Mixed Feelings (Empathy in the PPNW Book 1) (7 page)

We chatted as I locked up,
bantered as we rode the elevator down to street level, and said our goodbyes.
The snow that had been tickling my office window glittered in my hair as I
unlocked my car and tossed my bag into the back seat. My eyes
flitted
to my steering wheel as I
slid into my seat and I sighed.

“Again?”

There was a pink sticky note
in the center of the steering wheel. It said, “
Put up your shields
!”

I stared at it grumpily as I
turned the car on and blasted the heater. Just as I was about to crumple the
note and toss it in my little garbage bag, the passenger door opened and Mel
slid his finely sculpted ass into my car. I was briefly stunned into silence as
I did what the note had suggested and fortified my psychic wall. As at The
Internets, it only helped so much. My muscles twinged, my skin protested and
insisted I was pressing a hot iron against each and every nerve. Luckily, I
wasn’t the only one in pain, at least for a few seconds.

Mel grunted in discomfort as
he realized what a mistake it had been to cram himself in without looking.
Chloe must’ve adjusted the seat for herself earlier that day, so at least I got
a chuckle watching Mel fold himself in where her small body had been so
comfortable earlier. He was able to manage
,
but it required pressing his knees to his chest.

After some fumbling between
his legs—and, of course, an obnoxious kissing sound directed at me as he
did so—the seat shot back and he stretched out. I frowned at him and
turned off the car to make it clear that I was not taking him anywhere.

“
Hey,
Jeeves, where we going?” Mel asked, his eyes roaming to watch my hand
as I tucked the note into my jacket pocket.

“
You
’re going to get out. I’m going home.”

“
I
’ll join you; we can warm the place up.”

I sighed.
“
Mel.
”

He grinned at me and gave an
amiable shrug. Turning my rearview mirror so he could poke at his Fillion-esque
hair, he explained
.

“
I
’ve got news. There are indeed children missing. While that’s,
unfortunately, not atypical, this
batch
has the
cops scratching their heads. Three children, two girls and a boy, have been
taken in the last few weeks. What makes these particular kidnappings
interesting is that the police have no leads. Zilch. Nada.”

“That’s all you found out?”

“Let me finish before you run
your mouth,”
Mel said.
My eyelid gave a hearty spasm
and I felt like smacking him. “All three children were removed from locked
homes, where they should have been safe. First little girl was in bed and then
she wasn’t. Second was in the backyard; Mom swears she stepped inside just long
enough to grab a pair of gloves off the counter. The little boy was home sick
from school with his mother.”

“No breaking and entering?”

“Nothing of the sort. If
these aren’t the kidnappings you’re supposed to solve, I’ll take a vow of
celibacy.”

“
Oh, don
’t make this a choice between your abject misery and
the safety of small children. I can’t make that decision.”

Mel snorted,
rolling
his eyes good-naturedly. “What about you? You’re the
one they hired; I’d better not be doing all the legwork here.”

“Chloe and I went to see
Merrin today. She spouted the usual foreboding nonsense, said she’d make me
something, claimed we could stop a kidnapping—
we
’re hoping to get a call about that sooner rather than later—and
we gave her some cash.”

Mel made a small, thoughtful
sound before jerking his chin. “How’s she doing?”

Despite Mel being, well,
Mel,
I wasn’t surprised by his concern. Something about
our little witch friend made her the only woman that Mel didn’t shamelessly
flirt with. I’d seen him hit on girls who had turned eighteen mere seconds
before and also on women in their sixties. Merrin, however, had only gotten a
pat on the shoulder and Mel’s suggestion that she eat a nutritious
dinner; he
’d even offered to buy her the meal.

“
She
’
s
… living with someone? Or
someon
e
’s living with her. It was a
not-person-someone, far as I can tell. Super hot, but off. I think she was a
fairy.
”

“
Ooh,
” Mel hissed, his face
contorting like he’d been burned. “
Super-
hot
fairies are generally bad news. Well, most are bad news, but the lookers you
really
don
’t wanna fuck with.”

“
Even
you
don
’t wanna fuck
with them?” I asked, amused by the nervous frustration jangling through him
like a can of pennies, even as I winced against the clamorous experience of
being so close to it.

“Even I wouldn’
t risk it.
”

“Then it
must
be
serious. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“
Don
’t go getting your pretty little head ripped off,” Mel suggested,
reaching out to ruffle my hair.

“
Okay,
” was all I could get out. His fingers tugged my hair
lightly as he pulled away; lust flared up from his core and I jerked my head
back to lessen the contact. “Anything else?”

“
I
’m going to see if I can get the parents to talk to me, offer my private
eye services. Nothing seemed off to Julia—one of my hotter cop
friends—but she doesn’t exactly have our radar, does she?”

“How’d you pitch this, by the
way?”

“What do you mean?”

“
Well, I
’m assuming you didn’t just
walk up to said hot cop and announce that you’re a werewolf with an empath acquaintance
who’s been hired by two monsters to find kids. That wouldn’t really fly, would
it?”

