you doing here?” Mertie’s shrill tone carried across the room.
My gut had been right. They’d run and tattled as soon as I walked in.
“I’ll be back for you soon,” I said, before standing and facing Mertie. “I was in the area, so I figured I’d say hello. I’m done now.” I turned to the door and walked, making it clear I was done with her.
“Don’t come back,” she said as I walked past her.
“Why are you staring at the factory as if you want to be back in there? Why are you out of the office at all?”
I jumped, not expecting someone to be talking to me, let alone Hawk.
I shrugged and began walking back to the office. “Of course I don’t want to go back, but I made a friend there. As to why? It was either leave your office or commit murder.”
“Hmmm” was all I got as he began walking back with me.
I didn’t expand on my homicidal inclinations, and luckily, he didn’t ask. He probably didn’t want to hear about his girlfriend.
Although if he did, he’d hear me better than usual. The typical distance between us, which used to be three or four feet, had shrunk to one or two. While I did have favorable proximity, there was something we needed to hash out, and it couldn’t wait anymore.
“My friend’s not doing well. I need to get her out.”
“That might be possible at some point, but I’ve other concerns right now.” He didn’t slow his pace.
“She’s running out of time.”
He continued to walk.
I double-timed it until I was standing in front of him, arms crossed and ready to do battle. “What if I made it part of our deal? Then could you work it in?”
He stared at me with a look of such condemnation that I nearly took a step back. I held my ground anyway. This had to be done.
He dipped his chin. “You’ve lived as a human for too long. Our deal is set and can’t be changed. I bought out the price of your contract. You’re lucky I gave you any concessions.”
Bought and paid for. The mere mention of it made me want to scream and run.
He picked me up by my waist and moved me to the side.
I watched him walk away, deciding I wasn’t ready to go back to the office anymore. He continued walking, not looking back.
It didn’t matter if he said no. I’d find a way to get her out, and soon. Rabbit was not dying in that place.
19
I was sitting in the back room with my second cocoa of the day. The extra sugar was feeding my adrenaline in a way that didn’t bode well for Hawk—whenever he decided to show, that was.
Hawk walked into the back room with a purpose. Something was up. Today wouldn’t be the usual routine of me trying to work my magic and him yelling at me because I couldn’t.
“Come on. We’re going somewhere.” As usual, he made demands and expected me to follow blindly.
“No. We aren’t practicing today?” Something I’d dreaded all day suddenly seemed better than the unknown he was about to take me to. This place had way too many unknowns for my liking. For a girl that had lived a predictable life for the last couple of years, being yanked back into chaos at every turn was unsettling.
When I didn’t move fast enough, he grabbed my jacket off the hook and tossed it to me.
“We need to go see someone.” He moved toward the door.
For a split second, I thought about grilling him about our meeting. Then I thought back to what I was planning on doing tomorrow, the idea I’d come up with after I left the factory, and decided I was going to need as much goodwill as possible. Probably more.
There was a well-known saying: it’s easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission. I wasn’t quite confident that the amount of forgiveness I was going to be begging for existed inside Hawk’s heart of stone. But maybe there would be enough soft and mushy in that chest to stop him from killing me.
He was already a couple of buildings away by the time I walked outside. People scattered like fish in a shark tank as he approached. It seemed that in Xest, even the devil might’ve crossed the street if he saw Hawk coming. That should’ve given me even more pause about my plans, but the way I saw it, I had no choice.
“Who are