Page 43 of Bad Enough

“Then stop sleeping with everything that has a vagina,” Cherry snarked.

“I haven’t slept with you,” Nemo teased.

TB cuffed him around the back of the neck and steered him down the hall, Nemo’s arms flailing all the way there. “And you’re not going to, Nanoid, so pipe down. Get in there.” Midas opened the conference room door, and TB propelled Nemo into the room where Waters was already waiting.

Just as they were sitting down, the door opened again, and the stragglers, Demon and Steel, appeared.

They were an odd group, TB had to admit. None of them looked like they belonged in the same room as each other, let alone working together. But for the past five years, they had done exactly that and did it well. There were moments when he wasn’t sure that he liked all of them, especially Nemo, but despite their vast differences, they did work like a well-maintained machine.

Midas had his Oakleys flipped upside-down and riding the back of his head as he booted up his laptop at his seat.

Demon threw his first aid backpack down the length of the conference room table, then threw himself into the chair it landed in front of, making enough room between the chair and the table so he could put his flip-flopped feet up on the edge, crossed at the ankles. He had clearly been out with the waves this morning. While his board shorts were dry, and he wore a tank top over his torso, TB could see that his skin still bore the sheen of salt water on it, and his shoulder-length brown hair was damp, although thrown up in a man-bun, sporting the tangled look of a surfer. He was surly and was quick to throw a punch. Or a chair. Sometimes even a knife if you really pissed him off. The medical bag was not a normal addition at a meeting, however.

Waters must have called him in off the waves. So, the favor involved someone who was hurt.

“Kubrick in an accident?” TB asked, nodding his head toward the backpack.

Waters didn’t look up from the papers in his hand. “No, not Kubrick. Someone else needed medical attention.”

Steel slunk into the seat between Nemo and Demon. Steel rarely spoke. TB wasn’t a chatterbox, but Steel was downright mute. His gray eyes were an oddity in his otherwise Latin features and cold like a snake. And like that same snake, you never knew when he would strike, which made him an incredibly deadly assassin. Together, TB and Steel had made more than a few subjects piss, shit, faint, or vomit after only a few short minutes in their presence.

Waters stood in his usual place at the head of the table and turned on the starfish speaker at the center of the conference table. The telescreen on the far end came to life, connecting to Midas’ laptop.

God’s voice suddenly boomed through the speaker. “What’s going on, Waters?”

Waters looked around the room. “Sorry to drag you all in on what should have been a rare day off. A friend of Kubrick’s is in trouble, and while the situation is not normally something we would get involved in, ironically, it connected itself back to our office, and we need to deal with it.”

He glanced at TB, an odd look on his face. The best he could describe it would be pensive.

“Remember when I said normal was never going to occur again?” the disembodied voice over the speaker reminded him. “This is what I was talking about.”

Waters shifted his attention to the starfish and flipped his middle finger at it, to which their big boss grunted, “I saw that.”

“You were supposed to.”

“What happened, boss?” Steel interrupted.

“Kubrick got a call just after eleven this morning. A friend of hers was having a panic attack on the other end of the phone. Immediately, Kubrick made me drive over to the woman’s house. She was in a catatonic state, and I wasn’t allowed to call 911. So, I called Demon in for medical assistance. He treated her for shock, and when she came to, we managed to learn that she’s being stalked. It started online, but now her admirer has raised the stakes and brought it to her in person. She received an envelope with numerous photos of her, many of them while she was in the privacy of her house. They were hand-delivered—dropped off at her door sometime after yesterday’s mail. Possibly as recent as twenty minutes before she took the mail out of her mailbox. We’ll need to check with the post office as to whether or not it was in the mailbox when the letter carrier arrived today, but I’m guessing no.”

Tingles started again on the back of TB’s neck. He didn’t like this feeling. Oily. Cold. Messy.

The conference room door opened, and a very nervous and pale redhead dressed in a mixture of Victorian and Bohemian styles walked in with Kubrick right beside her, an arm around her shoulders as if holding her upright. The pale woman’s green eyes darted all around the room, never landing long on any of the men at the table, and then they landed on TB.

Her eyes went round. If possible, she got paler. And then she passed out.

Yup. Things just got messy. Fuck my life.

14

JUNE 15TH

Sylvan

For the second time that day, in a matter of a few short hours, Sylvan was waking up to the soft brogue of the Irishman. While his face and voice were certainly pleasant to wake up to, it was rather embarrassing to be doing it again.

Standing from his crouch next to the lounge’s sofa, he reported, “She’s awake.”

“Sylvan, are you trying to kill me?” Sylvan closed her eyes and tried to block out the worried anger of her friend, but it was no use. Kai wasn’t going to let this go, but Sylvan honestly wasn’t sure how she was going to explain this. After all, what was she supposed to say?

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