Danielle looked at her in confusion.
“Compost?”
“Compost, and community vegetable gardens.” Zoey started warming to the idea. “There are so many empty lots. We can start organizing volunteer teams to bring the trash to designated lots and use some of the overflowing dumpsters as compost bins. Yes, it’s going to be a gross job, but no worse than walking down our streets these days. If I spend some time in the community vegetable gardens, they’ll grow like crazy. I’m like fertilizer.”
Danielle went to fetch herself more coffee. “You realize that you just basically called yourself a pile of manure?” she said when she returned.
“Yes, but let’s run with it.”
“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” Andrea said enthusiastically. “Don’t you, Stewart?”
“Absolutely,” he bobbed his head, although if Andrea had said the sky was purple and the streets were made of taffy, he’d have agreed with that too.
They all looked at Danielle. Danielle took a very long, dramatic sip of coffee and set her mug down. “It’s not completely crazy,” she said grudgingly.
“Woo, coming from you that’s high praise, cranky witch!”
“And Danielle could make sure the gardens got enough water. Since she’s a wet blanket. Get it, wet blanket? Because she’s cranky and also a water witch?” Stewart threw back his head and laughed. Andrea joined him, and Stewart beamed with delight.
Danielle narrowed her eyes. “He’s lucky I don’t waste good caffeine, or he’d be wearing this,” she said to Zoey, glancing down at her third cup of coffee. “Give me strength.”
Andrea rubbed her hands together happily. “All right, we can present this to the committee on Monday. I’ll find out what empty lots we could use.”
When Andrea went to use the bathroom, Stewart watched her with a wistful expression. “You could ask her out, you know,” Zoey said.
Stewart’s ever-present smile faded. “I have. I guess the timing’s not right.”
Probably because of Lorenzo, Zoey thought. He was about all Andrea could handle right now.
A few minutes later, they were all finished with their coffee and Zoey headed back to her apartment. Suddenly her map sense flared and a big, blaring “obstacle” warning pounded in her head. The obstacle’s sudden appearance almost certainly meant that something, or someone, had just spotted her, and planned to intercept her. Otherwise, her map magic would have warned her about it earlier.
They were in her neighborhood’s business district, on a street lined with shops and restaurants. She glanced around but didn’t see any obvious threats. Was it one of the Blood Oath pack – come to grab her?
She elbowed her way through a knot of warlock hipsters on a corner, earning her dirty looks from skinny men with tight jeans and man buns. Ignoring them, she hurried down the next block, and quickly dodged down an alleyway – but the pounding of footsteps told her that her pursuer was on her heels.
She slid behind a dumpster, praying she wouldn’t be spotted – because the alley was a dead end.
Chapter Five
She could hear someone making his way down the alleyway. Well, the hell with it. She might as well confront whatever or whoever was after her, rather than cringing in the shadows.
She stomped out from behind the dumpster, trying to look intimidating - which was ridiculous given that she lived in a city where vampires stalked in the daytime and men turned into meat-eating animals.
And then she grimaced in disgust. The man who’d been following her was Jordan.
He served as the neighborhood liaison for the Blood Oath Pack – since none of the pack members would condescend to live in a downscale neighborhood like this. Jordan made a very nice living working for them. He dressed his short, rotund form in silvery shark skin suit that were so shiny they looked like tinfoil, and liked to flash his Rolex.
For some reason that made Zoey think of Dominic. Like the other high-ranking members of the pack, he always wore a suit. His suits were exquisitely tailored to his muscular body, but they didn’t shout for attention the way that Jordan’s did. They didn’t need to. Dominic commanded attention just by strolling into a room, with his animal grace and his piercing blue eyes.
Now, why was she even thinking of him? He’d changed his mind and she didn’t have to worry about him any more – right?
“Zoey!” Jordan leered, sliding in front of her. “Trying to avoid me?”
“Why would I ever?” she said drily. She quickly sidestepped him so he was no longer between her and the end of the alley.
“You haven’t paid your share this week.” That’s what they called the extortion money. Her ‘share’.
She dug into her purse and reluctantly handed over almost all the tips she’d earned the night before. She’d left forty dollars tucked in her sock; he needed to see her empty her wallet before he’d be satisfied, the greedy bastard. He seemed to get a sick thrill out of separating people from the last of their money.
