Wolfman hauled the young boy off the ground as the little monster plucked the phone out of the oblivious woman’s purse.
“Excuse me, ma’am, is this yours?”
After a brief tug of war with the scowling kid, Winston handed her back her glittery pink phone.
“Oh my goodness, yes!” exclaimed the young woman.
“He was trying to take it.”
She growled at the squirmy boy. “Brat! Thank you, Wolfman.”
“Just doing my job, ma’am.”
She flicked her hair over her shoulder. “It’s Tiffany.”
She smiled winsomely, and Winston froze. She was Tiffany Jenkins. He went to high school with her. She wouldn’t give him the time of day – except for when she was laughing at him when her boyfriend – one of the football players – stole all his clothes and he was forced to run around the school in a gold sequin banana hammock. Not a memory he relished. She had never looked at him this way before.
“Ah… oh…”
“My whole life is on this phone – I don’t know what I’d do without it.”
She kissed the phone, and Wolfman wondered if she wanted some time alone with it.
“Is there anything I can do to say thank you?” she asked coquettishly.
The young boy made a gagging sound and Wolfman gulped. Five years ago he would have given his right arm to hear her say that. But like all women, she came up short compared to Avery. He wondered if his lioness had been popular in school – a cheerleader like Tiffany. How could she not have been?
“No need, ma’am.”
She pouted slightly. “Well, if you change your mind.”
She pulled a business card out and pushed it into his belt. He gasped and wobbled as her hand brushed his crotch. His wolf snarled unhappily. The young boy took the opportunity to struggle out of his grip, kick him in the shin, and make a run for it.
“Ooh you poor thing,” simpered Tiffany as he staggered back, trying not to fall over.
“I’m fine,” groaned Wolfman. He already knew there were worse places to be kicked.
“Can I get a selfie with you?”
“Ah, well, I’d…”
He froze as she kissed his cheek and clicked a photo with her phone.
“Thanks, call me if you want to have fun.”
Tiffany winked and walked away with a wiggle.
Ah, maybe that wasn’t a good idea. Since his last photo went viral, he was starting to think that actively allowing people to take pictures of him wasn’t very smart. There was the possibility they may work out his real identity. Quite a lot of people had managed to snap photos of him over the past few months – he hadn’t been that careful. But, maybe he didn’t need to worry. If there was one thing he knew, it was that no one on earth suspected their friendly neighborhood comic book guy of being a vigilante hero. Which seemed strange to him because surely they would suspect a huge fan of comic book heroes, but no, they didn’t believe for a second he could do anything heroic.
That was the thing about the mask – it didn’t matter who was behind it. All these people wouldn’t give him the time of day usually, but the mask changed that.
He took out her card, chuckling as he noticed her name was now Tiffany Jenkins-Pruitt – she had married the high school boyfriend. Yeah, they deserved each other. He tossed the card in the trash, appeasing his annoyed wolf, and went on his way.
*
Kay inhaled as Alfie lumbered in. He was limping slightly, and his shirt had blood on it, but she doubted anyone would be brave enough to point this out to him.
Marlowe gave the guy a wary glance. Even Froggett – so disdainful of people - got tongue-tied around the huge elephant shifter.
“What happened?” he rumbled.
“One of the subjects died,” Marlowe told him in a matter-of-fact way.
His small eyes narrowed even more before they focused on Kay.
“How?”
“Heart attack,” squeaked Kay.
Alfie stared at her, and she shrank a little. She remembered the first time she saw him – her fear hadn’t lessened any since then. It was hard to be comfortable around her kidnapper. She felt sorry for the test subjects – but she was just as much a prisoner as them. Though, at least no one was pumping her full of questionable and very untested drugs.
“We think he had too much of the drug and it overloaded his system,” she explained in a timorous tone.
“We don’t know that for sure,” complained Froggett.
Yeah, Froggett was adamant that the guy may have just been pre-disposed to heart attacks. Who the hell was he kidding?
Alfie humphed.
“We need to do more testing on the drug – we should stop giving it to the others,” suggested Kay, finding a well of bravery that she had no idea existed.
Marlowe took a step towards her, almost protectively. Alfie could easily blow up over nothing, and talking to him like that would effortlessly set him off.
“Any more subjects die?”
“Well, no.”
He grunted. “Get rid of the body,” he said to Marlowe. “Clean out the cage - we’ll find a new one tonight. You need them ready by Friday.”
“Friday?” she repeated in dismay. “But…”
“No problem,” piped up Froggett. “They’ll be ready.”
She exchanged a glance with Marlowe who stared back stonily.
“Fine,” she whispered.
*
Avery nursed a beer as she pressed a cold compress to her face. It was nothing that wouldn’t heal, but damn it had hurt. She couldn’t be certain it had been Alfie who attacked her – though she doubted it wasn’t him. But she couldn’t prove it was. It had happened so fast, and while she caught his scent, the alley had been pretty darn smelly, and his scent had been competing with a lot of other, equally gross scents – like cat urine and several different people’s vomit.
After she managed to regain her breath, she returned to try and replace Moose, who completely overreacted and was pissed at her for getting hurt. He told her to go home, and he would make other arrangements.
