Chapter20
1790 Words
When George, Demi, and the others re-entered The Broken Badger, their worried expressions rattled my core. George’s red-headed date ran over to where he stood, flinging her arms around him. They’ve gotten closer within a matter of months.
“Would someone please tell me what the hell happened here?” I repeated myself, still holding tight to Jewel.
“Hey, Sarge,” George muttered. The color drained from his face. His date, Frankie Harlow, held tightly onto him as they made their way toward my table. “I would tell you, but I don’t want to upset your daughter…again.”
Fuck! I can only assume nightmarish visions from Hanna’s rescue flooded his mind.
Frankie, unlike George, wasn’t afraid to give some details on what happened.
“Sergeant, it was like a shadow figure appeared in the large window then moved its way toward…her,” she bluntly stated. She is her uncle’s niece. “And then it just disappeared back into the glass.”
Jewel just held on tighter to me while she trembled. A low growl reverberated within me. I pulled my phone from my back pocket and dialed my cousin.
“Hey, Dylan,” I began after he answered. “Could you send a couple of your guys to keep watch over you-know-who? Yeah, something troublesome just occurred… Yeah… Thanks.”
What? I just needed to know that Tiffeny would be safe. I promised her I’d find her alpha. She needs to be here for when he shows up.
I had Alice box up our meals there was no reason to stick around. Jewel and I were headed home. Pray to the Moon that “thing” doesn’t follow us.
“Hey, Ray. Finish your meal, then head home and get some rest,” I instructed. “Whatever it was is gone.”
He nodded then slowly finished his meal. Demi sat beside him and finished her meal too.
“Hey, Mike,” George yelled above the clamoring noise of the bar. He grabbed my arm as Jewel and I moved past him and Frankie.
“What’s up?”
“I need to speak with you…tonight… after I drop Frankie off,” he spoke with urgency.
“Sure, no problem. I’ll still be up. Come on over.”
March 6th, 7:20 PM, 2526 N. Hampton Street, Blackwater Industries, Inc., penthouse
Hanna sat nestled in a soft gray blanket on the large cream color sofa. A small fire crackled in the fireplace. The sound of an indoor water fountain trickled inside the living room. She patiently held her and Dylan’s current read–one of the Dresden File books–in her hand, waiting for Dylan to get back from an important phone call. Reluctantly, she sipped on her protein smoothie. Hey, she can’t get stronger if she doesn’t drink it.
At least once a week, Dylan and Hanna would read together. It became their way of trying to bond and get to know each other. They were both surprised to discover they each liked the same book series. Cough, nerds. Her fingers fumbled through the pages, looking for the spot where they last left off.
“Ah, found it,” she silently exclaimed.
“Hey, no starting the book without me,” Dylan teasingly scolded his fated mate, sneaking up from behind.
“You and Sergeant need to stop sneaking up on folks,” Hanna teasingly whined, throwing a decorative pillow at Dylan’s head. “It’s not nice. Speaking of Sergeant, what was the emergency about?”
Dylan caught the pillow. He climbed over the comfy sofa plopping down next to Hanna.
“I'm not sure. He didn’t go into details. He only said that something troublesome happened at The Broken Badger and he would like some extra security watching Luna Tiffeny,” he replied. Eh, so I’ve changed my mind about them. Truthfully, they’re nice to have around since Jabberwocky keeps dwindling our funding.
“Troublesome? I don’t like the sound of that,” Hanna remarked, worry lines formed on her brow. “Wait? Did he call his mate ‘Luna Tiffeny’?”
“Yeah…” he answered, grabbing the book from Hanna’s hand. “Weird, huh?”
“Hey!” she yelled at Dylan for snatching the book. “It’s my turn to read out loud. And yeah, that is weird…” She paused for a minute or so. She took a deep breath and continued, “Dylan, may I ask you a serious question?”
“Yeah, sure… of course, what is it, Lil Bet?” he answered worriedly.
“Why are you okay with the concept of Harry Dresden, but… you’re not okay with my Uncle Mac?”
Yep, she went there.
“Ugh, seriously?!” he griped. Dylan rubbed his face and then ran his hand through his hair.
“Yes, seriously,” Hanna retorted. “What’s with the crazy attitude you and Sergeant have against him?”
“Truthfully… It’s just an automatic reaction. Uncle RJ told us to stay far away from the Montgomery Coven... He never gave us a reason,” he confessed.
“You do know that Uncle Mac and Aunt Lila have literally saved my life?” she pressed.
