Chapter 11
I didn’t have to wait long, staring dejectedly at my hands and wondering why the heck my desk was so dusty.
Precisely ten minutes later, an officious-looking man I’d previously identified as the middle manager, bustled up behind me. He cleared his throat and shot me a judgmental look as I turned around.
Without so much as a hello or an introduction, he dumped a file on my desk.
“That’s your first case.” He shifted back, crossed his arms, and nodded at the file. “As it’s your first case, you have the option of going alone or heading out with more experienced officers so you can learn the ropes.” He gestured toward Cassidy and Alice. “It’s up to you, rookie,” he growled. “If you can’t work with us, then you can learn to survive in this world on your own.”
He stood there, arms still crossed as he glared at me, and I realized he was waiting for my answer.
I looked over at Cassidy and Alice. The smart, good-girl part of me wanted to shake her head. As if I was gonna go out with a bent cop and an arsonist. But then a little voice echoed in my mind. Annoyingly, it was Vali’s voice. These guys were my family now, weren’t they? I wasn’t ever going to get out of here. I had to work off my sins and pay my dues. And I could do that alone, or I could try to learn from others.
My grandmother had once told me that I was an unforgiving soul. That was pretty fricking rich coming from her. She held a grudge for eons.
She told me that I had a broken sense of morality. That I always judged others for what they did, but never put myself in their shoes. She said it was a distraction. A means to stop myself from judging my own sins and finding myself lacking.
As her words flashed through my memory, I opened my mouth to tell this middle manager that I could do this on my own.
I stopped.
No. Granny had been wrong. I could see the good side of people. I’d done that with Larry, hadn’t I?
I blinked. “I’d prefer to work with… help, if I can,” I said, words so quiet they barely made it past my lips.
“Sorry? What did you say?” the middle manager asked in a tone so loud it echoed all the way through the room.
I took a steeling breath and clenched my teeth. “I would prefer to work with help,” I repeated much louder this time.
The guy’s eyes glittered as he clearly thought he’d won a victory. Then he promptly turned hard on his foot and gestured to Alice and Cassidy. “Well, it’s up to you guys. I won’t make you work with a grayer if you don’t want to.”
I had no idea what the word grayer meant, but from the exact growl he gave and the look in his eye, it didn’t exactly sound like a compliment.
My hackles rose, my back stiffening as I stared from Cassidy to Alice. You didn’t need to be a genius to realize they were both going to say no.
Cassidy crossed her arms, sniffed, and turned from me. “I already have a big caseload. I don’t need to help out a grayer.”
Though she’d clearly insulted me, for some reason, I got the feeling her heart wasn’t in it.
The middle manager swiveled his attention to Alice. “What about you?”
Alice glared at me. Glared at me as if she were trying to make me burst into flames with nothing more than her gaze.
Shoulders receding, I turned from them both. “It’s all right. They don’t have to work—”
“Don’t you put words into my mouth,” Alice snapped. “And I’ll work with you. There’s nothing I hate more than people who hurt others through their own sheer stupidity and ignorance.”
Ouch.
Alice clearly never held back.
Though my gut twisted with a burst of anger, and I got the desire to tell her to sod off, I held my tongue.
“Oh, in that case, I guess I’ll come along too. I wouldn’t want Alice to be alone,” Cassidy said, a measure of her cheerfulness back.
I locked my arms in front of my chest defensively but looked up at them both from under my eyebrows.
Why did I get the sudden impression that this was like some buddy-cop film, and the bent cop, the arsonist, and the innocent waitress were about to run amok?
“All right then. This should be a simple case. You’re just gathering evidence on this one. One of the more experienced units will tag this guy and bring him in. I don’t want any bravado. And I don’t want any unnecessary use of magic.” The guy’s voice dropped down real low, ringing with such a note of warning I couldn’t help but shake.
Alice shifted forward, snatched the file off my desk, and nodded in a strong, short move. “Got it.”
“Normal check-in time, normal procedure.” With that, Mr. Middle Manager turned around and waddled off.
He obviously assumed I knew what normal procedure and normal check-in time were. But I knew absolutely nothing. Momentarily forgetting my recent interactions with Alice and Cassidy, I turned. “What does that mean? What’s normal check-in time and what exactly are we meant to do?”
Cassidy crossed her arms and shot me a cautious look that didn’t match her usual cute and friendly smile.
Alice cleared her throat. “When this is over, I’ll hand you the procedure manual. Study it. Breathe it. Live it. Make a mistake, and you’re on your own. Now get your jacket. We’re heading out.”
I spluttered at her sudden orders, but I wasn’t stupid enough to question further. While Vali acted unpredictably around my incessant questions, Alice would not. She would probably wrestle me to the ground and spit in my ear.
Dejectedly, I rose.
A lot of the other workers in the room were still staring at me, but slowly they were getting back to their work. The show, apparently, was over. Now all I had to do was hit the city streets with an arsonist and a bent cop to track down some criminal.
Crap, this couldn’t be real.
Problem was, it was.