Authors: Felicia Jedlicka
As they approached the front door, his stomach lurched in sickening hunger as he saw what had to be the house’s entire food supply spilled onto the front porch. He glanced at Danato, but he didn’t seem affected by this discovery. His stride, however, did increase to a limping gallop.
Ethan didn’t bother speeding up. He lagged behind in case Danato wished to rebuke Missy in private. When no such bellows followed Danato’s entrance, he went in.
The scene was no less than devastation in the living room and dining room. Every dish was broken, every decoration ripped from the walls. The couch had been eviscerated, spilling yellow foam from its wounds. The fireplace soot had been ejected into the room, layering the surrounding area with a dusting of black.
“What the hell happened in here?” Ethan asked almost peevishly, but then he spotted Missy. She was crouched against a living room chair, nearly catatonic. Her face and arms were covered with scratches and bruises. “Bloody hell, are you okay?” he asked significantly more sympathetic.
In addition to her disheveled hair and clothes, Missy was covered in all manner of food and… “What’s that smell?” He wrinkled his nose at the foul odor permeating the air.
“It’s shit,” she said, staring out from glassy eyes. Her voice sounded hoarse. She didn’t appear to be angry or sickened by the situation, just exhausted. “They threw shit at me. They peed on me, and I think one even—” She gagged.
“Ethan,” Danato said in a quiet voice as he stood over her. “Why don’t you run Missy a bath: warm and sudsy. There is a bottle of disinfectant below the sink for her wounds and another liquid in an orange bottle for the bath water. Just a tablespoon of that in the water will get rid of the smell.”
“Sure.” He headed to the bathroom and started the tub water running nice and hot. He added the orange bottled liquid, which smelled pungently like orange rind.
When he returned to the living room Danato was sitting on the arm of the couch looking over Missy carefully. He seemed to be evaluating how to handle her. “You got them out, I take it?” Danato asked.
“No,” Missy said, still catatonic.
“No?” Danato whipped around, rechecking the room.
Ethan jumped at Danato’s sudden alarm and repositioned himself to see behind the island. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but judging by how Missy looked, he didn’t think he would miss it.
“The others finally left,” she continued, “but he stayed. Little bastard nearly took my head off with a cleaver.”
“Where is he now?” Danato stood.
“In the fridge.” She pointed vaguely.
“He’s hiding in the fridge?” Danato questioned.
“No, I locked him in there.”
Danato shook his head vigorously. “No, that’s not possible. You can’t catch goblins. They are too fast to be caught, too clever to trap, and too resourceful to imprison.”
She finally made eye contact with him. She looked at him with a flat expression. She shrugged her shoulders. “He’s in the fridge,” she said, offering no new information to explain the apparent impossibility.
Danato headed to the kitchen and Ethan followed. All the while Danato still shook his head in disbelief. He opened the fridge without concern to its contents. Inside the plundered fridge, sat a small gangly green creature.
In one hand, the goblin had a tiny LED flashlight, and in the other a prism. The creature flashed the light on and off, hypnotized by the tiny rainbows inside the glass object. Danato looked back at Ethan, before turning his wide eyes to Missy. “What did he... How did you... ” he rambled.
“He likes the rainbows,” was all she had to say about the situation.
Danato gently closed the door to the fridge and returned to Missy. He looked her over and chuckled. His headshake had a different kind of disbelief powering it. He leaned down to pick her up.
“Don’t touch me, I’m covered in poop,” she warned. Danato scooped her up without pause and propped her on her feet. He pulled her chin to look at him. “Thank you.” He hugged her.
Ethan couldn’t imagine how a trashed house had prompted this grateful response, but he kept his questions to himself.
“Oh, now you’re going to stink,” she moaned.
“I’ve been covered in worse,” Danato said as he released her.
“What’s worse than this?”
Danato smiled. “You may have just made a few men’s jobs easier, including mine.” He nodded to the fridge when she didn’t seem to grasp his meaning.
