatening to make another appearance.
“We’ll play it by ear. I’ll take a sabbatical while things are up in the air, so you can plan on attending your meetings yourself. When everything settles down we can revisit the topic, but I’ll keep my schedule clear for the foreseeable future to make things less complicated.”
He gives me a nod, adjusting his calendar, but Amara frowns. “Wait, why do either of you have to give up work to stay with me? What about Kodi?”
“He pawned his current obligations onto a few of his employees,” Raiden explains, “but there’s some scheduling crossover in the coming months since he has a couple of clients that refuse to work with anyone except him. Not only do they pay extremely well, but they have enough connections that if he backs out on the contracts, it’ll have a ripple effect that’ll bite us all in the ass for years to come.”
“Security,” I elaborate, raising my voice to be heard over Kodiak’s hasty cleaning job. “Shifter events tend to get bloody, so some of the key players have taken to either hiring his company to man the crowd, or as personal guards when they’re in enemy territory for negotiations.”
A small frown creases her forehead, but she nods, turning to Raiden. “You sound pretty confident that you’ll have Malcolm out of the picture and be on to rubbing elbows with the upper echelon before summer ends.”
Finally, he tucks his phone away, giving her his full focus. The moment he does, I realize that his divided attention was for her benefit. She squirms under the direct scrutiny, a faint, bitter tang coating my tongue that catches me by surprise. The only way to stay sane surrounded by a constant array of pain, death, sickness, and fear was to make myself numb to all of it. After enough exposure, I was able to convince myself that those thingswerethe normal state of things, not an imbalance.
Now I’ve spent the past month unintentionally attuning my senses to Amara, making her my new baseline on which I compare everything else.
Raiden takes a seat opposite her, a calculated gleam in his eye. “I’m optimistic. As soon as we find him, it’ll be a matter of the three of us fighting over who gets to deliver the death blow. But it would go a lot quicker if you were willing to share anything that might be useful in tracking him down. A description, an ability; whatever you’re comfortable sharing, but we haven’t wanted to push and cause you more pain by reliving those memories.”
She crosses her arms over her stomach, and I catch a brief glimpse of her thumb tracing a path on her side. “No, it’s fine, but I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. If I knew anything useful, I would have utilized it to hide better.”
Kodiak joins us again, short of breath, but a victorious grin at the world’s fastest clean up job. Which is simply code for ‘don’t open his closet unless you want to be buried alive.’ “Don’t worry, bobcat, we’ve got your back. Share whatever you’re up for, and let us worry about the rest, okay?”
