Page 4 of The Hive Queen

Maybe what I need right now is to be a good guy.

Maybe that will stop this ache in my heart from consuming me.

gold stars

- Sharpe -

“I’m tellingyou to move your men out,” Captain Bailey barks in my face. “This is my jurisdiction, Sharpe. Don’t think that just because you weaseled your way into a new position that I don’t remember the snot-nosed kid you were in the academy!”

I’ve known him since I first enrolled to become a police officer, then rose through the ranks to become a detective. I was an orphan with no memory of my life before age eighteen, and he felt it was his mission to toughen me up.

Unfortunately for him, his tough love made me immune to his blustering.

When I got transferred and worked directly under Captain Bailey, I lost all respect for him after I noticed unexplainable crimes being “solved”. I questioned it one too many times, which landed me in the basement, where he sent detectives to rot or quit.

I did neither. Instead, I kept digging and kept taking on the shit cases no one else would touch.

When I had my chance to be at the forefront of a case that would expose the paranormal element that hid among us, I brought together others like me who were immune to magic. We stood at the forefront of Others’ exposing themselves, and when the time came, I took the lead in the newly formed Joint Task Force of Paranormal Investigation.

Captain Bailey has been grinding his teeth and getting in my way ever since.

Ignoring him, I lift a hand to wave Detective Johannsson over. “Make sure no one gets any pictures. The last thing we need is this splashed all over the front page.”

Captain Bailey steps into my line of sight, blocking my view of the bustle of activity going on in the parking garage. “I already have people on it.”

This place is a PR nightmare. There are too many exposed sides and, while barricades are going up fast, the people who reported the body probably leaked it to the media before calling it in. Who knows how many photos were taken before we came onto the scene and started pushing people back?

Captain Bailey’s people arrived a step behind mine and tried to push us out. But I’m holding on until someone with more authority tells me to leave.

We need a sensational case to make up for the shit show that’s been happening lately. My people are slapping band-aids on slashed arteries and taking all the flack for not being enough in a world suddenly not designed for the way things used to work.

“Listen when I’m talking to you, Sharpe!” Bailey yells in my face.

Darkness curls in my gut, and my eyes snap to his. Whatever he sees there drains the blood from his face, but he doesn’t step down.

“Captain,” I correct in a quiet voice.

His head snaps back. “Excuse me?”

“CaptainSharpe, and I don’t need to listen to you,CaptainBailey.” I straighten to my full height. “We are peers, not boss and subordinate, and you are keeping me from doing my job.”

“Your job isn’t to steal crime scenes from my homicide detectives.” Anger flushes his face. “You’re overstepping, and I’ll have you written up.”

“Go tattle on me to your superiors, but do it from over there.” I point toward one of the barriers. “And get your people out of my crime scene.”

A bee buzzes between us, and Bailey flinches back from it, revealing officers bringing more barriers in to hold back the voyeurs. They circle the crime scene like vultures, ready to swoop in the second someone looks in the wrong direction.

Past my officers and the voyeurs, I spot Pen striding toward the scene, her short, ash-blond hair tucked back behind her ears. While not beautiful in the traditional sense, the confidence in her long stride and the way she carries herself draws more than one eye as she passes.

Her lean body, honed from centuries of fighting, slips through the crowd with ease. She nods in greeting at O’Hara as she steps easily over the freestanding barrier and pulls a pair of gloves from her pocket as she approaches.

Happiness fills me, and not for the first time, I wish we could work together all the time. But that would require one of us to relent and leave our current line of work.

Captain Bailey slaps the buzzing bee down and crushes it beneath his booted heel. He follows my line of sight and sneers. “I see you called your girlfriend in to hold your hand again.”

My focus shifts back to him, the happiness dimming. “Don’t you have a phone call to make?”

Red splotches of anger mottle his cheeks, and he turns to stomp away, though not so far as to leave the crime scene.

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