From Prey to Precious

Dellusions

Darci’s POV:

I was really looking forward to today when I woke up this morning.  It was one of those days that you just know is going to be a good day.  I had a good night’s sleep; I wasn’t super groggy when my alarm went off and I knew that I was going to spend a good chunk of tonight with the love of my life.

As I started to get ready for work, I made sure to pick out a nice lilac shirt with a low neckline.  It even had a little bit of lace trim that helped draw the eye to my exposed skin.  It was perfect, nice enough to look professional for the customers and enticing enough to get Brian to notice.  He always spent more time with me when I wore this shirt. 

I practically danced around my apartment as I took care of my daily routine. I went in the kitchen and prepped my smoothie and set some turkey bacon in the microwave.  I had to make sure I was getting extra protein and iron in my diet today.  I then made sure to grab a protein bar and throw it in my purse as well as making sure my reusable water bottle was filled and put in my workbag along with a small fruit salad. 

After I brushed my teeth, I grabbed my purse and workbag before heading towards the door.  On my way out I made sure to blow a kiss to the picture of Brian that I kept in the living room.  Seeing him look at me through that picture always made me smile.  He was just so… perfect I almost couldn’t stand it and he was all mine.

I was practically grinning from ear to ear when I got to the garage.  Tonight, was going to be a great night!  It was late afternoon when I clocked in, the sun would be going down in about twenty minutes which would leave me just about an hour to take care of the few menial tasks that I had left to complete from yesterday.  I hated this job.  I didn’t have any interest in cars or motorcycles and the limited analysis work that I was able to do was boring. But I knew that Brian wanted to keep me close and he trusted me to run things for him when he wasn’t around and that was worth every minute of mind-numbing boredom and every irate customer that was annoyed about a delay.  Not to mention the fringe benefits of the other contacts I’ve been able to make.  Between the other human servants that I was in contact with and their vampire counterparts, I felt like I could accomplish anything.  I pretty much did too which was pretty awesome. 

I was in the middle of updating our inventory spreadsheets when I saw a pickup truck from Vinnie’s Garage pull in.  I couldn’t tell what was under the tarp in the truck bed, but I had a feeling that it was Brian’s motorcycle. I knew no matter what Vincent did to the bike that Brian was going to be angry.  That bike was almost as important to him as I was and if Vincent had messed up his bike that badly, I knew that Brian would be looking to me for comfort.  So I couldn’t help be happy when I saw the truck pull in.

Unfortunately, my good mood soured the second that I saw HER get out of the truck.  Ugh, I really didn’t like Rachel.  Always swaggering around the garage like she was the best thing since sliced bread.  Trying to ingratiate herself with the mechanics.  It made me sick watching her try to slink her way through the garage like a rat going after a piece of cheese.  The only saving grace was that she hadn’t managed to try and sink her claws into Brian yet.  But I knew it was only a matter of time before she tried and I was going to put that off for as long as possible.  I was the one in charge of the schedule so all I had to do was coordinate with the manager at Vinnie’s and make sure that she worked mostly day shifts at Black Widow, unless I knew it was a night that Brian wouldn’t be in. 

But as I watched Rachel unload the bike from the truck, I knew I wasn’t going to have to worry about her anymore.  The second that Brian finds out she had anything to do with that bike, she’ll be lucky if he doesn’t just outright kill her. At bare minimum today was definitely going to be her last day working at Black Widow Customs.

I let that pleasant thought carry me through the next few minutes as I finished up the inventory spreadsheet and started placing our monthly supply order.  I was in the middle of price checking a few parts when out of nowhere Brian comes stalking through the office.  I immediately perk up and straighten up from behind the computer.  I notice that Brian doesn’t look particularly angry, but he’s definitely got his mind set on something as he pulls open the door to the building and walks out into the parking lot.

That’s very odd, he never leaves the shop without telling me where he’s going in case something happens to him.  But he never even looked over at me. As the door started to swing closed, I rushed out from behind the counter and followed him out into the parking lot.

“Brian! Brian, is everything alright?” I asked, letting concern lace my voice as I started to pick up my pace.  “Brian! Where are you going?”

He’s not even looking at me when I’m talking to him.  There must be something really important going on otherwise he would have told me. It doesn’t help with the small pain in my chest that I feel at him ignoring me, but I’m sure he must have had his reasons and I’m sure they were of the most dire importance.

Rather than going back to my desk, I make my way back into the garage to see if I can find out what happened.  Maybe Wayne overheard something. 

Wayne’s not terribly hard to spot as I make my way over to him.  He’s currently pretending to work on some big black antique car.  I’ve never really bothered to try and learn the different kinds of cars and motorcycles.  Don’t get me wrong, I know how to hack their systems and I know how program their simple computers if I need to, but that’s pretty much the extent of my car knowledge.

“Hey Wayne,” I call over to him as I walk over to him. “Any idea what’s going on with Brian or where he’s going?” I ask as I start to play with the rings on my fingers.  It’s a nervous habit that I’ve never really been able to break.

“Hey Darci. Nah, he didn’t say anything before he left. I’ve got to assume that he’s on his way over to Vinnie’s though,” he says with a slight shrug of his shoulders. “He took off a little after he took a look at the bike.  I haven’t seen it yet, but I really want to take a look at it,” he says with a small smile on his face.

That was definitely not the reaction that I was expecting Wayne to have.  Normally Brian being in a foul mood, which I’m sure he would have been in after seeing his precious bike defiled, would result in everyone in the shop walking on eggshells and just giving him a wide berth.

“Oh? You haven’t taken a look at it yet?” I ask and then give him a conspiratorial smile and a gentle shove. “That bad huh?”

Wayne puts down the C-clamp that he was using before he stood up to meet me and shakes his head slightly, “As unbelievable as it might be, I think that she actually pulled it off. He was actually… in a really good mood after he looked at the bike.”

“Oh wow. That’s amazing,” I say just barely above a whisper. “Since Brian’s out for a bit, do you maybe want to go and take a look at it?”

He wipes off some of the grease from his hands and nods his head.  “Yeah I definitely want to take a look at it.”

We make our way back to the loading area and we see a discarded red bow on the ground, close to where, presumably, the bike is currently hidden under a tarp.  Wayne moves to pick up the bow off of the ground but I stop him with the shake of my head.

“The less we touch the better.  Just leave the ribbon. Either Brian will throw it away himself or he’ll ask me to do it later.  If we touch it now, he’ll know that someone else was back here and you know how he is about people being near his motorcycle.”

Wayne nods his head a bit and leaves the ribbon as we finish walking towards the tarp covered bike. Wayne then gives a mock bow towards the bike as if to say ‘after you’ and I gently remove the tarp from the bike.

I hear Wayne make a small gasp as we both look at the motorcycle.  I may not know much about motorcycles, but I know that the one that I’m looking at is definitely a custom piece. It’s incredible. I can understand why Brian would be pleased with this. It’s breathtaking.

“Wow,” Wayne whispers breathily as he gets a little closer to the bike, “I can’t believe that she was actually able to pull this off.”

I raise my eyebrow as I watch Wayne continue to go over the bike, “You know who did the work on Brian’s bike?”

Wayne nods a little but doesn’t even bother to look in my direction as he continues to examine the bike. “Yeah I do. I didn’t think she’d be able to do this kind of work in only a week.”

“Who?” I ask as a bad feeling starts to form in the pit of my stomach.

A feeling which was only confirmed when Wayne looked back at me over his shoulder with a wide grin.

“Rachel of course.”