Page 1 of How to Hack a Hellhound
Chapter 1
Quinton
Working in retail was hell, and working in the food industry side of retail was apparently a special level of hell reserved for the truly damned. Yet somehow, here I was.
It was almost closing time at the coffee shop, and there were only two customers left in line. I was making the coffee, because Cass seemed to think calling customers assholes was bad for business. So I had to take my petty revenge by spelling people’s names wrong on their cups—or mishearing them totally.Bob? I could’ve sworn you said Boob.Scott? Are you sure you didn’t say Snot?
I took my amusement where I could get it. Right now, though, I was in the existential hell of not wanting to be at work but also not wanting to be at home.
Wasn’t I just a ray of fucking sunshine.
You could chalk that attitude up to me being kidnapped, held hostage in a basement by a human trafficker, and then being rescued by some… being that wasn’t quite human. And let’s not forget being rehomed like some kind of stray animal afterwards.
Yeah, those would all be reasons for a pretty shitty attitude. It wasn’t my excuse, though. I’d had this shitty attitude beforeI’d been kidnapped. Besides, my roommate, Aiden, another “stray,” had actually been held captive and abused for like a year or something (he understandably didn’t talk much about it). If anyone had a reason for an attitude, it was him, but he was actually a really sweet guy—when he talked.
Just as I finished the order, the bell over the door jingled, because of course it did.
And, of course, it was Toby.
Toby was like that college professor that wore mismatched shoes and forgot to come to class on time. You knew he was an idiot, but somehow everyone still loved him. Not that I knew much about college professors, because in my old life I’d only taken a few courses while I worked full time.
Toby bounded over to the counter like a freaking shih-tzu or some other miniature yappy dog, all chatty and cheery. His attitude and looks were deceiving, though, because he wrote all kinds of gory shit for a living, and apparently his books were super popular. Conversations with him were odd, at best.
At worst, you might regret having just eaten lunch.
I heard Cass call out the order for the next customer, and it was a pumpkin spice latte.
“Pumpkin spice sucks,” I muttered.
Toby gasped, but the customer barely blinked. He was probably a regular. They were used to my attitude by now.
“Don’t worry about him,” Toby said to the guy. “He has a traumatic backstory. Pumpkin spice is lovely.”
I just snorted and made the coffee. Pumpkin spice wasn’t lovely. It was fucking nasty. I said what I said, and I stood behind it.
“Besides,” Toby added, “we don’t yuck anyone else’s yum. We accept all flavors.”
I glanced over to see Toby smiling, and I barely repressed another snort. Writers always had to make things into some bigthematic lesson. I set the coffee on the counter, turning to see that Cass had mysteriously disappeared into the back, leaving me to take Toby’s order.
Although really, that was probably one of the least mysterious things he did.
Because I was surrounded by fucking nut cases.
Yeah, I had a tragic backstory, and so did my roommate, but I had a feeling we barely scratched the surface when it came to plot material.
The guy, Dex, who rescued me from my basement prison, had glowing eyes and flames all over his body at the time. He’d set fire to the house on our way out and dropped me off to be babysat by the coffee shop owner and his boyfriend, because apparently his friends hated dealing with the “human” police. Plus, I hadn’t really given him an alternative—I didn’t particularly care to return to my old life.
So, yeah, Dex was probably not strictly human. It was kind of a shock, but at that point, I had been so messed up that it barely fazed me (kidnapping will do that to you).
So supernatural beings were just another item to add to my already fucked up bingo card.
Oh, yeah, Dex was also dating Toby, the writer. Jury was out on whether or not Toby was human. If he was, he was probably a serial killer, because I didn’t know anyone else who could be so fucking happy talking about dismemberment.
Then there was Cassius and Kushiel, who had pretty much adopted me. They were also fucking weird as hell, and if I had to bet money on it, I wouldn’t guess human for them either. Cassius often stood around talking to thin air, and I learned that it was best not to ask questions, because you never knew what answer you’d get. (I was glad to hear that Great Aunt Bessie was proud of how I was handling everything, but I didn’t want to know whyCassius even knew about a great aunt who had died when I was a kid.)
Kushiel was his own level of weird, always going out for nature walks to talk to the trees. Like, literally talk to the trees—whole conversations. I wasn’t sure if talking to thin air or trees was weirder, but either way, they were fucking odd.
Not that I could complain about them. They gave me a job, a place to stay, clothes, a phone, and a computer, and they didn’t ask for anything in return. I kept waiting for the IOU to come due, because in my experiencenothingin life was free, but so far they hadn’t asked for a thing. All I had to do was work a shitty coffee shop job, and I even got paid above minimum wage for it. I don’t even think Ihadto work the job. I think Cassius just hired me to make me feel useful.
