Page 8 of Hunted

Still, my vigilance stays high as I cut through the streets, double back twice, and take a roundabout route to the apartment I rent under another name. Eight locks slide into place behind me. Cameras check in. Wards hum softly. And traps, I’m happy to note, remain untouched.

Still, I’m restless.

It’s nothing.

It has to be nothing.

Powerful men hire bounty hunters every day, human and otherwise. When they do, they ask for the best. They assume money or pressure will handle the rest.

‘Not my fault I’m the fucking best,’ I mutter, half-smiling as I pace the length of my rug for the fourth time.

The humour doesn’t stick.

After an hour of accomplishing nothing, I drop onto the sofa and stare at the ceiling.

Everything I told Maribel was true.

I can’t be forced to take a job I don’t want. And I absolutely do not want this one.

But apparently, out of mind isn’t out of sight.

My phone pings with increasing frequency over the next three weeks while I take any shitty, mediocre, borderline insulting job I can get my hands on, purely so I have a legitimate excuse to refuse the one the agency seems disturbingly invested in me accepting.

I drag a poltergeist out of a condemned laundromat in Queens that smells like mould and regret. I retrieve a feral river-witch from under a bridge in Jersey after she floods a commuter line for fun. Babysit a coven defector through three boroughs while she screams at pigeons and tries to curse my boots, and track a demon skimming favours instead of souls, who spends most of the chase begging me not to tell his handler.

None of it pays well.

All of it keeps my file active and lets me keep saying no.

The New York office doesn’t love that.

At first, it’s subtle. Follow-up calls. Calendar requests. A terse note from Maribel reminding me that ‘selective availability’ isn’t the same as immunity.

Then it escalates.

Her boss gets involved.

Then her boss’s boss.

Pressure starts hitting places that have nothing to do with work. My apartment rent goes up. A supplier suddenly wants payment up front. Anonymity is expensive, and the bill comes due whether you like it or not.

For half a day, I consider quitting.

It’s a stupid thought, and I know it instantly, but desperation makes people entertain stupid ideas. Going freelance sounds romantic until you remember the rules. Strict laws govern human and superhuman interactions, and agencies exist for a reason. Neutrality clauses and legal buffers have saved my ass more than once.

Only someone with a death wish works alone.

And I’ve stared death in the face enough times to know he’s not my type.

The final warning comes on a Tuesday, delivered with surgical calm by someone I’ve never met but whose authority bleeds through the line anyway.

‘Report to the Agency. Or be terminated.’

No soft language. No pretence.

I hang up and sit very still, my phone warm in my hand.

Fired means more than losing a pay cheque. It means losing access, cover, the infrastructure that lets me exist without leaving footprints. It means burning aliases faster than I can replace them.