the dropoff.
We had covered about half the distance when Caeco suddenly reached over and gave me a casual shove on the shoulder. Friendly like, but with more power than a joking shove would have. I should have stumbled sideways or even fallen, but I sorta sidestepped, almost like I had anticipated it. Which I kind of had, although she hadn’t said anything or made any other gestures.
Anyway, she shoved, I stepped, and a big body blundered through the sudden space between us. Delwood. He would have run right into me and, seeing how he had about eighty pounds on me, the results would have been, at best, embarrassing and, at the worst, painful.
Instead, he sorta stumbled a half-step before his werewolf coordination kicked in and he smoothed out.
“You all right there?” Caeco asked, pretending to be concerned.
“Yeah,” he said, a flicker of surprise sliding away. “Didn’t see you there,” he went on, now smirking, still moving forward with his own dishes in hand. A big blob of red jello with whipped cream was untouched and uppermost on his plate. I glanced down at my own tannish t-shirt and realized I would have been wearing that blob about the middle of my back.
We followed him to the dropoff, which had a conveyor belt to take dishes away, Caeco deliberately moving a pace closer to him. From the sudden tension that formed across his massive back, I surmised he was feeling vulnerable.
When he turned after dropping his dishes on the belt, Caeco was holding her own plate in one hand and her steak knife in her right. His eyes flickered down to the gleaming stainless steel blade and then back up to us. We were both smiling, but hers looked fierce and mine didn’t feel all that friendly. He frowned then strode away, back to his table, which was right next to the witch girl table. Both tables were watching us and I noticed several additions to the witch table, a couple of brunette girls, auras flecked with black. Ryanne looked concerned, but the rest just looked like they were watching bugs or something.
“Come on,” I said, quietly. Caeco nodded once, glancing back like she was committing faces to memory. Which was silly because she would have done that at first sight.
“This whole social order thing happens kind of fast huh?” she asked as we walked out the door.
“It started happening as soon as we and the others entered the building. Now it looks like the lines are being drawn. I don’t think Chris’s attention helped us in any way.”
“Ya think?”
Chapter 4
The door marked Director was easy to find. As we approached it, it opened and a tall, thin platinum blonde stepped out, spotting us instantly but turning back to the open doorway. Her skin was dark and her hair almost white.
“You have my word that she will be safe. We’ve already taken steps,” Gina said to the mystery woman. They were a study in contrasts. Gina with her dark hair and curvy physique, the other woman hard and lean, with hair so light it was basically white, wearing all black and sporting some really fancy forearm bracelets that were shaped kind of reptilian.
Caeco has that same look or almost that same look, I thought, even though they were different sizes and shapes. Tall and lean versus compact and muscular, but both tough and ready for a fight.
Gina looked our way and smiled, pushing the door opened wider. The blonde glanced our way once more before turning and slipping away down the hall. That’s how it looked. Like she just sorta slipped away. Silent and graceful. A couple of steps and then she turned the corner, disappearing from view. I was left wondering how anyone could have eyes that big and that sharply slanted and such a weird shade of light, light gray. They reminded me of something—something that I couldn’t quite remember.
“Caeco, Declan. Come in, come in,” she said, hugging first Caeco and then myself.
Behind her, the apartment opened up: more brick walls, barnwood floors, lots of green plants. And a giant wolf, with a little girl necklace. Toni Velasquez disentangled herself from the massive wolf that was now famous across the globe and studied us for a moment.
“Hey Toni, heard any good Chuck Norris jokes lately?” I asked.
She thought about it while Gina closed the door behind us.
“People call 911, 911 calls Chuck Norris,” she finally said.
“Not bad, not bad. Did you know Chuck Norris uses Tabasco as eyedrops?”
She snorted,