“It’s just a glass paper weight from your desk.” She shrugged. “Why did you do this to me? You left me here knowing that they would come.”
“I knew you wouldn’t follow my instructions.”
“I have three knobs on my head from random things being thrown at me.” She felt her head so she could point out her specific injuries.
“I empathize. I assure you. I really do, but if you can’t wash a dish when I ask, how do I know you won’t leave a door open, or leave something laying too close to a prison cell? This was a test and a lesson.”
“Getting pissed on is a lesson?” Her voice cut out as she tried to raise her volume.
“No, the lesson was for me. It taught me I can’t trust you yet.” Danato walked away. Missy glared after him. She seemed to notice Ethan’s presence for the first time and shared her scowl with him.
“What did I do?” he asked. Her face softened. “Oh crap, the water.” He ran into the bathroom to prevent an overflow. He swirled the water with his fingers. “Is this too hot?” he hollered out to her.
When she reached over to check the water, he jumped, not aware she had followed him. “No, it’s perfect. Thank you,” she said softly.
He nodded and scooted around her to the door. He pulled the door shut to give her privacy. Just as he did, she yelped. He pushed back in. “What? What’s wrong?”
“My back, my shirt is stuck.”
She turned around and he saw the large blood stain that had clotted her shirt to her wound. Soundless tears streamed down her face in her reflection. He could tell she had met her stress limit for the day. “Yeah, you’ve got a big gash back here. Hang on, let me moisten it, the shirt will come off easier.” He dampened a washcloth with cold water from the sink and wet the shirt down. Slowly he peeled the shirt from her back.
He concentrated so much of his effort on making it painless, he was hardly aware when he finished pulling the shirt over her head, that she wasn’t wearing a bra. She was still in her pajamas from the morning. She shielded her breasts under her crossed arms, but not before he caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror.
All at once, he could feel the soft skin of her back against his fingertips. He dabbed the wound a little longer as an excuse to keep touching her. His hormones left him more inebriated than any liquor could. The only thing that kept him from pressing his lips up against the back of her neck, aside from common decency, was the fact that she still smelled like goblin crap.
“Is it bad?” she asked, ignorant of the exotic fantasies going through his mind.
“No, well, yes. We should definitely get the disinfectant on this one once you’re clean.” He dared to trail his hand down her back as he reached down to pick up her shirt where she dropped it. “I need to get out of here. That smell is noxious,” he said to reestablish an asexual banter. “Just hand your pants out the door. I’ll get them in the wash right away.” He frowned at the shirt in his hand. “Or throw them away.”
He stepped out the door, leaving it slightly open. She handed her pants out just as he asked and shut the door. After getting her clothes in the washer, he waited in her bedroom with the disinfectant.
Not entirely sure how casual sitting on the bed would look compared to lying on it, he decided to skip the bed altogether and sat on the floor leaning against it. Nearly an hour later, he had drifted off with his head back, mouth open, and snoring. Not the image he wanted to pose for her.
He woke when he felt water dripping on his arm. She was standing over him with her usual malevolent demeanor back. “What are you doing?”
He searched around with his hands and found the disinfectant. He held it up, but she still looked at him, clearly annoyed. “Fine, forget it. Reach around your own back.”
He tossed the bottle on her bed and left. Expecting to hear nothing from her the rest of the night, he dove straight into a mystery novel to take his mind off her, but by chapter two there was a knock at his door. “Come in.”
She peeked in and saw him reading on his bed. “Are you busy?”
“No.” He put the book down.
“Can you put this stuff on my back?” Though she sounded genuinely apologetic, he raised his chin debating whether he should cast her off. She rolled her eyes. “Please.”
He sighed and waved her in. She was still in her towel. She sat on the edge of the bed and gave him the bottle. She loosened her towel to reveal more of the wound, as well as the soft skin that had been so alluring to him earlier.
He dabbed the disinfectant on gruffly at first, but he saw her back stiffen and jaw clench, so he changed to a more gentle application. As her muscles relaxed, he felt the warmth for her he had felt before.
