Page 110 of Katya and the Young God

Selene tugs on Pieter’s hand. “Your cells will stop working,” she states, and Katya regrets giving her the book on biology. “They’ll get tired. Like old people.”

A million and one expressions cross his face, before it settles on vaguely amused. “Thanks, Little One,” he says, tousling her hair.

ANDREW OLLO (11:56 AM): Go to the King Sooper on Pace Street. We think they’re disappearing from there.

Before she climbs into the truck, he follows her out, threading his fingers through her belt loops in a clear motion of longing.

“I’ll be fine,” Katya says, and he scowls at her in such a clear defensive move that she gives him a smile. “Don’t worry.”

“Oh, I’m going to worry,” he says, but leans into her touch when she brings her hand to his chin, cradling him. “I don’t like this.”

She just nods, then presses a kiss to his lips. “I promise to kill anyone who hurts me.”

“Come back after,” he says, instead of smiling at her joke. “I don’t like to beg, but...come back.”

“I promise I will.”

He watches as she climbs into the truck, and his eyes are sharp. A scowl twists across his face, as the wind tosses his curls, before he sticks his hands into his pockets and turns back to the cabin.

* * *

Turns out,there were teens disappearing, and there was a werewolf involved, but it is much more of a situation where the teens trusted the werewolf to get them out of bad family situations and the werewolf delivered, rather than a kidnapping.

All the girls were safe the entire time, all of them with friends who agreed to shelter them from their parents, and the only reason why it’s anything remarkable is the fact that the werewolf was the one coordinating.

The werewolf even hands Katya the applicable paperwork for all actions they might take, to the point where Katya, who generally obsesses over the correct filing, is taken aback. If it wasn’t for the very real bruises on the girls, Katya would think it’s all an elaborate fake.

But that’s the paranoia sneaking in.

She meets with Ollo back at the parking lot of the grocery store after, the paperwork creating a big lump in her briefcase, and he’s bundled up even more than she is.

“Wyoming, huh?” He says, voice eternally friendly in the cold air. “I heard you got pummeled last week.”

It takes her a moment, before she considers that he’s talking about the snowstorm, not the actual beating by the Golem. “Nothing I can’t survive,” she says, her breath puffing up in front of her. “I’m not so fragile a little snow does me in.”

He gives her a nice, friendly grin. “You never know with new people, sometimes the weather is too much.” He scuffs his boots in the scraps of collected snow along the edge of the parking lot. “You don’t know what happened to Feketer?”

His face is so hopeful, turned towards her, his eyebrows drawn together.

“When was the last time you heard from him?” Katya asks, instead of anything that’s on the tip of her tongue.

“Few weeks ago, to tell me that things went pear shaped on your special mission,” Ollo says, shoving his hand in his pocket, then tilting his head towards the Starbucks across the street. “Can I pick your brain? I’ll pay for hot chocolate.”

It’s such an immediately stupid thing to do that Katya almost turns around and gets into her truck to leave, but instead she just stares down at the dirty bits of snow. “Not sure, I’d like to get back before traffic gets too bad.”

“Something he told me didn’t add up,” Ollo says, and she briefly, ever so briefly, gets a glimpse of a competent Organization official under all the friendliness. “I think he might’ve gotten in over his head, done some things wrong, might need some help getting out of it.”

“Did you read my report?” Katya watches him out of the corner of her eyes, pretending to look anywhere else, as if not to spook him.

“I wasn’t cleared to,” he says, sticking his hands in his pockets and shifting with the chilly air. “But he’s my friend, and I think he might be in something bad.”

“You’re probably right,” Katya says, not wanting to feed information. “He threatened my life, I don’t wish to discuss anything more.”

“I went by his house, it’s empty.” Now he’s pleading. “His wife said he left her, and he was worried about the half-demon doing something before, and —"

“He killed the half-demon,” Katya cuts in, now watching him, and sees a calculated look cross over his face at her words. “Right as we got out of the mountain. Had him shot.”

The calculation is over as soon as it begins, leaving behind only a pale, uncomfortable veneer. “If he came to you for help, could you help him? I don’t...I don’t think I can. You have...more clout.”

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