“She’s in league with the Montgomerys?!” Debbie Ferguson blurted out, interrupting Hanna and Dylan’s quiet time. “There’s another reason to reject her.”
Dylan growled and pulled Hanna closer to him. He huskily growled in her ear, “Mine!” This caused Hanna to blush and feel things she never experienced before. Even the real Mitch couldn’t accomplish that reaction.
“Okay, so I’ll give Tiffeny credit. She knew what she was talking about,” Hanna quietly giggled to her mate. She hid her head on Dylan’s shoulder.
Debbie came into the living room from the kitchen carrying a large beefsteak sandwich. As she crossed in front of her alpha and luna, she seductively moaned, licking up the cheese. Dylan sat unfazed and unamused, watching the spectacle in front of him.
“Looks like you’re a real Debbie Downer,” Hanna observed, noticing Dylan’s annoyance with his ‘chosen’.
Caught unaware by Hanna’s wit, Dylan laughed so hard he fell off the sofa, taking Hanna with him. The book that he was holding slid across the hardwood floor.
“Humph, it wasn’t that funny,” Debbie pouted, stomping off to her room.
She tossed the rest of her uneaten sandwich on the floor. The plate clattered when it landed, leaving a mess of shredded beef, peppers, onions, melted cheese, and the partially eaten hoagie bun. She slammed her bedroom door hard. The noise echoed down the hallway.
“To each his own,” Hanna shrugged. “She’s wasteful.”
“I suppose Henry should come and clean it up,” Dylan grumbled, moving to an upright position. He gently pulled Hanna closer to him so she could be upright too.
“I heard my name. Am I needed, alpha?” Henry observed, stepping from around the indoor shrubbery. He noticed the scattered food on the floor. “Oh, dear!”
“That’s beef,” Hanna corrected the butler.
“I’ll get it cleaned up immediately,” he noted, giggling at Hanna’s wit.
“No, Henry,” Hanna objected. “Miss Ferguson needs to clean up the mess she made herself. She needs to be held accountable for her terrible behavior.”
8:04 PM, 1313 J. Butcher Blvd.
The cooking pot with the chard macaroni and cheese, which looked like a mini crime scene, sat in my sink. The stench still hadn’t let up. Jewel worked on her homework at the table.
“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked my daughter. I decided to trash the cooking pot.
“Pthbbt,” she raspberried her answer, pushing the assignment away from her. “I can’t do it. It’s too hard.”
“I’m going to stick this pot in the outside cans. When I get back, we’ll work on it together,” I instructed my Jewel. “Give me five minutes.”
I was back in under two minutes. The noise from the door latching shut caught my daughter by surprise. Her head was in the fridge.
“Just what do you think you’re doing there, young lady?”
“Oof,” she said, hitting her head. “You scared me, Sergeant.”
“I’m sorry about that, but please answer my question. What are you doing?”
“I was looking for the milk to go with my cereal,” Jewel replied with an innocent smile.
“How can you still be hungry after the huge meal we had from The Broken Badger?”
“I don’t know… I just am,” she replied, setting the milk on the table.
“You’re a bottomless pit,” I teased her.
“So are you,” she quickly retorted back. She’s not wrong.
She sat in her chair with a bowl and a cereal box ready to go. She’s procrastinating. I should know… I’m an expert at it. Wink. So, I gave in and let her have one bowl, then we worked on her homework.
Looking over her papers, I noticed she scribbled mini doodles. A gnawing feeling in my mind seems to remember similar markings from somewhere. But, it’s fuzzy. We somehow managed to press through with the assignments. My heart is breaking over the fact that my little Jewel needs help in forming simple letters. Thankfully, one of the librarians gave me a list of resources. We had most of her assignments done an hour and a half later. She only had two more lines of math problems to do.
A loud, rapid knock at the door startled both of us. Jewel, however, seemed more shaken up by the sudden noise than I expected her to.
“Jewel, it’s okay. It’s only Detective Harper from the police department,” I reassured her.
“Okay,” she mouthed barely above a whisper.
“How about you go upstairs and get ready for bed and I’ll let you finish your math at breakfast?”
She nodded and dashed upstairs, leaving me to clean up the scattered mess on the table. I opened the door to let George in. He looked giddy, flustered, and confused all at once.
“Mike.”
“George.”
“I found her,” he boasted. His smile reached his eyes, revealing a sparkle of newfound life.
“Found who?” I asked, obviously confused.
“My mate, Mike. I found my mate,” he declared boldly before his face fell in despair.
“That’s great!” I cheered, congratulating my friend and colleague. “So, what’s the problem?”
“She’s human—”
- Writer