He hadn’t had many opportunities to be this close to a woman. His body was ever vigilant to remind him of it too. He forced himself to stop before he created a situation that he couldn’t come back from without agony. “There, all done.” He handed the bottle back to her.
“Thank you,” she turned to face him, and her eyes narrowed on his cheek. “What did you do?” She nodded to his fresh scratches.
“Oh,” he touched the wound. “Ah...vampire...or whatever Danato calls them. It's just a scratch.”
“Well... ” She swallowed hard. “I'm glad you didn't get eaten.”
Ethan smiled at her. “Thanks.”
She turned away and shifted her towel to tighten it. The adjustment left the towel parted at her thigh. His eyes were immediately drawn to the soft, damp, muscular leg that sat on his bed, just inches from his hand. He wanted nothing more than to touch it, to squeeze it, to trail his fingers up toward the warmth between—
“Stop it.”
His eyes shot up to hers. She had seen him ogle her leg. She didn’t look angry, just disappointed, and almost sad. He felt his cheeks burn with shame.
He scrambled for a lie. “I... wasn't...”
She moved off the bed and stomped to the door.
“Missy, wait,” he scrambled to stop her before they once again lost the civil ground they had achieved.
“Leave me alone,” she conditioned as she left his room and headed to her bedroom.
“Can I at least apologize?” He jammed his foot in the door before she could slam it in his face.
“Move!” she yelled at him.
“Missy?” Danato's voice traveled upstairs. “Are you okay?”
They both glanced toward the balcony and then to each other. Ethan dragged his foot out of her doorway and crossed his arms, waiting to hear her answer.
“Missy?” Danato called more urgently.
“I'm okay,” she called down to him. He waited for her to close the door on him, but she didn't. “I'm not going to be that girl for you,” she said.
“What?”
“I can't be that girl for anyone anymore. Let’s not pretend that this little arrangement is somehow a romantic love story in the making.”
Ethan nodded, feeling the sting of rejection. “I am not asking you to be anything, or do anything. I can respect your boundaries, but...”
“But what?” she narrowed her eyes.
He braced his hands of the door frame. “You have got to cut me some slack. I am not like those bastards. I'm not going to hurt you.”
Missy shifted back a little. Ethan frowned at the contradictory response to appeal, but he understood it. She was so fearful of the wrong interaction, that every interaction felt dangerous.
He waited for her to acknowledge his statement, but she didn't speak. Her gaze danced at his feet, avoiding his face. If she hadn't been holding the door and her towel, he thought she might be furiously biting at her nails.
“Ethan,” Danato called up again. “Come help me clean this mess up.”
Missy finally looked up at him, seemingly relieved by the interruption. He held her gaze a moment before shifting away from the door. “Coming,” he called back down to Danato.
For now he needed to give up on trying to convince her that he was a good guy. Simply saying it wasn't enough. In time, she would see it for herself. Until then, he would just have to be patient.
Danato looked up when he saw Belus come into his office. His usual aloof demeanor seemed to have an agenda. He looked over at Ethan who was reading one of the many files he needed to memorize. He had been on the task for two weeks now, and was making a rather good dent in the material. Despite his aversion to studying, he seemed to be good at it.
“Hey, kid.” Belus waited for Ethan to look up at him. “Go for a walk.” He nodded his head to the door.
Ethan looked affronted by the request. He looked to Danato, and he gave him a permissive nod. Ethan placed his folder in the file cabinet and left the office. Danato imagined he wouldn’t go far. At best, he might go to the cafeteria and wait for someone to tell him otherwise.
Ethan was a wise choice in many ways, but the traits that made him a good and compliant student were also his shortcomings. Danato wasn’t sure how, but somehow he had to get Missy’s audacity to rub off on Ethan, and Ethan’s compliance to rub off on her. If he could have combined them, he would have had the perfect successor.
After Ethan was gone, Belus sat down. “It’s time to talk about this.”
