Page 17 of The Paranormal Investigation Bureau
Maybe I would calm down if I thought about Bevan, and not Nicolai and Merlin. Bevan was sweet. He didn’t go around breaking hearts, and he was there for Nyx when I couldn’t be. Bevan wasn’t a threat to me. I needed to focus because the bitches would be circling.
“Madame Lucinda has always thought Bevan should have the lead over Julian,” I said. “She’ll never say that, not outright, but she has to know what Julian did to him when he got here.”
“What did he do?” Beyla asked.
The absolute worst. I didn’t get fired, but Marsden warned me not to beat Julian’s ass again after he convinced him not to press charges. He was horrible, probably worse than Bellatrix and Ivory when it came to what he did to Bevan.
“Bevan auditioned all over the world when he was a teenager,” Nyx said. “He got into the academy here, but he studied in Paris. When he graduated, he had offers from all over the world. He was homesick though, and missed his mom, so came back toThe P.Oh, but he met this French artist while he was over there, and he traveled back with him.
“Madame Lucinda would let him come to class and draw us. He was kind of emo, but seemed nice. Julian seduced him and let Bevan catch them in the dressing room, with Julian blowing his boyfriend. Bevan was devastated, but he stuck it out and didn’t leave.”
Bevan was probably the nicest guy I knew, but hehadto be enjoying taking that lead from Julian… I know I would be rubbing his face in it.
Beyla mopped her hand down her face.
“Idid notsign up for this shit.”
“Welcome toThe P.”
“Are we good? I think I’m going to take a nap.”
“You’re good with me,” I said.
Nyx just sat there. I swatted at her thigh.
“Be nice,” I hissed.
“The jury is still out, but I won’t try to kill you.”
That was good enough for now. I said I was good with her, but that was only true as long as she stayed away from Nicolai and Merlin. I still had no idea why it bothered me so much that she had hung out with them, or why I no longer wanted to play with my succubus banker.
Chapter16
Beyla
That went… well. Nyx didn’t assault me with her banshee shriek. I appreciated that because Mina had whipped it out back at the academy a few times, sometimes it was directed at me, and everyone in the room suffered even when it wasn’t directed at them. She didn’t shriek, but whatever friendship we were developing before had taken about a million steps back… she was total ice with me.
I didn’t know what Arden’s deal was. It seemed like he was trying to defend me when I walked in, but his aura totally changed when he found out I had lunch with Nicolai and Merlin. He was furious, and I didn’t get it. Nyx and Arden told me he didn’t do ballerinas, and neither of them knew I was undercover.
I excused myself to the bathroom. The apartment building was ancient, and the rooms were pretty cramped. I wouldn’t say no to that clawfoot tub, which surprisingly wasn’t stained or dirty and looked perfect for soaking in after a brutal class.
I picked up supplies after I left Marsden’s apartment. There are a lot of things needed for self-care when you're a dancer that I couldn’t bring on the plane, including a ton of things I just for feet, let alone muscles.
I sat on the toilet and pulled out my bag. My feet weren’t in super horrible shape, considering how deformed and ugly they were now. In most of the places that my pointe shoes rubbed, blisters had burst and formed hard callouses. Still, that class was brutal, and I did have some fresh blisters I needed to lance and some that had been ripped open and bled.
That needed to be dealt with right away, because I didn’t need my feet getting infected. I’d danced missing toenails in the past, and it was pretty miserable. After I got my feet taken care of, I went for my muscles next. It was old school, but I liked to soak in a hot bath of Epsom salt.
I’d just lowered myself into the tub when my phone rang. I had my wine, my kindle, and scalding water. I wouldn’t have answered it if I was home, but it might be work. When I checked the caller ID, it was Kaine. I smiled and picked it up.
“Hey, kid. How’s it going?”
If I told Kaine that Marsden wasn’t giving me the tools I needed to do my job, he’d be pissed. He wouldn’t go through the proper channels. Someone higher up than him had wanted me here against his advice… he wouldn’t call that person to have them light a fire under Marsden, but would call every numberThe Phad until he located him and would then go full dragon on him.
Something told me that wouldn’t put the fear of the Gods into Marsden, but he would be petty enough to complain about it. This entire thing reeked of him having friends high up in the Paranormal Investigation Bureau, ones who would have been instrumental in specifically hiring me for this job.
Everything they taught me at the bureau was based on the concept that we didn’t just want to apprehend criminals, and they stressed the importance of programs to keep people from re offending or committing crimes in the first place. I got the feeling that, if Kaine or any one of my professors had been approached to assign someone to help with a ballet that had a history of being lethal every time it was attempted, they would try to convince him not to do the damn ballet!
I couldn’t tell Kaine what was going on. Everyone I’d met here had a problem with drama, except Bevan. They blew things out of proportion without thinking about things from all angles. I had hoped my roommate and her best friend would be different, since they seemed cool at first, but they were both mad at me over nothing.
