Page 50 of Fanged Desire
At my exasperated expression Ethan sighed, grabbing a plate of pancakes and setting it in front of me. “Anyway, I guess we have bigger things to worry about right now.”
Something bitter lodged in my throat and I stared vacantly down at the table, my appetite non-existent despite the stack of golden pancakes before me. “Yeah. Yeah, we do.”
“So what do we do?” When it was clear I wouldn’t be touching my pancakes, Ethan reached over and smashed another steaming stack into his mouth, words muffled by a mouthful of batter. “All roads point to Catherine Raine. There’s no need to keep working at the club.”
“We still need a way in.” I sighed, leaning on my elbows and massaging circles into my throbbing temple. “If we can’t break into Cathy’s place maybe I can convince her to invite me?”
At Ethan’s dubious expression I turned away, waving a dismissive hand in his direction. “Look, I need to think this over. For the time being I’m still Kinsley – Micere’s best exotic dancer. Until we get my sister back I’m not burning any bridges.”
Rather than argue Ethan gave me a chipmunk frown, mouth full of pancake, then turned back to the stove, busying himself with the many dishes he’d dirtied during his breakfast endeavor.
I stared down at the coffee, my mind a maelstrom of disjointed half-thoughts. Hunter. Penelope. Missing people and missing pieces.
Not to mention the tattered, fragile state of my heart.
After an agonizingly long shift at Micere and a few Adderalls later, I found Hunter waiting for me outside the club, leaning casually against her car with that ever-present, inscrutable expression on her face. The night air was cool, and I was grateful for the quiet moment as I slid into the passenger seat without question. I knew why she was there – we had a lead to follow.
“You didn’t have to wait.” I avoided meeting her eyes, buckling my seatbelt and staring out the window instead.
Hunter shot me a sideways glance as she started the car. “You know I did.”
“Well, thank you.”
A light shower of rain began to fall, and I lifted a finger to trace droplets down the window pane. “So, where are we headed exactly? And how are we going to get my sister back?”
Hunter drove a hand through her hair, eyes on the road ahead. “I’ve got someone keeping an eye on Cathy’s place. The goal is to learn the guards’ movements and potentially find an opening. Once we have that, we go in.”
I swiveled to look at her, suspicion awakened. “And who is this someone you’ve roped into my mess?”
Her lips curved into a wry smile and she chuckled. “An old friend, you could say. He owes me a favor.”
That only heightened my suspicions, but it was clear she wasn’t open to divulging this mystery friend’s identity any time soon. “Then what arewedoing in the meantime?”
Hunter shrugged, maddeningly casual considering the situation. “Right now? We’re driving.”
By then, I was too tired and ashamed to argue.
We drove in silence for a while, questions, complications, and thoughts on my drunken antics left unspoken. I resorted to chewing my nails, something I hadn’t done since my college days. Waiting for the right moment to strike at Cathy’s place felt like torture, every second spent in limbo adding to the weight in my chest.
“I hate this,” I muttered, breaking the silence.
“Hate what?” Hunter’s eyes flicked toward me briefly before focusing back on the road.
“Just sitting around, waiting. It feels like every moment we wait, Penelope is slipping further away.”
“We’re not sitting around. We’re biding our time.” Hunter nudged me with her elbow, urging me to look her way. When I reluctantly dragged my eyes toward her, she shot me a grin. “And in the meantime, we can do something productive.”
I raised a brow, immediately suspicious. Knowing her, that could mean anything from swimming with sharks to robbing a bank. “Like what?”
“Let’s look into the other people from the files, see if any of them got away.” She shrugged, flicking the headlights on. “We can also do some research on this mysterious A-gene.”
I thought it over, chewing my lip. It was a distraction, that much was obvious. She was offering me something to keep my mind busy – but it might have some merit. “All right, fine. Let’s do it.”
Hunter drove us to High Stakes headquarters, the sleek building looming over us, looking taller than it had the last time we pulled up to that familiar curb. She parked, and we slipped inside, tall doors cutting off the quiet hum of late-night activity in the streets. When we reached her office Hunter powered up her computer and we dove into the files, pulling up information on every name we had.
As we worked, the tension from earlier began to ease, replaced with the focused rhythm of research that always kept my heart steady.
I perched on the edge of her desk, sifting through papers and reading out names while Hunter scoured the internet for clues on their whereabouts. As far as we could tell, none of the people in the files had been found, and less than half had been filed as missing to begin with.