“Talk about what?” Danato asked, feigning ignorance. He knew exactly what Belus wanted to talk about. He was actually surprised he had waited this long to bring it up. His restraint probably had more to do with letting Danato’s temper settle than any regard for his privacy.
“You know what.” Belus was his second in command, but sometimes it felt the other way around. Had Belus been a few inches taller that might have been the case. Not that he would ever allow that as an excuse for his runner-up position.
“Everything is going fine, Belus. There is nothing to discuss. Ethan has taken to the idea of working here rather well. I think he is happy to be out of the foster system. The duties are giving him perspective.”
“Yes.” Belus crossed his arms. “You’ve chosen well. I look forward to seeing him develop. Of course we both know it’s not Ethan that I’m concerned about.”
Danato sat back to face off with Belus, like high noon on the western frontier. All that was missing was the gentle breeze to push a random tumbleweed between them. “What do you want me to say, Belus? It’s done.”
“Yes, and now it can’t be undone. Not without violating a whole lot of rules, but again, that’s not why I’m here either. I’m sure she’ll work out, if you can get her to accept her new situation.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Do you really think I didn’t notice?”
“What?” Danato said, honestly dumbstruck by Belus’s question.
Belus threw his hands up and stood. He turned away for a moment. Most people would have taken that for anger, but Danato knew it was far more complex than that. Everything between them was complicated, whether it was or not.
Belus turned back to him. Whatever emotion he was feeling, was gone from his face. He was in control again. “She’s a spitting image of
her
.”
There was no malice in his tone, but Danato rose from his chair anyway. Belus didn’t flinch. There were not many men that could stand tall in the face of Danato’s girth, but Belus was at the top of that short list. “And?” he offered Belus the option to continue, but it wasn’t a pleasant invitation.
Belus stepped forward with a long sigh and placed his hands on the edge of the desk. He gripped it hard and looked up at Danato. He looked like he was about to tell him that he had just run over his dog: a mixture of grief, shame, and determination. “I need to know what you intend to do with her.”
Danato could feel the blood rush to his face. His whole body felt hot. If he had the ability to turn into a big burly green comic book monster, he would have at that moment. Instead, he just turned into a red-faced man shaking with the adrenaline of his anger. “What are you suggesting?” he said without the composure he had intended.
“I’m not suggesting anything, Danato.” Belus raised his volume a little, if only to match the intensity of the conversation. “I’m asking you.”
“You think I brought her here…” Danato felt his upper lip twitch. “…for me?” Belus looked away, confirming the accusation. “She’s… just a girl.”
“She’s hardly a child.”
“She is to me! Christ Belus! How could you think I would do that?”
“I wasn’t assuming anything in regards to you personally, but it’s been four years. You haven’t exactly dealt with things.”
“Oh, don’t bring that up,” Danato said, sitting down again. He was as much embarrassed as he was angry now. His second in command had all but accused him of using Missy as a mail-order bride. Aside from the fact that he was old enough to be her father, that was exactly how he treated her: like a father.
“I was concerned that you might have considered her as a replacement.” Danato looked at him blankly. He wasn’t entirely sure Belus meant what he thought he meant. “I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t trying to get her back.”
Danato stared in amazed shock at Belus. Too many emotions were crashing together. Just as all mixed colors eventually turn to gray, his mixed emotions turned to dumbstruck and rendered him speechless. He wasn’t even sure that what Belus was suggesting was possible, but even if it were, he would never have done it.
“I’m sorry if I’ve insulted you. I just needed to make sure you weren’t heading down a dangerous path.”
Danato nodded. He understood now why Belus was concerned. He was only trying to protect the girl, and him, in his overbearing way. “I don’t know why I brought her here. I can’t deny the similarities, but I assure you, I meant no harm to her. I just know I couldn’t have left her there.”
Belus nodded sympathetically. “How is she doing with the transition?”
Danato rolled his eyes to that. “She’s a hot-headed, stubborn, pain in the ass.”
