Page 2 of Enzo

Can I hit him now?

No, no, no!She was going crazy.

"Thank you for your time. I don't have references; I must have missed the experience needed part on the sign."

"Don't worry about it, doll."

She turned and walked away, paying attention to the floor that was sticky and in need of both a broom and a mop.

The guy at the bar said a little too loudly, "This is a bar, right, not an all-you-can-eat buffet. Why doesn't she look for a job at one of those?"

She walked out of the bar, keeping her head high until she walked down the street and stopped in front of the Crawford. It was a huge mansion that was now a museum. There was an iron fence made of very nice spikes that went around the property. She leaned against it and tried to spend some time figuring out her life.

She was jobless and soon wouldn't have a place to live. Her landlord sold her apartment building to up-and-coming entrepreneurs looking for graduates with high-paying jobs. The people who bought it were going to make some changes, throw some money at it, and then rent it out for twice what she paid now. They'd make a fortune, and she would be homeless.

Gentrification. The ugly word that no one would say but everyone was thinking. Deja lived in a building with single mothers, most of them keeping their heads down and trying to provide for their children.

The part of her she placed in the cage was shaking it, making her terrified. This was the ugly truth most people didn't understand. They thought the slide into insanity was instantaneous, but it wasn't. It was a slow slide, one that she was fighting all the way. One day, she expected to be in one of those little rooms where the nice nurse would bring her meds thencheck her mouth to make sure she swallowed them. She would get three meals a day and even a nice little bed to sleep on. But what about now? Now she had to make sure she had food and a place to lay her head.

In her opinion, the slide into insanity was either helped or hindered by how well you could take care of yourself. In her life, she couldn't figure out which one was winning. Standing, she glanced at her phone; it was only three forty-five. There was still time to keep walking and looking for jobs. She left Second Ave. Obviously, she wasn't going to find anything on the main drag.

She turned down some street she didn't know the name of and didn't care to and started walking. The houses in this neighborhood were nice. Upper middle class. The people who lived here were surrounded on three sides by less desirable neighborhoods. Every day the residents held their breath and prayed that the other neighborhoods would not spill over into theirs. It had been this way for years. She didn't think it was going to change anytime soon.

The homes were picture-perfect with manicured lawns along with cute chairs and tables out on the porches. Some of the neighbors were even out talking, giving her that look as she walked up the street. No one looked too long because they knew her from the daily walks she took. One or two neighbors even smiled and waved, making her feel a little better.

When she got to the end of the block, she knew she would have to make a right because the street dead ended. Except today it didn't.

"No," she whispered while pinching herself, the pain helping to clear her head. She wasn't ready to be locked up. She wanted a chance to make her life right. There was still a possibility she could be normal, meet a man, have wild sex, marry, and have kids. Was that too much to ask out of life?

Don't do it. Don't walk down this street. Turn, Deja Don't do this to us.

That side of her feared everything. She refused to allow her feet to hang over the side of the bed at night just in case there was a monster under there waiting for them. Honestly, she should listen to that voice, but she worked a dead-end job for twelve years, and they repaid her loyalty by downsizing her. She was tired of being scared.

Put one foot in front of the other. So, what if she was singing that Christmas song softly to herself? It did seem appropriate. Deja wasn't in her upscale community any longer. She just wasn't sure where she was. The houses were big with lots of room. It was like the residents didn't do anything small. She walked two blocks until she saw what had to be a gentlemen's club, because nothing that fancy could be considered a bar.

The building had class. It had several steps that led up to it with columns on each side of the porch. The image of a man in fine gray pants with a crease down the middle sitting on some expensive high-back wicker chair with his long legs crossed, and an imported cigar in his mouth teased her.

There was no neon sign that said "beer" with a silhouette of a woman in the window. But there was a nice sign that said they needed a waitress—with experience and a bartender they were willing to train.

She could learn to tend bar. All the voices in her head started talking at once as she stood frozen at the bottom of the steps debating whether she should walk up them or not.

"Holy hell, look what showed up on our doorstep."

Declyn raised his head and looked at Enzo, his beta. Nothing usually got a rise out of him. He was way too calm to let anythingruffle his coat, so that comment, while not high-strung, still caught his attention. He stood and crossed the room, looking at the security cameras.

The beauty standing in front of them wasn't one of theirs. Where had she come from, and could Declyn get a female like her for his own? Shit, hell no, she had to go if she already had him wondering if she had a sister.

"She can't stay, Enzo. No humans allowed. You know that."

"I know, but she crossed the barrier. It had to open for her. The fact that she was allowed in means there is something different about her."

Shit, shit, shit! Declyn cursed silently. He knew that look. Heck, they all knew that look and wished more of their males wore it, but it was impossible. They weren't staying on Earth; a rescue ship would come for them.

It's been four hundred years. An insidious voice that Declyn hated whispered in his head.

Unfortunately, the voice was right; it had been four hundred years. No one was coming for them. What did it matter in the war that one battalion of highly trained soldiers went missing? They were probably presumed dead. That wasn't the issue. No, the issue was, he had two hundred females and two thousand males.

How are those numbers working out for you?The voice was taunting him.

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