Page 17 of Black Hand
It had barely any furniture, just a small couch covered in animal hairs and a coffee table in front of it, but that was why the rest of the floor was overwhelmed with large colorful pillows. It felt like we just walked in through a time gate and found ourselves back in the eras of Sultans and Emperors. All sorts of crystals, rocks, and dreamcatchers littered the walls, and I finally found the human standing in the middle of it, blinking owlishly at us through her round glasses. She looked like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, her lips slightly parted and her hands fisting in her moss-colored flowing dress.
“What thefuckis going on here?” Dominic’s snarl made me squeeze my eyes shut in a groan.
“Oh, Alice.”The words were just a deep sigh.
9
If you had never seen a wolf smirking at you, I wasn’t sure I had the adequate words to describe it. Plus, I had a feeling nobody would believe me anyways. The shifter’s tail was flicking lazily behind him and his upper lip very slowly curled at the corners. To add salt to injury, he plopped his stupid ass on one pillow and tilted his muzzle to the side as if daring me to call him out on it.
The feline shifter at my back released a low, terrifying sound from deep in his chest that made all the short hairs on my body rise to attention.
The human didn’t notice anything.
“Brooklyn, umm … hey, hi. How nice you came over,” Alice stuttered, her eyes darting left and right as if looking for an escape. Her cheeks turned bright red, and I frowned as my body tensed. She looked ready to hyperventilate. “It’s not what you think!” A finger stabbed the air toward me. “Well, it is, actually but I can totally explain. You see, I tried, but he won’t get in the car so I can drop him off. So … basically, it’s not my fault. Right? Right!”
“Did she just answer her own question?” Dominic grumbled from behind me, but I kept my face expressionless and continued to stare at Alice. Anger burned a hole in my gut. The human was going to get all of us killed.
The shifter from the plane, who was supposed to be in one of the reservations for a while now, pinned his ears to his skull and bared his long, sharp teeth at me. The wolf stood, and he shifted through the pillows to get closer to the human before he nudged her behind him as if trying to protect her from me. The bigger shock was Alice’s hand sinking into his fur, her fingers twisting in it to keep her balance when she stumbled. My cocked eyebrow snapped the human from her flabbergasted state, and I held my breath waiting for the disaster to happen. At that point, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to scream or laugh at the situation.
At least she was alive. There was that.
“Actually, Brooklyn,” Her chin jutted out, and in her right mind she glared at me. “What the hell are you doing here, huh? Didn’t you say we had to stay away from each other because of that dead woman you found two days ago?” As soon as the words were out, she gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes almost popping out of her sockets when they locked on Dominic behind me, who was muttering curses under his breath throughout the entire debacle. I thought I also heard him say, “This can’t be fucking happening.”
I agreed.
“I misspoke.” Alice hurried to assure him, waving her arms like a traffic controller. “It wasn’t Brooklyn who found a dead person at all. At all! As a matter of fact, it was a dream I had that I was telling her about, and we decided it was a sign to take a break from hanging out. Right Brooklyn? Remember how we laughed about it? Yeah, just a dream, that’s all.” Inhaling loudly and sounding like a whale when she ran out of air, she laughed a little hysterically. “A dream … yeah … I have those sometimes …” The last part was murmured, and her frown was worrisome.
Daring to take a chance, I looked over my shoulder at Dominic to see if he would attack first and ask questions later, but my stomach dropped to my feet instead. It was worse than I thought, and honestly, he was probably thinking both of us had a screw loose. He had his eyes squeezed shut as he pinched the bridge of his nose between a thumb and a forefinger. Nothing could’ve prepared me for this fiasco, so I decided to ignore the whole thing, starting from the moment I stepped foot in this damn place. Sidestepping pillows and kicking them to the side, I made a path to the small couch and sat on it, which gave me the perfect view of everyone in the room.
“Let’s try this again, shall we?” Alice shrunk back when I spoke, her shoulders curling in as if she was hurting. Dominic’s intent gaze made me feel like I was standing two feet from the sun and my skin was about to melt off my bones. “Why is he still here, Alice? You know very well that both of us can get in a lot of trouble if they find him.”
“I’m not afraid of going to jail,” she barked stubbornly, shocking Dominic enough that his jaw dropped to his chest.
“If they find him, neither you nor I will be going to jail. We will die. I explained this to you.” Praying for patience, I tried to reason with her.
For all her faults, I actually liked Alice. She was kind and compassionate. Something I didn’t see often apart from … Pushing the thoughts of Veronica aside, I focused on the human. It was safer that way.
“How will they know, Brooklyn? He is not microchipped. I know because I checked. There is no way anyone can claim he is theirs,” she continued, arguing her point but not aware of the glares both shifters gave her when she mentioned the microchip.
“He is not a pet, Alice.”
“Oh, yeah?” Glee spread across her face. “Watch this, Miss now it all.” Pushing the glasses that had slid down her nose up, she even cleared her throat. “Sit,” she snapped at the shifter and pointed at her feet. It was my turn to smirk, despite the situation.
I raised my eyebrow at the snarling wolf.
“No, bad boy. No growling, you hear me. Sit!” Color me surprised, but the asshole actually walked up to her and sat down, although his upper lip was curled over sharp canines.
“I can’t watch this it’s too painful to see his humiliation.” Dominic’s were loud and furious. “What sort of insanity is this? Is this what the Council does with those who go missing? You turn them into human pets? What the fuck have you done to him?”
“Human pets?” Alice snorted. “As opposed to alien pets? You sound like my dad.” she muttered, but I ignored her and kept my eyes on Dominic to see if he would lose his battle for control and shift in her living room. Or whatever this room was called.
“Do you know what your friend Brooklyn is, human?” The word “human” was snarled like a curse as he took a threatening step toward her.
Shifters were loyal and very protective when it came to their own. But outside of that, they hated the Atua and didn’t think much of the humans at all. He might think twice before attacking someone that would give him a fair fight, although from what I knew about him, that was debatable to say the least. He wouldn’t blink an eye to pounce on the weak species scowling at him. But leave it to Alice to make things worse.
“Yeah I do. Brooklyn stands up for those that have no voice to stand up for themselves.” I groaned, and Dominic’s eyebrows crawled all the way to his hairline. “She saves these poor animals so they are not put down,” Alice told him proudly, but it only made me wish I could turn invisible.
“She saves them?” But Alice was not finished talking over him.
