Total pages in book: 230
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
Rick Ortiz sat in one of the chairs, his finger clicking away on the mouse, changing the images on the top row of monitors. As I entered the room, he glanced over his shoulder and lifted a dark eyebrow. That was about the only reaction I got from the olive-skinned man that had transferred to NOLA from Houston. He returned to clicking through the video feed.
Drawing in a short, irritated breath, I started to speak.
“How’d the meeting go?” Miles asked.
Did the man have eyes in the back of his head, hidden by the brown hair cropped close to his skull? “It went okay, but rather unexpected.”
“How so?”
Stepping forward, I cleared my throat. “Several of the younglings have gone missing. They’re worried that they may have met an… untimely demise at the hands of the Order.”
Rick snorted. “Untimely demise?”
“Well, yes.” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “Untimely because the Summer fae—”
“Are not to be killed, I know.” Rick sat back in his chair and spun it around, facing me. The man was handsome, with dark hair and a neat, trimmed beard, but I also liked to refer to him as Rick the Dick, because his handsomeness was outweighed by his douchieness. “But I just find it funny that they call it untimely.”
Having no idea why that was funny and deciding I was not going down that rabbit hole with Rick the Dick, I shifted my attention to Miles, who still wasn’t looking at me. He was focused on a camera that was across from the haunted LaLaurie House. The feed wasn’t set up for that home. Nope. It was for the rather plain, squat two-story home next to it, the location of one of the doorways to the Otherworld. Why was he watching that so intently? Was there activity there? My stomach dropped all the way to my toes.
The Queen could come back. She had the means—a crystal that powered the doorways from the Otherworld. I started to ask, but I didn’t get a chance.
Rick the Dick apparently wasn’t done. “You know what else I find funny? That they think we care that some of their spawn are missing.”
Miles sighed so heavily it could’ve rattled the monitors.
Taking a deep breath, I counted to ten. “They want to see if perhaps any of the Order members recognize them and to keep an eye out.”
“You got photographs of them?” Miles asked.
“Of course—”
“Hang them up on the bulletin board, so everyone can see.”
I started to frown. “I was planning to do that, but I thought I could check with them before the meeting gets started—”
“That won’t be necessary.” Miles faced me then. The man was in his late thirties, possibly early forties, and he’d seen a lot of messed-up stuff, especially after David’s betrayal. He was the hardest man to read, and I couldn’t remember ever seeing him smile. Not even once. “Hanging up the photographs should be enough.”
That wasn’t enough. I knew damn well no one ever looked at the bulletin board. There was still a picture of kittens Jackie had been trying to adopt out over a year ago. “Talking with them would only take a minute or so. One of these missing younglings is Faye’s cousin,” I added, thinking that would get him to agree, since Faye had helped the Order a million times over.
Miles strode over to where I stood and took the file out of my hands. He opened it and thumbed through the photos. “None of them look familiar.” He turned to Rick. “What do you think?”
Glancing over them, Rick lifted a shoulder. “Not to me, but they all kind of look the same.”
“Really?” I tensed. “Did you really just say that?”
He smirked. “It’s the truth.”
“No, it’s not, and that sounds really—”
“Don’t say racist,” Rick cut me off. “The fae are not human. They are not people.”
“Wow.” I started toward where he sat and stopped myself. “They are kind of a race of beings, so the term racist would apply.”
“That’s not how that works,” he replied, grinning that irritating shit-eating grin up at me.
Miles spoke before I could. “Hang up their photographs, Brighton. I’ll tell those on patrol to keep an eye out for them.” Closing the file, he handed it back to me. “But I’m telling you now, if one of them did come across one of those younglings and it ended badly, ain’t none of them going to come forward with that info.”
I figured that much, but hearing Miles say it like it was no big deal sent a wave of disappointment through me. “They should. They’re not supposed to harm them. If you think they have, shouldn’t there be consequences?”
Rick laughed—straight-up laughed.
“What?” I demanded, feeling my cheeks start to warm.
“You don’t patrol, honey. You sit behind a desk and you read books and study maps, sometimes you help out in the infirmary and you handle shit that we don’t need to know about. If you did patrol, then you’d know that shit happens out on the street and one second of hesitation can get yourself killed. We’re not going to punish someone for doing their job.”