4. Mia

Chapter four

Mia

“ W hat the hell happened to you? Come in!” Evangeline ordered.

“I don’t think I should,” I told her. “I slept in a pile of garbage in an alley last night. I stink.” “Nonsense, get your ass in here,” she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me inside. I

winced at the contact. My skin was still sensitive from the knives. “I don’t care how bad you smell; you are always welcome here.” Evangeline paused as she finally caught my scent. “Ok, maybe you should shower first and then tell me what happened,” she chuckled.

“I tried to warn you,” I replied, following her upstairs.

“I found the rope!” one of her mates announced, running out of a room stark naked. “Evangeline, get your ass—“ He froze when he saw me, and his eyes widened as he slowly looked down at his impressive dick and then back up at me. “Shit!” He jumped back into the bedroom and slammed the door. “Who’s your friend, Baby?”

“This is Mia—my analyst. I told you about her,” Evangeline laughed. “You didn’t tell me she was coming over,” he replied tightly.

“Sorry, Jett. I didn’t know. She will get cleaned up in your bathroom if that’s ok.”

“Yeah, sure. Go ahead. I’ll put the rope away,” Jett replied through the door. His disappointment was palpable.

“I’m interrupting. I’m so sorry,” I said. “I can come back.”

“Not a chance, Mia. Take a shower. I’ll get Kase to make some food and leave a change of clothes for you on the bed.” Evangeline led me into a bedroom, pointed out where everything was in the ensuite, and then left. In a perfect world, I would shower, take a long bath soaking in coconut bath oil, then a sugar scrub, and then another shower. But nothing about the last twenty-four hours had been perfect, so I settled for a single shower where I scrubbed my skin almost raw and washed my hair three times. It would have to do. At least I didn’t smell like garbage anymore. Instead, I smelled like Jett. I didn’t like smelling like a man, but beggars can’t be choosers.

When I got out of the shower, I gingerly placed my old clothes in the garbage pail and tied the bag to bring downstairs. It could go right into their garbage can. Evangeline left a pair of sweats and a hoodie for me to change into. I was swimming in both and had to roll the waistband of the pants several times so that I wasn’t tripping over them. I’d tossed my boots in the trash with my clothes, so I’d have to go barefoot. When I was all put together, I poked my head out of the door to make sure there weren’t any more naked men running around and then

went downstairs. Evangeline and her mates were in the kitchen; Kase, I presumed, was at the stove cooking something that smelled divine. They all looked at me when I entered.

“Where is your garbage can?” I asked, holding up the bag of my ruined clothes. The big one jumped up. “I’ll take care of that for you. Why don’t you have a seat.” “You probably don’t want to touch that,” I warned as he took the bag from me.

“I’ve got it, sit.” His no-nonsense tone had me hustling into the seat at the table across from Evangeline.

“Don’t let Rylan boss you around,” Evangeline whispered. “He likes to think he’s the boss around here.”

“I heard that, Angel,” Rylan called over his shoulder as he left the room. She smirked but didn’t respond. “Now, Mia, tell us what happened.”

“Oh, boy. Where to start,” I said, looking around the room for anything to help me stall. I always planned to tell her what I did, but I expected it to be with a successful assassination under my belt, not after I fucked it all up.

“I find the beginning is usually a good place,” Jett said helpfully. At least now he was clothed. Not that he wasn’t attractive, but he belonged to Evangeline, and it felt icky to have seen him naked.

“Right. Well, you know how I told you I wanted to be an assassin?” “Yes,” Evangeline replied.

“Well…,” I took a deep breath and blurted it out. “A doctor contacted me saying he could help me be more formidable so that I could be. All I had to do was take a pill, so I hacked the system and sent myself an invitation and took the drug, and now I’m an assassin, and I have more abilities, but when I went on my first hit last night I got into a bit of trouble, and I shifted, and then I had razor fur, but I couldn’t shift back, and the guy almost caught me, so I had to sleep in a pile of trash in an alley until I shifted back, and my mark is still alive.” I panted as I caught my breath and waited for her response. Evangeline and Jett stared at me dumbfounded, and the longer they didn’t speak, the redder my cheeks got.

