Then she goes to play fetch and deliver to an Unseelie. Who isn’t respecting her. I’m never going to survive this.

But she has to. So I have to.

I turn away, shoulder through the dudes, making sure to pop Lor a good one with an elbow as I go.

He snarls.

I bat my lashes at him.

He says, “Kid, you need to grow your ass up in a hurry.”

“Funny. I think everybody else needs to grow their ass down.”

“Like a horse, honey, somebody’s going to break you.”

“Never. Going. To. Happen.”

I’m bored off my gourd, sitting in Ryodan’s office. I thought we were going to go out investigating, hunt for clues about what’s icing these places. So far the only commonality I see is Ryodan. Both places that got iced were his, like someone’s targeting him and the dregs of the society I protect: Fae and Fae-loving humans. It occurs to me if enough of his places get iced, and word gets around, folks will start avoiding Chester’s. The club could die from lack of patrons. “One can always hope,” I say pissily. Ryodan doesn’t even acknowledge that I’ve spoken. I shift in my chair and glare at the top of his head.

He’s doing paperwork.

He’s been doing paperwork for over an hour. What kind of paperwork can possibly need to be done in this kind of fecked-up world?

He didn’t say anything when I walked in, so I didn’t say anything.

We’ve been sitting here in total silence for one hour, seven minutes, and thirty-two seconds.

I tap a pen on the edge of his desk.

I’m not about to say the first word.

“So, why the feck am I here again?” I say.

“Because I told you to be,” he says, without raising his head from whatever stupid thing he’s working on.

“Are you going to make me do your filing next? Am I Robin to your Batman, or some stupid temp assistant here to help you sharpen pencils? Don’t we have better things to do, like solve a mystery? Do you want more of your places to get iced? We just hanging around waiting for it to happen?”

“Robin and a stupid temp assistant would have been on time.”

I sit up straight from my bored slump, tapping faster. “That’s what this is all about? You’re punishing me because I was late?”

“Bright girl. Stop tapping that pen. You’re driving me bugfuck.”

I tap faster. He’s driving me bugfuck, too. “So, like if I’m on time next time, I won’t have to sit here and watch you do stupid stuff I can’t believe you even do?”

Half the pen—the part not in my fist—is suddenly plastic powder. I blink at it.

I didn’t see him move, he crushed the pen so fast. Now I see little crumbles of blue plastic on the blade of his hand, ink smeared on the paper he’s working on. I sit up even straighter. I have a lot to compete with if I’m ever going to be as fast as him.

“I do what I do, Dani, because the mundane makes the world go around. Whoever controls the daily grind controls everyone else’s reality.”

“That’s why you’re stealing all the food?”

“Ah, that’s why you had your crate-smashing fit. No. I hoard weapons. Someone else is stockpiling food. That’s too mundane even for me. I arm the swarm, feed the greed. Someone else is getting ready to starve them.”

I give him an admiring look in spite of myself. “You know it’s been going on.” He’s known for longer than I have.

“Someone started clearing the stores a while back. Where’ve you been?”

“Like, chained in somebody’s dungeon. Dude, can we please go do something before I die of boredom? We got a mystery to solve!”

He looks at me. How did I ever think his face was impassive? It says whole sentences.

I roll my eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He inclines his head, waiting.

“You’re actually going to make me say it?”

He folds his arms over his chest.

I nearly choke on my tongue trying to get it out. But I’ll do anything to not have to sit in this office all night. Watching the Unseelie between my high-tops is getting old. I’ve taken mental notes out the wazoo. My young body needs to see some action. There’s a live wire inside me, sizzling beneath my skin. If I don’t discharge, I’ll die. Bring on the night! There’s stuff happening out there and I’m stuck in here!

“I’ll. Be. On. Time. Next time.”

“Good. Next time you won’t have to sit in my office all night.”

I shoot up from the chair. “Awesome, let’s go!”

He pushes me back down. “But tonight you screwed up. So, tonight you do.”

Seven hours later it occurs to me that Lor might be right. I might be breakable. Seven hours of boredom and I’m a puddle of willingness, ready to do virtually anything guaranteed to result in a change of scenery. Chains I can deal with. Boredom, no way. My brain gets ahead of my feet and I don’t like to think about where I’m going. I just go.

At six A.M. on the dot Ryodan looks up and says, “Tonight at eight, Dani.”

I glare murder at him and head for the door. It doesn’t open. I glare at it. A whole night wasted. More seconds ticking by as I wait for my jailer to set me free.

There aren’t many crimes in my book. Not many sins either.

But top on both of those lists is killing time. Have fun with it, make something cool, play video games, work hard if you feel like it, but do something. Killed time is an abortion, life that never gets lived, gone, just gone. A cage and a collar killed way too much of mine.