Page 80 of Five to Love Him
“Right, that would be why I’m calling. Their gleaming one—their mate called and said they were sick.”
“Yes, that’s Leo. Fuck, Principal Farrow, he’s really cute, and I’m so glad he and the hive got together. They’re like a double chocolate cookie together.”
“One would assume a sextuple cookie, but as you say. Did you think anything was odd about your phone call with Leopold?”
“He was totally stressed out about something, but he said he didn’t need anything. I offered to run over there. I mean, I can tell the hive was here this morning, but they left. Must’ve been in a hurry because they’d never not shut down their computer. They’re always turning mine off for me, you know.”
“I see. Indeed. Can you tell when they left and why?”
“Nope. Was getting flooring samples for them today. They’re doing a bit of remodeling back at their house, and I was helping.”
“Of course. Well, Xander, if I remember correctly, you were one smart youngling wolf. Might I task you to look around, see if you can find why the hive might have left so suddenly?”
“Well…sure, why not. You got it, Principal Farrow.”
I called the Dazzle next. The proprietor had not attended our honorable school, but he seemed a reasonable fellow.
“I thought that was strange too. I mean, I figure they just want to spend the day in bed, but Leo sounded a little…hmm, not sure. But something’s up with him. Maybe a family thing. If that’s it, then the hive probably just wants to be there, and—I don’t get why they wouldn’t call themself, you know.”
And there we had the outline of the problem, though it was an outline that lacked the colors and shading that would paint the entire picture. I called Conrad once more.
“Conrad, fetch my chariot.”
“Fuck, no. That shit doesn’t vibe with my board shorts, Farr. You want me to pick you up in the Porsche though?”
“You prick. Yes, I shall bear it.”
“Bearing it means you don’t get to bitch about it constantly. Think on that until I get there, sweetie.”
The tribulations of caring for the faculty and the school while suffering the burden of unqualified help should have broken me, but it did not. If anything, this strife made me the stronger for it.
Although, all said, I did consider taking a vacation and going the pilgrim paths again.
thirty-six
We were exhausted and scared. Leo’s teddy bear, Bruno, had been sitting close to the bed as he always did, and we’d ended up hugging him with one. We had failed Leo, and as we huddled in the bedroom, we listened for the sound of the door downstairs. He had every right to leave us. We had been so foolish to be lured—all the memories of that day came back to us, bright in our mind as if it had happened only yesterday.
We didn’t remember the name of the human in-the-know whom we had trusted, which was funny. We’d run into him a few times before at a former speakeasy that had been turned into a restaurant for supernaturals, nothing like what Newstaten offered, but nice enough for us back then.
That first human, we would often flirt with him. We’d never been shy, had been generous with our affections. We’d always been conscious of our size, and yes, maybe by being gregarious, we’d wanted to make up for being small.
He’d been flirting with us again when he told us of what he called an opportunity. We had been dumb, so very dumb. If it had been Leo in our shoes, we knew we’d have warned him right away, would have wanted to keep him away from that person and those unfounded promises he’d made us.
But we’d known nothing back then, nothing that was important. We’d thought the wide world was a wonderful place, and that humans were interesting and mostly kind.
The memories that followed were disjointed, but we remembered standing in a showy living room with the mounted heads of wild animals displayed on one wall and thinking, no, we want to leave, we should run.
To this day we didn’t know what type of tranquilizer we’d been injected with, but with the glass eyes set in dead faces staring at us, we’d assumed it was something that was used on animals.
When we’d woken up, we’d been so groggy.
You see, your friend owed me, and you are payment. His breath had smelled. He’d smelled. The stench in the room, after, had not been enough to drown out the scent of blood. We’d cried, had cleaned ourself.
In the other room where we were supposed to do the work, one of his helpers had held a gun to one of our heads during. We’d looked at the muzzle, and we’d not been able to be afraid of getting shot. Still, we had been frozen. We had been numb.
And like we were now, we’d been so very exhausted, especially since that human came into the room once, maybe twice a day.
There were footsteps on the stairs, and from their sounds we knew they were Leo’s. We were so ashamed. We didn’t know how we were going to face him now.
