Ajax

“Fuck!” he swore, hopping slightly on one foot as he gazed at the mangled ruins of his pinky toe. “Not again,” he sighed, reaching down with his right hand. Pinching the broken joint between two fingers, he closed them like a pair of pliers and pulled until the bone set itself straight again.

Ajax waited thirty seconds for the bone to begin to knit, and then he resumed heading downstairs for the delicious breakfast his hotel served. It was far from the first time he had mashed his toe to pieces, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last. That didn’t stop it from being painful.

“Maybe I’ll wear regular shoes next time,” he grumbled. The flip-flops he was wearing hadn’t prevented him from catching the toe on an outcropping of marble from one of the big columns on the main floor of the older building. Designed to look like a modern-day Greek Parthenon, it had all sorts of places where he could hurt himself if he wasn’t careful.

The annoying part of it all was this was likely to only be the second worst he felt all morning. The difference was that this had been avoidable, while what he had to do next, was not. Things were getting a little too heated, and Ajax needed to ensure that he didn’t drag anyone else into harm’s way with him. Namely Arianna. She was tenacious and proud, but in the end, she was only human. If other shifters or military forces were involved, she wouldn’t stand a chance.

All throughout his breakfast of Eggs Benedict, fresh bacon piled high, and two pieces of toast slathered in honey, Ajax tried to figure out just what he was going to say. Every bite he tried to come up with another sentence. Every time he swallowed, he tossed the words out to start over again. Half an hour and two plates later, he still didn’t have a clue what to say.

“I am so screwed,” he said, closing the door to his room behind him and leaning back against it until his head knocked heavily on the door.

Never one to back away from a challenge, he flopped down on the bed, pulled on some socks—careful not to catch his still-healing pinky—and took out his cellphone, opening up Arianna’s contact file. He stared at it for a full thirty seconds until the screen went dark, then tossed the phone away and finished getting dressed.

Feeling more awake and professional, he sucked up his courage and hit the green button to initiate the call.

It rang twice, and he almost hung up. Before he could, he heard the pop that indicated someone had answered.

“Hello?” Arianna’s voice came through the speaker.

“Hey, it’s me,” he said blandly, impressed with his opening line.

“Oh, hey me,” she replied, before trying to cover up the snort of laughter at her own joke.

See, that’s wit. Why couldn’t you be that smooth?

Ajax chuckled as well, letting himself relax for a second before he got serious.

“Listen, Ari, we need to talk about what happened last night.”

“Oh?” Her voice sounded nervous and tight all of a sudden.

You moron. Now she thinks you’re talking about what happened at her place. Get it together, and stop misleading her.

He did need to talk to her about that as well, but he wasn’t ready just yet. No, right now he had to make it all business.

“At the club, I mean,” he corrected. “That was dangerous, and we were lucky that they were on our side.”

“I know,” she said immediately, the sense of relief at the clarification of the subject palpable even through the phone.

“Anyway, I’m sorry for calling you while you’re at work. I should really have told you this last night,” he said awkwardly.

“Told me what?” Her voice was now suspicious.

“I, ah, I wanted to thank you for all your help so far. Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere with this. But, ah...” he was stumbling, and bad. He needed to just get it over and done with. “I think from here on out I’m going to be doing this alone. At least the stuff out on the streets, looking for Benjamin.”

Silence.

“Arianna?” he asked tentatively after a few seconds.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean, I think you should stay at work, do what you do. If I get information that doesn’t make sense, I’ll come to you for help. But other than that, you need to stay out of it.”

Uh-oh. He could hear her seething on the other end.

“I need to stay out of it?” she growled. “I need to? Who are you to tell me what I do and do not need to do?”

“Oh come on,” he protested. “You know I didn’t mean it like that. I meant for your own safety. I...” he paused. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to protect you,” he said at last.

“Protect me?” she snapped. “Again, who says you need to protect me? I’m a grown woman, Ajax whatever-your-last-name-is. I know what I’m getting myself into.”

“Do you?” he responded angrily. “Because I don’t. I have no idea what the hell I’m getting myself involved in. So if you know, then please, by all means tell me. All that I know is that if those shifters last night hadn’t been friendly, you would be dead. I couldn’t have saved both of us; there were too many. What if our enemy comes at us like that? What do you expect me to do? There’s just as good a chance that we would both die as you would. So by coming along, you’re endangering the both of us.”

As soon as he finished speaking he regretted it, but it was too late.

“I am not some damsel that you need to protect like a knight in shining armor. Nor am I an imbecile,” she replied tartly, the bite in her voice now worse than when she was snarling at him. “I am well aware that this could go south in a bad way, very quickly. But like you said, you wouldn’t even know where to be looking if it weren’t for me. Now you want to leave me behind? This is my story!”

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” he said gently. “You have the brains for this. I have the muscle.” He was trying to reason with her.

“Which is why we should do what we said we would yesterday. Go check it out as a team. That’s how teams work, Ajax. They do things together, all the individual parts forming something greater than their individual sums.”

Ajax tried not to laugh. He was well aware of that. In fact, that was how he ran his Crew back home. Using their individual strengths to make the team as a whole a better unit. He knew how to do it, and he had proven success with it.

But none of the bears back home were Ari.

“No, you’re going to stay at work, and you’re going to keep searching for more things. I promise if I find something I will let you know and keep you up to date.”

“Don’t bother,” she replied.

His heart felt like it had been stabbed. She wasn’t mad or insulted anymore. Just…disappointed. That feeling was ten times worse than having someone mad at you. That he could just shrug off. But to have her disappointed in him? That hurt, and it cut deep.

She continued speaking. “If you can’t trust me to come along now, then I won’t be able to trust you.”

The line clicked, letting him know she’d hung up.

“Dammit!” he swore, only just narrowly preventing himself from tossing his phone across the room.

He did push himself off the bed toward the table near the foot of the bed. He gave that a solid kick, sending it flying into the wall where it shattered like kindling.

“Ow!” he yelped, cursing himself for his stupidity as pain from his foot let him know he had freshly re-broken his pinky toe once again.

“What a fucking start to the day,” he ranted.

At least the breakfast was good.