A throat cleared from the doorway. “Kase, how’s lunch coming?” Rylan asked, coming back into the kitchen. “Jett, why don’t you get Mia something to drink? I’m sure she’s just as thirsty as she is hungry. Evangeline, darling?” Her eyes shifted to him, though her face still held the stunned expression. “Fix your face.”

Evangeline blinked at his command, blushing as her attention returned to me. “I’m so sorry, Mia. That was just a lot to take in under ten seconds. I think my brain was still processing it all.”

“I understand,” I said sheepishly.

“First and foremost, are you ok?” she asked as Jett set a glass of milk in front of me. I looked at the glass and then at him. Milk?

“Water, Pup,” Rylan growled as he sat beside me.

“What?” Jett asked. “She’s a cat shifter; I thought she might like a comforting glass of

milk.”

“It’s only comforting when it’s warm,” I told him. “And water will be fine. Or Red Bull if you have any more!” I said, spotting the can on the table.

“I, uh, think we’re out,” Jett stammered. “Jett!” Evangeline scolded.

“Fine,” he replied dejectedly. He returned to the table and begrudgingly set the can in front of me.

“You’ll have to excuse him,” Kase said behind me, “He has an addiction to Red Bull and, since he’s still a pup, doesn’t share well.”

“I share just fine when it comes to Evangeline,” Jett retorted.

“Perhaps we should get back to Mia’s dilemma?” Rylan suggested. The massive Hellhound was mega intimidating, but he was quickly becoming my favorite.

“Right,” Evangeline agreed. “Are you ok?”

“I’m embarrassed but otherwise unharmed,” I told her.

“Good. Now, understand that I’m saying this as a friend, and it comes from a place of love,” she started. “What the fuck were you thinking accepting an experimental drug from a complete stranger and then forging an invitation to the Guild?!”

“I just wanted to be an assassin,” I replied, annoyed by how whiney I sounded.

“Mia, babe. There had to be better ways than this if you had been patient. I could have trained you. Helped you develop the skills to impress the Guild and earn your invitation legitimately.” She reached across the table to take my hands, and when I met her eyes, I saw genuine worry in them.

Great. Now, not only do I feel even dumber, but I don’t feel like I’ve entirely assessed the danger I might be in. “What do I do?” I asked.

Well, first, you’re going to eat,“ Kase said, setting a bowl of mac and cheese in front of me. He’d mixed peas and tuna fish into it, just the way I liked it. I looked up at him in awe. “How did you know?”

Kase winked at me as he served the others. “Just a hunch.”

“How come he can put tuna fish in her mac and cheese, and it not be offensive, but I can’t give her milk?” Jett complained.

“Let it go, Pup,” Rylan sighed.

“Wait a minute,” Evangeline said as we started to eat. “Does that mean you won’t be my analyst anymore?”

“I’m afraid so,” I replied. “And it’s not like I gave notice or anything when I left, so it may take some time for you to get reassigned. I’m sorry about that. You might not get a job for a while.”

“That’s not going to hurt my feelings,” Evangeline laughed. “After the last job, I could use a vacation.”

“How did that go? Did you get Zabiza?”

Evangeline waved her hand dismissively. “Girl, that is a story for another day. We don’t have the time to get into it and solve your problem.”

Fair enough. I was pretty sure that my problem wouldn’t have an easy solution. I needed all the help I could get.

“Ok,” Evangeline said after we had finished eating. “You need to track down this “doctor” and get some answers about what is happening to you. Being unable to shift on command leaves you incredibly vulnerable in any situation. Do not take any more contracts until you have yourself sorted and under control.”

“What about the one I already took?”

“I’ll take care of it. Just leave the mark’s information with me and consider it done. The last thing you need right now is the Guild catching wind of what’s happening.” she replied. She stood and retrieved a notepad and pen from one of the kitchen drawers and handed it to me.

“I thought the Guild knows everything,” Kase commented.

“They do,” I replied, “but the analysts are one layer of the guild. We flag things for the higher-ups to look closer at. As long as my analyst doesn’t recognize me or flag my file, I’ll be good for a short time. At least long enough for me to figure this out and make it right.”

“What will happen to you if they discover what you did and aren’t happy?” Rylan asked. Evangeline and I exchanged looks. “There’s only one way out of the Guild,” I stated. “And that’s through the Grim Reaper himself,” she finished.

“Well, that’s wonderfully ominous,” Jett said dryly.

