Page 70 of Daddy P.I. 3.0

I glance down at Mac. He’s lying still, one arm behind his head but his eyes are open and he’s got his gun in its holster resting on his chest.

I don’t have to tell him not to fire. Mac’s judgment is sounder than my own.

I also really do not want to tase someone in an enclosed metal space. Here’s hoping the threat is enough.

Another tiny pop and a head of dark, thick hair appears in the open vent. Brown eyes in a black mask widen as they meet mine.

“Move and I’ll tase you,” I warn.

“Eep,” says the masked bandit in the vent.

Itisa kid. Long, dark hair hangs around the kid’s face. Hard to tell if it’s a boy or a girl, given the length boys wear their hair these days but the compact face with rounded cheeks and unlined skin below the mask tells the tale.

I hold my free hand up into the vent. “Take my hand. I’m going to pull you out. Fight me and I’ll break your wrist,thentase you.”

“Muh-master Logan?” the kid squeaks.

“Don’t call me master. Take my hand.”

“Cuh-can we talk about this?”

“Yep, we can talk a fucking lot about this. Once you’re out of the vent.”

“You’re scaring me,” the kid whispers.

Fuck.

“Come out of the vent. Nothing bad will happen to you.”

The kid’s eyes narrow. “That’s a lie.”

“No, it’s not. I’m not a liar.”

“Promise,” the kid insists. “Promise nothing bad will happen to me.”

“Lo—” Mac says, his voice low and warning.

I know he’s right. I’m overpromising. But this is a scared kid.

“I promise nothing bad will happen to you,” I say. “Take my hand.”

A small hand slips out of the vent and grasps mine.

With a lot of maneuvering that includes Mac standing under the vent and helping catch the kid as she decants herself—yes,herself: small curves under a sweatshirt that’s a size or two too small for her—out of the HVAC system, we all end up standing, dusty and the worse for wear, in the middle of Sacrum’s kitchen.

The kid wraps skinny arms around herself. Under the dust, she’s tattered. Her hair’s unevenly cut and frizzy. The thin sweatshirt shows too much skin at her wrists and above the waistband of her worn jeans. A faded red sock pokes through a hole in the toe of her sneakers.

“Take off the mask,” Mac commands.

Meekly, she pulls it off. As she does, I realize it’s one of the club’s blindfolds with holes sawed out for the eyes.

She’s ... cute. And probably all of thirteen.

Mac curses quietly. “How old are you?”

“Almost sixteen.”

Yeah, in like three years.

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