Faith was still sitting in the chair he’d pointed to an hour ago, her heels perched on the edge of the seat and her knees up against her chest, arms wrapped tight around them. She looked scared.
Only someone with a death wish wouldn’t be nervous in this situation. He knew what they were capable of, while she could only guess. Worse, they were all standing across the room, eyeing her up as if she were the main attraction in a circus sideshow, and she looked like she was expecting the knife throw to start soon.
They might look like trouble but these four guys were solid. He’d been through thick and thin with them. Most of them had defected out of the agency that ran the Universe within a short time of each other. Fate was the only one still working for the agency, doing exactly what his name implied, helping to shift people’s fates. He was going along with the program but it was more of a ploy to keep an ear out and use any available inside information to find Malokin.
Recently it had been a rougher ride for the guys than it had been in a long time, and it didn’t look likely to smooth out anytime soon. They’d all known something wasn’t right with the Universe for a while, kind of the way you could sniff gas in the air before an explosion. But things were starting to get crazy out there. Violent crime rates were exploding. Stores were shutting their doors and boarding up their windows.
If it were up to Lars, he’d lie low and let things work out however they wanted. It was hard enough to keep their own shit together lately. But his friend Fate had an obsession with finding Malokin, the possible catalyst to it all. Fate didn’t want to ride it out; he wanted to fix things. Lars was pulled in by association and loyalty.
Lars looked at Fate. “I know you’ve got this obsession with Malokin. That you think if we can get to him, the rest of this mess will calm down. I told you, we should just let the chips fall how they will and stay out of this mess. You know I’ve got your back but now this shit is leaking into my shop.” Lars felt his irritation growing with each sentence.
“I know. What are you going to do with her? You can’t let her loose,” Fate said, looking at Lars like she was his problem.
Lars loved the guy like a brother but Fate was arrogant as all hell. “You mean what are you going to do with her.” Lars shook his head. “This isn’t my problem. You’re the one that got us involved with this Malokin crap. You’re going to deal with her.” He tilted his head toward Faith.
Fate threw his hands into the air as he said, “Not unless you want her dead.”
“You sick fuck, you’d just kill her?” Lars saw Faith’s face go white even under all that dirt and realized he’d either spoken too loudly or her hearing had already started increasing with the change. He felt a moment of regret before he reminded himself she was a Malokin recruit. She couldn’t be as innocent as she appeared and was probably going to try and kill one of them in their sleep tonight with a knife clenched in a tiny little hand.
“I wouldn’t,” Fate explained. “But Karma might. She’s been trying to take out a lot of Malokin’s recruits. It’s sort of her twisted version of a bucket list. I’m not sure if this would meet her requirements but should we really put them under the same roof? I’ve tried to get blood out of grout before. It ain’t pretty. Why do you think I got my floors all redone? That shit stains.” Fate tucked his hands in his pockets and his nonchalance was a little alarming.
Karma, Fate’s girlfriend—according to everyone but Fate and Karma—had been forced to work for Malokin not long ago and had been tasked with keeping certain people from dying. Lars thought about how aggravating it was that she’d decided to take it upon herself to start chipping away at Malokin’s recruits now, just as he needed to dump one of them.
“How long ago did she die?” Angus asked.
“She says she was recruited a week ago,” Lars explained. Everyone was staring at Faith, and he was grateful since it made his interest look normal. He had a hard time not looking at her. There was something about her, even as big a mess as she was, that kept drawing his eyes back.
He saw her lip tremble. If the scared and helpless look was an act, she was damned good at it. Didn’t mean she was an innocent, though. And what pissed him off more was how it seemed to affect him. He’d never been accused of being soft but goddamn if he didn’t feel some protective instincts bubbling up in him.
As if sensing his thoughts, he watched as she seemed to mentally take a hold of herself. Her feet dropped down to the floor and she straightened in her chair. She crossed her arms and seemed to suddenly project an air of Go ahead, do your worst. You’re not breaking me.
He wanted to smile and go pat her on the back. He didn’t, but he wanted to.
Cutty broke from the group and crossed the room to where Faith sat. He bent down to eye level with her and asked, “Did he tell you what he wanted you to do for him?”
Bic, Angus and Fate decided to join him and went over to her as well. Lars begrudgingly followed them, that protective thing forced his feet to move when he would’ve preferred to have nothing more to do with the situation. He stopped several feet short and slightly detached from where they gathered around her.
He crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder against the wall as he watched the situation unfold. She looked at Cutty and shook her head, then tipped her chin up, hanging on to the bravado. The more scared she got, the larger her eyes looked. Great, he was feeling bad for the enemy. Next, he’d be lying there with his arms wide open for her knife while he slept.
“How did you find this place?” Fate asked, getting a little closer to her and not bothering to kneel or make himself less intimidating.
She tilted her head back and met his stare unwaveringly. “It was written down on a piece of paper I found on his desk,” Faith said, but Lars, who had the best senses in the group by a long shot, could hear a slight tremble in her voice.
She was on overload. Even if Malokin had trained her for this, she was reaching her limit of what she could handle. He found himself hoping she wouldn’t break, all while telling himself he was not going to get involved.
“And he just let you wander through his things at will?” Fate leaned over her, purposely using his larger size against her and invading her space, forcing her to lean as far back as she could. “We’re supposed to believe that? Malokin, the man who wants you, isn’t in the habit of recruiting nice little innocents. He chooses people rotten to the core. Why should we believe a word from your lying mouth?”
Her eyes darted to Lars, as if she somehow knew there was a tiny part of him that could be an ally. He forced himself to look away. Even stranger to him was that he had to grip the bench next to him to stop himself from doing exactly that. What was it about her that strummed some long-forgotten chord in him? This little petite thing was dangerous.
When he looked back at her again, she immediately met his gaze. Anger at what he was feeling shot through him and he wanted to scream at her to stop looking at him like he was supposed to be helping her. He didn’t know her. What gave her the right to expect help from him?
But damn if he didn’t want to swoop in and tell the guys—who he’d called for help—to get the hell away from her. He broke eye contact and turned his back on her. He should walk out of the shop and let them handle her. He tried to shake off the protective urges he was feeling, which seemed as instinctual as breathing, and moved away from the group. He got as far as the back door but then stalled.