Page 125 of A Shade of Myself
“Goody. The hard way. Hold the demon until I get back.” Clea clamped an arm around my chest and dragged me backward.
“Will do,” the fake receptionist said, shoving Edvin off her partner by firing the desk at him.
My teeth rattled with each step Clea took in her shitkicker boots. I dug my heels in but could gain no purchase on the glossy floor. “We’re on the same side!”
We left the main room and headed down a long hallway with smaller treatment rooms on either side.
“I told you once that’ll never be true,” Clea said. “Your boss kidnapped my operative. Why? So she could have you swan in here first and hit those billable hours?”
“That’s not what this is about at all.” My struggles didn’t slow her down one iota. I’d found one of the few people who wasn’t intimidated by Tatiana’s protection and who could snap me into fragments and dump my body like puzzle pieces in trash cans around the city. “Listen to me. We both want to help the twins.”
The fight up front grew louder, magic flashing, and the sounds of heavy items hitting walls.
“Yeah?” She grabbed my hair, yanking my head back so I was looking at her upside down. “Then how come you didn’t do anything until after Tatiana got burned?”
Whimpering, I attempted to keep my scalp from being torn off.
Clea let go of my head because we’d caught up to Emmett, who was dragging Gigi down the same corridor, following my earlier order to him that he prioritize the twins’ safety.
“You.” Clea grabbed his elbow to haul him along for the ride. “With me.”
Opening a door at the end of the hallway, she dumped me unceremoniously on my ass, shoving the golem and Gigi in there with me.
Clea crouched down to eye level. The young woman was once again in full goth glory and I think she’d gotten a new piercing. “Tell your boss that the next time she kidnaps one of my teammates, it’ll be an eye for an eye.”
She slammed the door behind her.
There was a loud click.
Jumping up, I pounded on it.
“Forget it,” Giselle said in a muffled voice, “it’s soundproof.”
Hail, hail, the gang was all here.
My former client sat morosely on the ground, her legs spread in a wide V and her entire upper body pressed flat between them against the ground in a deep stretch. Her face was hidden from view by the spill of her hair.
That much flexibility was, quite frankly, ridiculous.
“I don’t understand.” Gigi hovered anxiously beside a massage table. “What are they doing to Edvin? And why are you here? I don’t want to listen to more of your crazy stories.”
“She’s the harbinger of doom,” Giselle said, sitting up for the first time.
Gigi looked at Giselle and her eyes went as wide as saucers. My former client refused to make eye contact with her twin, though when Gigi’s hand flitted to her neck, Giselle hid her “G” necklace under her shirt.
“Whoa,” Emmett said. “Talk about double trouble. You two are spooky identical.”
I elbowed him to shut up.
“I hope you’re happy,” Giselle said to me. “You’ve ruined both our lives.”
“Don’t thank me,” I said. “If you hadn’t lied to Kadeem, we wouldn’t be here.”
Giselle blanched.
“Now who’s the harbinger of doom?” I hopped up on the massage table. “You could have continued to live your dream, but you had to lash out against Tatiana.”
“Bad idea,” Emmett said, unrolling towels stacked in a cubicle.