“Some people pick up on
what’s going on around the spooky side of things, actually. Occasionally
they’re like you, with some mild power. Sometimes they’re a few shades weaker
than you, but still aware. Sensitives who get a tingle in the back of their
mind when the phone’s about to ring, or who just have a really well
-
developed lizard brain. Julia’s the latter. She’s been
around enough conflicting eyewitness accounts of something hinky going down
that she trusts me when I say something hinky's going down. Plus, it’s tough
not to believe me when I’ve made you see god.” Mel winked, leaning forward with
a predatory smile. “
Interested?
”

“Back off, Fido,” I growled,
pressing myself against my door. “
It
ain
’
t happening.
”
Mel
watched me for a few moments before shrugging and sitting back. I took
a deep breath, fought off the nausea he’d caused, and got back on track. “Look,
if it’
s possible, I
’d like to go with you when
you meet the parents.”

“In your capacity as Super Therapi
st?
”

I ignored the dig. “Laurel
and Hardy were scouts, right? They said their job is to check on kids with
powers, to see if they’re a threat. I’d like to go and see if the parents have
any extra…
oomph
. If
one or both of each pair
have…” I waggled my hands in front of me, unsure of how to describe it.

“A tendency toward dance?”
Mel finished for me. I blinked and lowered my hands.

“Powers. See if any of them
have any sort of abilities, even as mild as mine. We may have some sort of a
zealot on our hands, someone who’s learned that not everyone is a boring,
useless human and that he—or she—has a problem with this. Someone
with that overdeveloped lizard brain you mentioned, maybe. These kids could be
in danger for being too powerful. Or maybe they’re just sensitive, but this guy
thinks they can bend reality or start fires with their hands, so he’s killing
them.”

“You know, technically
everyone can start fires with their hands,” Mel observed. “You just need
matches or a lighter, maybe some sticks to rub together.”

My eye twitched again and I
grunted at him. “
Don
’t be pedantic.”

“Alternately, we could rub
our body parts together and see what heats up.”

“Please shut up,” I said,
touching the jolt in my cheek.

Mel took a moment to enjoy my
discomfort and annoyance before continuing.
“You really gave this some thought.”

“Should I not have?”

“I'm just not used to you
thinking
is all.”

“I think all the time,” I
protested. “Usually about how I hope your testicles get mangled in some sort of
industrial accident.”

“You think about my testicles
all the time?”

A fit of irritation and
outrage ran through the entire right side of my face in a spasm and I reached
up to press my hand to my cheek as if I could squelch my hatred of Mel if I
squeezed hard enough. Mel laughed at me but got back to the real problem.

“What other theories did you
generate while trying to fight your natural urge to picture me naked?
You
think he might go after someone like Merrin, who can
actually do damage?”

The quake in my face died
away and I waved him off. “I don't know.
It
’s just
a thought at this point. For all I know
,
this
guy’s just an asshole who likes hurting people and kids are the easiest
targets. The fact that the fairies are after them means that they think these
kids have powers
,
but I don’t know how they
determine that. Maybe they check the kids of parents with powers but not all
kids get the powers. I really don’t know.”

I looked over and met Mel’s
eyes again. The car was still freezing and the windows were getting foggy. The
light dusting of snow on the windows made the car oddly intimate. For once,
though, Mel didn’t invite me onto his lap or suggest he shove his hand up my
shirt.

It was getting a little
weird.

“
I
’ve got a date. I’ll keep you posted,” he said, breaking the silence.

“Not on the date.”

He grinned.
“
You
wish.
” After
some more intense eye contact, he jumped out of the car and slammed the door. I
did a roll of my shoulders, considered the note in my pocket
,
and wondered why the candy thief had decided to be
helpful. I should have just been grateful the thing had taken a liking to me,
especially considering everything that had fallen into my lap, but I couldn’t
bring myself to just run with it. I had a good thing going with my ignorance
and if the candy thief was going to hang around, I might not be able to revel
in it
anymore.

I might have to start
learning things about fairies and, god forbid, werewolves. I didn’t want to
know more about either, and this sticky note addict was putting a kink in my
plans to avoid that side of things.

As I started the car again, I
dipped a hand into the center console, aiming to soothe myself with a snack.
When I found only an empty bag, my first reactions were a snarl and a hearty
string of cuss words.

Then, when I remembered where
the hard caramel candies had disappeared to, I thanked my past-self for having
finished them a week before. They’d been gone well before the magical bastard
could steal them, so there. Bolstered slightly by the fact that the thief
hadn’t gotten the best of me this time, I headed for home.

***

That evening I journeyed to a
tiny vegan donut shop on the far side of Bellevue.
Chloe
had gotten me addicted months ago just by bringing me a single donut at
work one morning, though I was sure that hadn’t been her intention. While I
usually didn’t travel all this way for something as simple as a donut, I
figured the last twenty-four hours called for it.

No one in the state—as
far as I kne
w
— other than Dulcet
Donuts made a triple chocolate pastry stuffed with frosting and covered with a
banana glaze. It could make your heart stop, but I figured the fact that the
sugary coating was at least
flavored
with fruit meant it had to be good for me on some
level.

The woman at the counter
recognized me when I walked in, despite the fact that it had been over a month
since I’d been there, and had my order ready.