Mesheadam my mentor had hired as an off-again on-again bodyguard for me, more for J’s peace of mind than my actual safety. Bobo was always willing to help, but he hadn’t come up with anything yet, either.
Around noon my stomach rumbled, so I left Pietr staring at the board like it was the Rosetta stone, and booked out to grab some fresh air, and lunch.
Heading down the street, mindfully breathing in the air and letting it clear both my lungs and my brain, I spotted one of “my” missing boys sitting on the stoop. Weirdly, that made me feel better. I ended up in a little corner deli down the street from the office, getting an extra-loaded ham-and-Swiss grinder to go and contemplating adding a couple of cookies to that, when Nifty walked in, clearly in the same “feed me or die” mood. Chasing leads and current-use both burned calories at an impressive rate, and it wasn’t like he was any kind of a delicate flower.
In fact, Nifty’s dark-skinned bulk seemed to almost spark in the air as he walked, his core getting past him in ways that would have made any mentor worth their salt send him back to schooling. I didn’t say anything. An entire office filled with frustrated Talent? It’s a wonder things weren’t sparking and failing throughout the entire building: I guess the money the guys had put in for shielding and grounding was paying off. And knowing that The Roblin was out there somewhere was making the fact that nothing had actually hit us even worse: we all knew that the quiet was not going to last. Venec had told us he would look for signs of unrest elsewhere, and we were supposed to focus on the cases, but... well, that was a lot easier to say than do.
My coworker leaned over the counter and gave his order. “Two tuna subs and a large Coke.”
Nifty was a big guy, I was surprised he hadn’t just gone down another block and gotten a whole pizza.
“How’s the rash?” I asked him, when I saw he had noticed me.
“Rashy.” He watched as I pushed money across the counter, and pocketed my change while the guy behind the counter wrapped up my order. “I’m more itchy to get the hell out in the field again, cause I can’t still be contagious after this long. Hell, I’ll wear full-length opera gloves, set a new fashion. You think you can put in a good word with Venec for me?”
I thought about playing dumb, decided it wasn’t worth it. Even as my irritation boiled over, everything I’d been worrying about, everything I’d been repressing, escaped in a single unguarded, overtired moment.
“I’m not sleeping with him, and even if I were, what makes you think he’d listen to a damn thing I said if he thought otherwise?” I didn’t wait for Nifty to answer, but took my lunch and stalked out of the deli.
I knew it. I knew it. Never mind that Nifty hadn’t actually implied that he disapproved of whatever he thought was going on, or given me real grief, it changed the dynamic. The fact that they suspected something was going on inevitably made me less one of the pack and more... what? Venec’s chew-toy, someone he kept around merely for his own amusement?
No. I took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. I was pissed, but not so pissed off I lost track of reality. Nobody who’d ever met Venec would think he took chew-toys. Me, yeah, maybe. But not Venec.
Did they think that Venec was my chew-toy? The thought was so delightfully absurd I actually stopped dead on the sidewalk, and then had to apologize when a very irritated older woman nearly bumped into me. She glared at me from under perfectly dyed purple bangs, and moved on past.
Huh.
I grinned, my unusual spurt of temper fading, and decided that I would not mention that chew-toy thought to Venec. Not that the topic would ever come up, but if it did I suspected he wouldn’t find it as amusing as I did.
For the first time in weeks, I was able to think about the Merge with something other than annoyance. Yeah, okay. Maybe, as long as I was rolling with it, I’d see if I couldn’t get myself cut into the betting action in the office, after all.
“You work for Stosser.”
I stopped, a chill hitting my veins. The growling voice came from behind me, slightly to the right, which