in the photo was old enough to be a problem for Mygi. They were a powerhouse of a corporation and one of the few companies on the planet that successfully brought different species of supernaturals together to work on a large scale.
Someone like Mr. Alvarez stood no chance against a company like Mygi. Why would a human be worth a ten-million-dollar bounty?
I kept clicking through search results, and it took nearly forty pages to find something interesting. The headline read 6 People Dead: Military Involvement?
Wow. Paden said something about this guy almost joining one of the human militaries. Maybe…
I clicked it and hit a small jackpot. The face I was looking for was right there in a buried, old article dated just under ten years prior. In 2009, Raphael Dominic Alvarez was partying with his friends, graduation right around the corner. Come morning, someone went to check on the party animals and found six young men and women dead. Raphael was long gone.
“No fucking way,” I mumbled, realizing that was it. There was no other information on the case. I checked the location and raised an eyebrow—Albuquerque, New Mexico, one state over.
My email dinged, and I realized it had to be the information Paden must have already dug up. He had the exact same link in his email I was reading. This human, for whatever reason, either killed six of his friends or watched six of his friends die. Paden also had links and attachments for his birth certificate, social security number, and any official documentation from schools, the American military, and more.
None of the documents were dated in the last ten years.
“He’s right. This is an odd bounty.” I tilted my head as I tried to think about what Paden hadn’t done yet. Whatever feeling he had about this one was pretty on the money. Ten million, one human, six dead people, and who knew what else because the man hasn’t existed for the last ten years. We didn’t even have a current picture.
I sent Paden a quick text, asking why everyone decided to start their hunts in Phoenix. Maybe that would offer me a clue what this was. I added that if I didn’t find anything in a week, I was done.
I’m not going to lose sleep over this. Not my job to deal with these types of things, and I don’t like messing with bounties that deal with humans.
He didn’t text back, so I clicked around, falling into endless searches and different directories, wondering if I could stumble on anything he hadn’t found.
The sun started coming up, casting a warm glow over the world. My back porch faced west, so I couldn’t see the sunrise or feel it. I enjoyed the hotter afternoons, lying out on my porch under the intense sun. Mornings were always cold, and seeing the sun come up, I decided it was time for me to get some sleep. Closing the laptop, I grabbed the bounty and took all my things back inside, dumping them on the coffee table in my living room without breaking step.
I fell into my bed and closed my eyes, letting sleep take me fast.
My phone woke me up, blaring with my midday alarm. I groaned and fumbled to get it, hoping to turn it off before it woke me up completely.
If I get it soon enough, I can get back to sleep.
I was too late. By the time I was able to figure out how to hit the button properly, I was wide awake. My white hair was in my face, a reminder of complicated problems and things I didn’t want to deal with. Stumbling into my bathroom, I grabbed a brush and tried to get it out of the way, glaring at myself in the mirror as I pulled it up into a ponytail.
“Why am I awake right now?” I asked my reflection. “Do you know? Why do I keep that stupid alarm?”
My reflection said nothing in return, only offering me a good look at myself, exhausted from a lack of proper sleep after long flights and late night researching because I was too antsy to relax. At that point, I realized I should clean up and get my day moving.
An hour later, I was out of the shower, my hair was dry, and I was ready for a day dedicated to nothing. Well, it should have been nothing. I was off duty, and there were no bounties out I legitimately cared about enough to do for