of my colleagues will be monster food tonight, I thought idly, smiling and nodding at whatever they were saying while tracing lines in the condensation on my glass. The sun set early at this time of year, and there was nothing a monster liked more than a drunk human in a dark alley.
″We should take a trip!” Marina announced, her voice slurred from one too many strawberry daiquiris. Happy hour was ending in fifteen minutes though, and we were all trying to cram in as many drinks as possible before prices doubled like the fiscally responsible degenerates we were.
″Where?” Carl asked in a bored voice, his arm draped over the back of my chair, fingers toying absently with the ends of my hair. He must be really drunk. Usually, the austere software developer with the secret kinky side didn’t show me any kind of affection outside of the bedroom under the cover of complete darkness, where we both pretended it never happened immediately afterward.
It had been a while, though, so his itch probably needed scratching. Was I feeling it tonight? Maybe not as much as usual. It’d be a nice change to fuck someone who didn’t have trouble looking me in the eye the next day. Maybe even someone I didn’t have to run into in the tiny kitchen at work whenever I wanted a cup of coffee.
″Mexico,” Marina said decisively. “We’ll drink tequila on the beach, swim naked, fuck strangers. Well, you guys will, I’ll have the hubby with me. But still! I’ll watch.”
I was the youngest entrant to our inappropriate little crew of colleagues, having joined the software development company we worked at three years ago straight out of college. Since almost everyone there, including our boss, was more interested in computers and computer-related activities than human interaction, our group had bonded out of necessity after long-haul flights together and more than a few late nights at trade shows.
″You’re such a creeper,” Amanda laughed. She and Marina were both sales reps and by far the most outgoing of our after-work drinks crew. Marina had married her high school sweetheart and was fairly miserable about it, so she was the driving force behind these get-togethers—anything to avoid going home.
I just had nowhere else to be, and while the idea of spending time back in my cramped apartment with my three roommates held zero appeal, there was already an itch under my skin to get the fuck out of here.
There was only so much pretending I could do that I was just a regular human with a regular human life who did regular human things. And while I’d been ostracized from the Hunters years ago, I still had to request permission from them every time I wanted to go out of state in order to avoid a huge drama with both the Council and my family. There was no drunken stranger-fucking trip to Mexico in my future.
″Are you thinking about work again?” Amanda asked with a dramatic sigh, poking me in the ribs. “I can practically see your brain making a to-do list for the next show. You have brochure designs flashing behind your eyes. We just got back from Boston, relax a little!”
I laughed along with everyone else, even though, no, that wasn’t what I had been thinking about at all. I didn’t know when everyone had decided I was a workaholic, but one person had said it and the identity was apparently going to follow me around forever now.
″Do you think you could drag yourself away from the office for a couple of days for a trip to Cancún, Ophelia?” Marina asked, giving me her best puppy dog eyes.
″I don’t have a passport.”
″So get one,” Carl replied, his voice closer than expected to my ear. Usually, he smelled pretty good—the man was a cologne connoisseur—but tonight he’d been drinking rum and coke, and the scent of it on his breath was doing nothing for my libido.
Rum was really the kind of thing you only needed to puke your guts up on once to never want to look at it again.
″Mm, I’ll look into it,” I said absently, grateful my phone started buzzing on the table at that moment so I had an excuse to dip out of the conversation.
Astrid.
I frowned, holding the phone up in front of me with my thumb hovering over the answer icon. My older sister never called me. She was the golden child, an accomplished Hunter who had more kills under her belt than I could even fathom, and our parents had strongly discouraged any communication between us since I’d been kicked out to preserve her immaculate Shade-killing reputation.
Her call went to voicemail before I could make a decision, but almost immediately, she was calling back.
″I think I should get this,” I said apologetically, swiping my purse from the seat next to me and sliding out of the booth.
″We’ll order you another drink!” Marina called after me as I escaped to the relative quiet of the corridor that led to the bathrooms.
″Hello?” I answered hesitantly, wrapping one arm around my middle and leaning back against the exposed brick wall. “Is everything okay? Are Mom and Dad okay?”
I couldn’t think of any other reason she’d call me. Our grandparents were all dead, and the Hunters Council had assigned our extended family to different regions when I was a kid. I barely knew them. It was easier for them to control us if we looked to the Council as our only support network.
″They’re fine,” Astrid replied stiffly. “How are you?”
The question sounded so uncomfortably awkward I wondered if she was reading off a script.
″I’m fine,” I said slowly.
″Good. That’s good.” She sighed heavily and dread balled in my stomach. Someone must have died—why else would she call me? Except the Hunters had all turned their back on me when I’d been kicked out, so I didn’t know why she sounded so concerned about telling me. As harsh as it was, I doubted I’d lose any sleep over the people who’d so readily abandoned me.
″Oh my god, is it you? Are you sick?” I asked suddenly.
″What? No. No one is sick.”
″Then why are you calling me?”
Astrid laughed—a short, hollow sound. “You know, I wish I could say this was a social call. I know I haven’t been the best sister to you, especially since you left—” Kicked out, but whatever. Semantics. ″—but unfortunately, it’s not. I guess on the plus side, I’ll probably be seeing a lot more of you soon.”
″What? Why? Astrid, what the hell is going on?”
″The Council has a job for you.”