With a general plan in place, I thanked them for their hospitality, borrowed a pair of

flip-flops from Evangeline, and left. I called the number Dr. Parote had texted me from initially, but when I did, an automated voice told me that the number was no longer in service. Ominous indeed. Since I couldn’t contact him via phone, I decided to drive to the clinic and speak to him in person. That was a better idea anyway so that he could examine me and figure out what was wrong.

I pulled into the parking lot, which was just as empty as my first time here. This time, there was a sign on the door. “No, no, no, no, no,” I said, jumping from my car to get a closer look at the sign to make sure that I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. “Oh, this is bad,” I groaned when I read the For Rent sign. “So fucking bad.” I pushed and pulled on the door in vain. Wherever Dr. Parote was, he wasn’t here anymore. I had no way of getting in touch with him. I was on my own.

I trudged back to my car, the worry settling deeper in my gut. What was I supposed to do now? Wait for my abilities to level out? Maybe that’s all this was. The drug was still working its magic and leaving chaos in its wake. I was so excited that I rushed into a job when I should have taken a few days to let my body settle into its new abilities. That had to be it. I would just go home, lay low for a week, and then see what was what.

Telling myself I felt much better about the situation, I drove home. Walking into my house was an immense comfort, and I felt myself immediately start to relax. I’d have a little staycation and be a lazy little kitty for a while, and everything would work out just fine. I dropped my purse and keys on the entryway table and went straight to my room. I needed a nap in the worst way. As I curled up in bed, I remembered my phone was in my purse. While I charged it up a little at Evangeline’s, I should have probably put it on the charger again, but I was too tired to fetch it. I’d charge it later; it wasn’t like I was going anywhere anytime soon.

The sun had just fallen below the horizon when I next woke up. I got up and went into the kitchen for a snack. I warmed up a cup of milk, chuckling as I remembered Jett earlier, poured some cereal into a bowl, and took both to my window seat. I munched on the dry cereal while sipping my warm milk as I watched the stars wake up. I was entirely too chipper not to be

a morning person, but as a cat shifter, I lived for the night. That’s when I felt most comfortable, which is why, most of the time, I never bothered to turn the lights on in my house. I didn’t need them and felt safer in the dark.

I contentedly enjoyed the evening when I caught movement outside my house in the bushes. My eyes zeroed in on it like a predator sighting their prey. Someone was creeping around outside my house! Fear tried to close in around me, but I pushed it away. If someone was here for me, I couldn’t afford to be choked by fear. I needed a clear head. Slowly, I got off the seat and moved away from the window. I rushed to my room to put on sneakers and pulled my hair into a tight bun to keep it out of the way.

“You can do this, Mia,” I whispered.

I crept back into the living room just as my front and back doors were kicked in. Quickly, I dropped to the floor behind the couch and listened closely to determine what I was up against. I heard three distinct sets of footsteps on the soft carpet. Two of them searched the back of the house while the one who came through the front door moved out of the entryway and into the living room. Silently, I crawled around the couch, keeping it between me and the intruder.

“I don’t see her,” one of the men said from the back of the house.

“Keep looking,” the man in the living room ordered. “We know she is here somewhere, and we aren’t leaving without her.”

They had to be from the Guild. There was no way they could be Crawford’s men. The only ones who could possibly know where I lived were the Guild or Dr. Parote. And given how he dropped off the face of the planet, I doubted it was him. As I moved to the end of the couch, I looked toward the door. It hung haphazardly from being kicked in, and right beside it on the table were my tickets to freedom: my purse and car keys. I just had to be fast enough, or I was toast.

Slipping away like a cat would be easier, but I couldn’t trust my shifting. I peeked over the couch to see the man dipping his finger into my cup of milk.

“She’s here. Her milk is still warm,” the man chuckled.

It was now or never. I crawled toward the door as fast as I could.

“Hey!” he shouted. I grabbed my purse and keys and turned to look at him. He froze as our eyes met.

“Oh, fuck,” he said.

I heard his pals running toward the living room and briefly met their eyes before running out the door. I didn’t think I would make it, sure that they would be hot on my heels, but as I

pulled out of my driveway, nobody followed me out of the house. Hmm. I may have had some sort of freeze-ray power in my eyes now. I wasn’t going to question my good fortune.

The Guild was after me, and escaping them could take up every one of my nine lives.