A matured lycanthrope would heal such an injury in moments, and he kept fiddling until there was plenty of blood to make a mess of my drink.
How disgusting.
While I made it appear I played on my phone, he fetched my drink, and sure enough, he handled it in such a way his bleeding thumb hovered over my drink, which lacked a lid and wouldn’t until he put one on it. He did, generally masking my view of his thumb from sight.
My phone, however, captured his blood splashing into my drink before he put the lid on it.
Fucking. Asshole.
I stopped the video, put my phone in my pocket, and flexed my hand, waiting for the best moment to strike. He brought me the doctored coffee with a smile. “Here you go, one black coffee just for you.”
I took the coffee, smiled back at him, and set the coffee on the counter.
Then, because I was a bitch and wanted the entire coffee shop to know it, I drove my knee right into his groin, waited for him to double over, and slammed my elbow into the back of his neck. As that wouldn’t keep a lycanthrope stunned for long, I aimed my second elbow strike for his temple. That got him onto his hands and knees, and I grabbed the back of his shirt, pulled it up over his head, and began the serious work of transforming him into a living pretzel. “Hey, lady,” I called out to the barista, who stared at me with wide-eyed shock. “Call the cops. This asshole is wanted on grounds of spreading the lycanthropy infection, and tell the police dispatch I have infected evidence they’ll need to test. I work for the CDC.”
The idiot, asshole wolf groaned, and I stepped to the side before giving him a solid kick to the stomach to keep him down.
“You work for the CDC?” the barista asked. “I should tell them that?” I appreciated she didn’t question my claim much, and she picked up the shop’s phone to call as requested.
When on an authorized bounty, I did, and I even had a card in my wallet to prove it. “Sure do.” I pointed at my coffee. “Don’t touch that unless you want to be infected with lycanthropy. And if someone could see if that young girl is around and she’s okay, that’d be great. And no, she’s not related to me, I have no idea who she is, but I wasn’t going to let some asshole try to infect her with the virus.”
“But what about you?” the barista asked. “Won’t you be at risk?”
“I’m already infected, so don’t you worry about a thing, ma’am.” I smiled, and I kicked the asshole wolf because I could. “Request neutralizer, however. He cut his thumb to bleed in my cup, and there might be some on the floor. Just watch your steps, folks. Sorry for the disturbance to your morning.”
Those in the shop did as told, and I took fiendish delight in making sure Donald Haverly stayed down until the police arrived.
Ten
How was it hot chocolate always tasted better when nice people gave it to me?
A cranky Sebastian, wearing a tight pair of jeans I wanted to claw him out of, stormed down the street while I chatted with the CPC representative the police had called in to confirm my bounty. The meter she carried confirmed what my phone had captured, and the amount of blood in my cup was sufficient to cause infection had I consumed the entire cup of coffee. My video, which caught the entire scene, including his behavior implying he’d meant to infect a minor, would sink his ship and flag him as a dangerous entity, one who’d spend a great deal of time in prison.
As such, I had earned a minor scolding for beating the wolf to go with bonus pay for a job well done.
The girl, much to my dismay, didn’t actually have a teen tacked onto the end of her age yet.
She was an early blooming twelve, and her parents were both tall, resulting in her looking older than she was. Her parents, who discussed the situation with the police, had bought me a hot chocolate as a small way of showing their gratitude.
How was it hot chocolate always tasted better when nice people gave it to me?
“I woke up cold and alone,” the lion complained. “And I find you here doing what?”
The growl in the lion’s voice gave my virus ideas, and those ideas involved