ChapterFour
“De Ver!”
Chief Randall’s voice echoed in the large office with the impossibly high ceiling. Everybody held their breath—me included.
I looked up at the offices lining the back of the room, and I saw his face. His eyes were on mine.
“My office, now.”
The Chief spun around and slipped inside the office to the right, slamming the door shut, much like Dominic Dane always did.
I blinked once. And twice…
“What the hell are you waiting for, woman?!” Patricia hissed. “Get your ass up!”
“Go, go, go!” Hunter said, his smile huge.
My body stood up, and I moved as if I were in a dream. Why would Chief Randall call for me? I didn’t even know he knew my name.
My God, what had I done? I knew I’d messed up somehow, but I had no idea how. My mind buzzed as I walked to his office, the world around me falling out of existence. I tried to remember what I’d done that morning, that week, that month.
Way too soon, I found myself standing in front of the door to the Chief’s office. My breath was shaky and my legs numb, and for a split second, I wondered what if…
What if I hadn’t messed up? What if he was calling me for a job instead, and that’s the reason why Hunter was smiling?
Chills washed down the length of me, and I took in a deep breath. “No guessing,” I whispered at the door, and my stomach fell when I realized someone could have heard me.
A look around said that nobody was close enough to hear a whisper. And even if they did…
I knocked on the glass of the door and opened it. Don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t throw up.
Chief Elliot Randall was sitting behind his desk, a phone pressed between his ear and shoulder, his grey brows knitted together. He waved for me to come in without looking up.
“Mhmm. Mhmm,” he murmured, and I tried to be as silent as possible when I closed the door and went to sit in one of the two chairs on the other side of his desk.
“Mhmm. I understand,” he kept whispering, eyes focused on the wall to his side.
I’d seen his office in passing, when the door was open, but I’d never been here before. It felt strange, almost like I was in a different place altogether, even though the office didn’t really look like much. Just a wide space that he’d left unused, two trashcans full of crumpled pieces of paper, and his large desk. It was so messy—papers all over, clippers, staplers, pens, and markers, just thrown all over, and my hands were itching so bad. I couldn’t stand the sight of all that mess. It made me a bit nauseous, and I had to force my eyes on my lap just so I could breathe for a bit.
“Done.” The Chief’s voice brought my eyes to him again. He ended the call and put the phone away in his pocket. When he raised his head and saw me, he looked surprised, as if he’d forgotten that I was even there, though he could probably smell me perfectly. He was a centaur, and when he shifted into his true form, his bottom half became a horse, literally. He’d never shifted at the office before, but I’d always been curious to see. Like most fae, his kind usually stuck close to nature. Centaurs lived in large herds deep inside forests, and they never made contact with the outside world, much like pixies. But there were exceptions to every kind of supernatural, just like me, and the ODP was the place to gather all of them under one roof.
I offered him a smile. “You called me?”
“Oh, yes. Yes. Theodora De Ver,” he said, more to himself than me, and he began to shuffle through the piles of documents in front of him. “Where the hell did I…”
His voice trailed off, and he kept on searching, making an even bigger mess.
I tried. I swear. I tried to control myself, to stop thinking about it, to stop letting it get to me, but in the end, I caved.
“May I?” My voice was high-pitched to reflect my feelings, and before he had the chance to answer, I was on my feet, gathering the documents and putting them on a clean pile at the edge of his desk.
“Oh.” The Chief watched me like I was one of those monsters they sometimes caught and brought here. The doors to the holding cell in the third level underground were on the other side of this office, and so we sometimes saw when agents brought in their catch to lock down there. But at least he let me put everything in order, and when I finally found a piece of paper with my name at the top of it, I handed it to him.
“Thank you,” he said, so surprised he could pass out.
“You’re welcome.” I sat back down again, breathing easier at the sight of his desktop. You could actually see it now that the staplers were by the corner, the pens and markers in the holder, and all those documents were arranged in two separate piles on the other side of his computer.
Chief Randall cleared his throat. “Right, De Ver. It says here that you have been working with us for almost two years now.” I nodded. “And that your log sheets show that you deal with a number of cases daily that is bigger than eighty-five percent of your colleagues.” I beamed. They knew that? “And that you’ve never turned a case down or mishandled it.” Yes, yes, yes! “And also, you haven’t asked for a single day off since you started. Not a sick day, either.” Well…I guessed one could say you don’t really have a life in a lot of different ways. I only shrugged.