Page 20 of Chased

Remy got up and shook hands with Madison. “I do computer shit,” he said. “And I tell my mate she’s pretty.”

Madison was stunned all over again. The guy Jaeda had threatened with a knife was her mate—and he thought it was funny.

Jaeda winked at Remy and said with obvious affection, “You’re pretty too, babe.” She waved at Madison. “Hi, nice to meet you.”

Breanna said, “Okay, so, five-minute tour.” Madison expected Sanchez to go, but he sat down in one of the conference table chairs, legs splayed out, and started doing something on his phone. It was kind of comforting, and kind of unnerving. Was he, like, her guardian wolf now? Or was he just waiting to get his shirt back? Or had he started texting his girlfriend and forgotten all about Madison?

Even without his attention on her, his presence was so big it seemed to take up half the room. She had to work to drag her focus back to Breanna.

“This is my desk,” Breanna indicated the piled-up desk near the back wall, “and this is where you’ll be working.” She pointed to the desk catty-corner to it. “I cleaned it all up last week and then—” She sighed and gestured at the mess on top of it. “That happened. I’m not sure exactly how. It doesn’t happen over there.” She indicated Jaeda’s half of the room, pristine and orderly.

Sanchez said without looking up, “How the hell do you think Jaeda keeps her side like that? She probably dumps all her shit on your side.”

“Blasphemy,” Remy said, without heat. “Slander. She’s just anal—” The knife appeared again, and he said, “Organized. You’re organized.”

Jaeda smiled serenely. “What can I say? I like order.”

Breanna said, “I do too. I just have too much to fucking dooo!” The last part was almost a wail.

Madison was still freaked out by the casual atmosphere and easy camaraderie. And the weapons. But she was really starting to like Breanna. She said, “We’ll straighten it out.” Then, as she looked around, she said dubiously, “Are you sure you don’t want me to start this afternoon?”

Breanna laughed. “Only if you feel like it. Which I’m 99.9 percent sure you don’t.” She smiled at Madison. “It really is okay if you don’t start until tomorrow. You’ll still get paid and everything. You’re on salary, and even though we technically have office hours, a lot of the recreational activities will be on evenings or weekends, so you’ll get time off to compensate for that. The men have strict duty schedules, but we don’t.”

She lowered her voice conspiratorially and added, “Honestly, this place is a madhouse. They’re lucky to have anybody willing to work here at all. Now, where was I? Oh. Here, follow me.”

She headed back through the opening she’d come out of. It was a hallway, with a few doors on either side and an outside door the end. Stopping at the first door on the left, she said, “Coffee and snacks are in here.”

It was a little break room, with a small table and chairs, a refrigerator, a sink, and a coffee maker with a plate of pastries next to it. “Anything unlabeled in here is fair game, so if you bring food with you and want it to be there when you come back, put your name on it. I also recommend threats.”

She opened the refrigerator door and Madison saw a plastic container with a paper taped to it—a skull and crossbones drawn in marker, and the words ‘Eat this and die, fuckers. I will find you.’

“Okay, you weren’t kidding,” she murmured.

Breanna said, “The guys here are pretty cool. Mostly. But some of them love pranks, and they’ll mess with you just to get a rise out of you. You do not have to take any shit from them. In fact, they’ll respect you more if you don’t.”

We get to give the predators shit? Vixen said. I might like this place. Except for the work part.

Madison was trying to imagine a world where women didn’t have to watch what they said all the time. It was dizzying.

Breanna closed the fridge. “Anyway. The storage room is across the hall—paper and office supplies and stuff like that. Eventually you’ll probably be in charge of tracking that and ordering more when we need it.”

She waved her hand. “There’s more offices at the back—no one’s assigned to them yet, except Mikey—Michelangela Connors—is using one of them for the moment. She’s not there right now, so I’ll introduce you later on. In the meantime, I’ll show you where your cabin is.”

At that moment the outside door at the end of the hall banged open, and the guard from the gate tromped in. Dragging Madison’s suitcase.

“Hey, Boomer,” Breanna said. “What’s up?”

He shook his hair back. “Came to see if we’re still on for that Wild Wolf Lake marathon this weekend.”

Madison stared. Wild Wolf Lake was a new paranormal teen soap opera. And was Breanna dating the gate guard? Because she couldn’t think of any other reason why this armed wolf soldier would be watching a show like that.

But then, she didn’t know what the hell he was doing with her luggage, either.

“Absolutely,” Breanna said. “I had to turn on the parental controls on the TV to keep Switch from watching it this week and wrecking the whole experience with spoilers, though.”

She turned to Madison. “Switch is my mate. He’s a helicopter pilot and electronics expert.” Madison could hear the pride in her voice.

So Boomer was… just a guy who liked teen soaps? She would not have guessed that in a million years.