Now she was licking her wounds and wishing that Winston or Wolfman was there to cheer her up. She smiled at her new picture – best twenty bucks she ever spent.
Her lioness growled as she heard a small crash from her bedroom.
“Aww, not tonight,” she called. “I’m really not in the mood.”
Aimee came limping in sporting a reproachful look.
“Did you move your clothes hamper?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Humph.”
Aimee pouted and rubbed her ankle. Like she needed any help in falling on her ass and hurting herself.
“C’mon little sister,” sighed Avery, “sit down and help yourself to a can of soda.”
Not beer - her little sister was only twenty-years-old after all.
Aimee slumped into a chair and grabbed a can of orange soda. Avery was feeling a little achy and had brought a lot of food and drink into the living room – to save her complaining limbs from walking back and forth to the kitchen.
“I better make it quick,” said Aimee. “Andrea’s on her way over, and she just got a pair of new nunchucks.”
“Ugh.”
“My goodness!” exclaimed Aimee. “What happened to your face?”
“An elephant slapped me,” she said wryly.
Aimee scrunched her nose. “Are you going to arrest him?”
“I probably won’t waste my time.”
She wasn’t one hundred percent certain it was him – it happened so fast, and he would undoubtedly have one of the city’s best and shadiest lawyers to argue that he wasn’t there, and could probably produce twelve witnesses to say he was elsewhere. She was fine, and not really in much pain. Her lioness was more embarrassed that she didn’t see it coming.
“You speak to mom, yet?”
Aimee sighed. “No, not yet.”
“Can’t put it off forever.”
When Avery told her she was leaving the pride, she did it quickly and loudly while her mom was three sheets to the wind and got the hell out of there.
“I know, but she’s so… crazy.” Aimee slumped in her seat.
“C’mon, Aims, do you really think that Andrea or Abby will be more reasonable when they take over from her?”
Aimee shuddered. “No, maybe not.”
“Just do what I said.”
Aimee’s nose scrunched again. “Get her drunk?”
“Yep – it’s the only way to break bad news.”
They heard a crash and a yelp.
“Andrea,” they both said at once.
Avery nodded sagely. “Yep – I didn’t move my hamper, but I did move the knife block in the kitchen to under the window. Gee, I hope she didn’t hurt herself.”
They shared a gleeful look and clinked drinks.
*
Wolfman tapped on Avery’s window. The curtains were drawn and unfortunately, he couldn’t see his angel through the window, but he could faintly scent her beautiful smell.
The curtains were whipped back with some alacrity, and the window was thrown open.
Holy. Hell.
She was wearing even less than she had the other night. A small cropped top and even tighter shorts with – gulp – mini Stormtroopers all over them.
Double. Holy. Hell.
“Hey,” she breathed, an enormous grin curling her sensual lips.
“Hey…” he drooled.
For some reason, he couldn’t take his eyes off her stomach. The expanse of toned, lovely tanned flesh was almost too much for him. Which was insane – he’d seen her naked before. Strangely, it seemed slightly sexier when she was barely covered, just hinting at her sexiness.
“You coming in?”
The breathiness crept into her voice, and his beast yowled happily. He did that to her.
“I cannot stay long,” he admitted reluctantly.
Because of the movie, he had been delayed in his usual rounds and now needed to get home before his mother called the SEA and reported him missing. Ha – knowing his luck, Avery would be the one called on to investigate his disappearance.
But because he couldn’t stay long, Avery decided not to waste any time. She lunged at him, dragging him into a sultry kiss. He allowed her arms to grip him. Man, she was strong.
When she finally allowed him to escape, he pulled back and frowned, brushing his fingers across her cheek.
“You were hurt,” he growled.
Find who did it and kill them! Snarled his beast.
Avery shook her head dismissively. “I’ll be fine.”
He wasn’t quite convinced by that, but Avery didn’t seem worried or put out. No, she was just her lovely self.
Wolfman cleared his throat. “I need to talk to you about missing homeless people.”
Avery gave him a curious look and listened as he explained his suspicions.
“Can you look into this?” he asked, wondering if she would dismiss him outright. Tell him to leave this kind of the thing to the SEA.
“Of course I will,” she said kindly. “I’ll speak to my friend, Wes – he’s currently working in missing persons.”
Hmmm, his beast didn’t like the sound of this friend. But he didn’t dwell on it. No, he was trying to store an image of her looking so… bodacious? Was that the right word? Anyway, he wanted to remember her looking this way later. Would it be weird if he took out his phone and snapped a pic or two?
“How will I contact you?” she murmured, her cheeks turning slightly pink.
“I’ll find you,” he rumbled in the most heroic voice he could muster.
She gasped and pulled him in for another far-too brief kiss. Then, he tripped on his cape, tumbled backwards, down two flights of stairs, gave a worried looking Avery the thumbs up, and he was on his way.
He thought of Tiffany, thought of the way she used to look through him in high school, but then of the way she had looked at him with excitement when he saved her phone.
Would it be the same for Avery? Now, she looked at him like he was her hero, but if she knew about the comic book geek lurking beneath, how different would that look be? She had been all sweet and smiley talking to him in the store, but would she be quite so sweet if she knew he was hiding her identity from her? Would she be turned off by the real him?
His beast huffed uncertainly. Maybe she would.