Page 18 of The Pushy Pixies Are Going Down
But now I was here as a guest, as a consultant, and nothing more. So I signed in—luckily, all I had to say about Sola was that she was my familiar, and the receptionist shrugged it off; I really needed to send in my registration for her—pinned a guest pass to my shirt, and headed for the elevator to take me up to the fifth floor. Luckily, Higgins had given the secretary my name and asked to send me straight up, noting that I didn’t need an escort—aka, a chaperone—to take me up, so I was able to go up there alone.
Which meant I was a wiggling, fidgety mess in the elevator. Hopefully, I could get all my nerves out before anyone else saw me.
Sola obviously noticed because she kept trilling and rubbing my cheek with hers, clearly trying to comfort me.
When the elevator stopped on the fifth floor, I took a deep breath, pulling a calm mask over my face and body—one I didn’t feel—and stepped through the doors to a floor I knew like the back of my hand.
A few people looked over at me, although most were too engrossed in their work to notice. I recognized a few of the detectives, some I’d worked with while here, others from other departments, having transferred over, I assumed.
“Curbelo?” an old colleague named Warren said, standing from his desk and rushing around to greet me.
“Hey, Warren.” I offered as much of a smile as I could muster.
The man, probably ten years older than me, held out his hand to shake. I hesitated because I didn’t like touching people. But thank goodness I had my gloves on because the man stepped closer and grabbed my hand without waiting for me. I tensedand did everything in my power to ignore his emotions. Sure, they weren’t flying at me through my hand, hence the gloves, but he was close enough now that it would be easy as pie to catch his emotions if I didn’t keep my empath magic at bay.
Hm. Maybe I should’ve taken Winter up on his offer to come with me. With him here, I wouldn’t have to block with so much force.
“It’s good to see you, man.” He offered a smile, dropped my hand—thank god—and pointed. “Who’s this?”
“This is Sola. She’s my familiar.”
His eyebrows rose. “You’ve got a familiar now?”
“Yep.” I had no idea what else to say to the man. This was weird. Even weirder than I’d expected coming here would be.
“That’s awesome.” He flashed a smile. “I hear you’re helping Higgins with a new case?”
Apparently, my old partner was telling everyone about me. Lovely. “Just taking a look today. No big deal.”
He snorted. “If you say so. Higgins seems to think he’s pulled you in for the long haul.”
Of course he freaking did. Asshat. I rolled my eyes at that. “Nope. Just helping today, and then I’m out of here.”
He gave a nod. “Head on back. You know where you’re going.”
I nodded and walked past him, getting a new greeting from an old colleague every other second.
I avoided the captain’s office like the plague. There was no way in hell I ever wanted to lay eyes on that man again. If I did, I feared I’d strangle that absolute piece of shit.
Finally, I made it to Higgins’s desk—it was the same desk he’d had when I’d worked here—and found a stranger at the desk across from it… at my old desk.
A man around my age glanced up at me, a pen pressed to the corner of his mouth as he eyed me up and down. He had dark hair cut in the standard cop cut, black-framed glasses with blueeyes—much darker than Winter’s and not as pretty, if I do say so myself—a thick body that made it look like the guy worked out, although I couldn’t be sure since he was wearing a suit. He was… handsome, I’d give him that, but I didn’t like the look in his eyes.
Was he weighing me up or was he checking me out? I couldn’t tell, and I didn’t like that at all. His mask was too… good.
So I did the natural thing and opened up my empath magic, focusing on the guy’s emotions.
I always heard and felt a million different emotions coming at me—that was what happened when you lived in a busy city—but I pushed them all away until they were nothing but static in the back of my mind.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t concentrate on someone and feel their emotions, even if I wasn’t touching them.
Without much thought, I drew on my empathic magic, aiming it at this strange man, and was immediately hit with insecurity, jealousy, annoyance, animosity, and maybe a hint of envy. The strange mix took me aback for a few beats.
Why the hell was this guy feeling so many things toward me when we hadn’t even spoken yet? I’d never met him in my life. Why would he feel anything at all toward me?
“You must be Miles,” the man said, his voice deeper than expected. “I’m Joel Cunningham, Gerard’s partner.”
The way he said Higgins’s first name, like he was claiming him and making sure I knew they were close, made me uncomfortable.