“Huh.” Belus rutted his brow in consternation. “I’ve never known anyone like that.” He chuckled before Danato could offer him a glare. “Good luck with that,” Belus said as he headed out again.
Remarkably, it only took Cori a few weeks of good behavior to get out of the house and start training for her duties inside the prison. She was more than happy to be rid of the constant duties of cleaning up after her male roommates. However, two months in, she realized that she had just graduated to being the maid for bigger and smellier animals.
She shoved her janitor’s cart out of the elevator and onto level 2—or level 1, depending on if you called the main floor level 1 or level M, which apparently no one in the prison, including Danato, could decide on. She was fully garbed for her day in a pale yellow jumpsuit, complete with safety goggles and gloves.
She had the recurring task of cleaning the facilities, cages, and tanks of the sixty-plus creatures that inhabited the animal floor. They did nothing but eat, sleep, and poop. They all did each as messily as possible, too. The ones that barely slept ate more, and therefore pooped more. The ones that barely pooped made up for it by throwing their food all over their cage. The ones that did almost nothing but sleep seemed to go through violent attacks in their slumber, which mashed the food and poop onto every surface of the floor, walls, and even ceiling of the cell.
No doubt about it, she had gone from bad to worse. Her only consolation was that she was plotting her escape. She had already learned that semi-trucks arrived at the facility several times a week to deliver food and supplies. It was only a matter of time until she could coordinate her schedule with a delivery time, and find a way to conceal herself on the outbound truck.
She wasn’t really worried about either, since to her knowledge, no one in the prison cared where she was, as long as the animal dung was cleaned up. Since most of the guards were men, she could succumb to her baser female talents and manipulate one into helping her, if need be. It wasn’t her preferred angle, but at this point she was desperate enough to try anything.
After she finished cleaning her designated cell for the day, which took her nearly four hours, she loaded up her cleaning supplies. She made sure to put the big orange sticker on the front of the cage to let the transporters know the animal could be returned. Not that the
de-crap-a-fied
cage wasn’t completely obvious, but it was all part of protocol.
Cori removed her goggles, gloves, and jumpsuit. She bundled them together and shoved them into a laundry chute in the wall. Each section had a similar depository for contaminated or dirty materials.
The prison laundry service was highly effective, since everything that dropped through the chutes went directly into the incinerator. After all, the remaining ash of the deposited material was no longer contaminated, nor relevantly dirty.
Although wasteful and expensive, it prevented any and all cross-contamination between cells which, depending on the prison cell, could cost far more in lives than in money. She had surmised that it might also have something to do with the fact that Griffin crap smelled as bad as isonitriles—which have been patented as nonlethal weapons. There wasn’t a laundry detergent on the planet that could get that smell out.
She pushed her squeaky cart past the aquarium section on her way to the west elevators. She noticed a glimmer of gold in one of the tanks. It was a ring. More importantly, it was
her
ring. It was a cheap thumb ring that she used to wear with a series of rings on her hands. She had long since lost the other nine, but her thumb ring she had lost only a few weeks ago. She had taken it off to clean one of the cells and never found it again.
“Shit.” She smashed her face against the tank to see what manner of evil lived inside. She couldn’t see all the way to the back, but it appeared empty. “Damn it.”
She leaned against the tank and surveyed the floor for other staff. She wondered what the protocol was for this. Getting the ring out by herself was definitely not allowed, but her greater concern was pissing off Danato because she misplaced it in the first place. So, the real question was, could she get it out without him finding out about either indiscretion?
Due to the high concentration of magical elements, the facility had very few modern security features. There were no cameras anywhere in the prison. There were alarm systems rigged to the air locks, cells and, as Danato had put it, a few borrowed spells to keep certain inmates in their place. That meant no one had to see her correct her mistake, but more importantly, she didn’t have to be lectured about it.
She saw a hook attached to a long stick on the wall between the tanks. She retrieved it and climbed to the top of the ladder on the tank. She looked over the cool blue water. The water was blurry, but she could see all the way to the bottom.
Empty.