Page 21 of Malice
Oh my God, what was my brain making me witness?
“This hurts me more than it hurts you. Believe me,” he grumbled before winding up like a pitcher and hurling the flailing little bird off the cliff.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shouted, rushing up to the man and his potential victims.
He spun toward me, his face set in a scowl. “The job I hiredyoufor,” he snapped. “Nice of you to show up, by the way. Do you have any idea how hard it is to do all the testing and returning by myself? It’s not like we’re trying to save the world or anything.”
“I’m sorry? What are you talking about?”
He stepped closer, his white lab coat flapping in the wind. Then he pointed at my chest. “Operation PFFN. It’s right there on your shirt. God, where does Remi find these people? Mars?”
I looked down my torso, and sure enough, the logo he’d indicated was splayed across my tits. Well then. He was still looking at me expectantly, so I shrugged. “Must have mixed up the start time.” Because seriously, what the hell else was I supposed to say to my dream boss?
“These puffins aren’t going to catalog themselves, lady. Grab that clipboard and start checking off their names, would ya?”
Before I could irritate him further by asking where I was supposed to find one out here in the wild, I noticed a table on my right. A table that definitely hadn’t been there a minute ago.
“Dreams are so fucking weird,” I muttered, heading over to pull on a lab coat of my own and grab the aforementioned clipboard.
The man picked up another bird, this one looking to be a full-grown puffin. “Dragon, Puff the Magic.”
It took me a second to realize he was talking to me. “Huh?”
“That’s her name. Mark it off.”
“You named a puffin Puff the Magic Dragon?”
“No, I named it Dragon, Puff the Magic.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Likewise.”
I found the name on the paper and marked it with a little check. Then screamed as he hurled little Puff off the cliff.
“Why are you murdering them? Are you a puffin serial killer?”
He could not have been more offended. “Exqueeze me? Murder a puffin? Are you out of your mind? Lady, do you have any idea what we’re doing here? We aresavingthese puffins. If it wasn’t for me”—he forcefully pushed a finger into his chest before flinging his arm back toward the box—“these absolute badasses would all be dead. That’s why we’re testing them. The puffins are the key to the vaccine.”
I had officially lost my mind. The words coming out of this dude’s mouth barely made sense.
“The vaccine. Riiight.”
“We are trying to stop the...” His face contorted in confusion as the words died on his tongue. “Wait, where did they go?”
I looked over the edge of the box, and sure enough, nothing was there, just brown cardboard. Not even a stray feather.
The man whipped his head from left to right before focusing on me once more. “What are we doing here? What the fuck is going on?”
Oh great, was this about to turn into a nightmare? Had my subconscious gifted me an encounter with a crazed puffin enthusiast?
I held up the clipboard. “Uh, saving the puffins?”
Confusion swept across his face. “That does sound like me, but...” He dragged a hand through his hair, leaving several strands sticking straight up. His gaze was unfocused, and he was muttering under his breath. “Nope. No. This isn’t right.”
“Operation PFFN?” I offered.
His eyes went wide as he jumped on the name. “Right. Operation PFFN.”
