“It was a bad move bringing him in with no warning, and I won’t let it happen again.” I did not use the word promise, because there was no way I could know what the future held. But I could at least try to be a little better about supporting my team.
I’d been a one-woman show for a very long time. It was hard to adapt to a whole new way of being, and I was probably slower on the learning curve than the rest of them.
Lily nodded, accepting the apology, then her eyes widened along with her grin. “He really is fascinating,” she gushed ebulliently. “I was in there with him for about fifteen minutes getting some general readings and information about his physiology. I think he might let me do some active measurements off him later. He’s quite talkative. Usually they’re not so thrilled to be here, but this one is just chat chat chatting away.”
“Usually they’re dead,” Bevin chimed in, hoisting up the gun in front of her.
She was only about five-foot-two, same as me, and with a similar petite build. Her pixie-cut black hair and giant blue eyes made her look like a cartoon caricature of a badass vixen with the huge gun in her hands.
“This is almost ready.”
“Ooh.” I was about to make gimme hand motions when Emilio elbowed me in the ribs.
“Demon first, then a big gun later.”
“You’re no fun.”
Lily led us through the lab until we were next to Teddy. He was as bald as Lily, but the halo of silver stubble around the back of his head indicated that his was a means of hiding the fact that he’d been going bald for real. Hers was all about fashion.
The window next to the door was a two-way mirror, so we could observe the demon without being seen ourselves. Not just handy for interrogation rooms, kids.
He was pacing the room but didn’t look anxious. A cot in the corner appeared untouched. Taking in the side of him, how his goat-legs were shaped and that massive lizard tail, I wasn’t entirely certain he could use the bed if he wanted to. He’d managed to sit in my car, but there’d been a whole ordeal with him bending and twisting to get in place.
In L.A. I drove a government-issue black Ford SUV. I imagined what would have happened if I’d tried to wedge the bulky demon into my yellow BMW at home, and the visual made me chuckle. That would have been the Secret version of a clown car for sure. How big of a demon can you wedge into a custom BMW coup?
“What’s so funny?” Tyler asked.
“Absolutely nothing.”
“In that case your smirk is making me nervous.”
I winked at him.
The demon poked at the ceiling in a generally curious way, not like he was trying to escape. To no one in particular, he said, “Could I get some water?”
We all glanced at each other, not sure how to handle the utter banality of his request.
“I’ll take him some,” I volunteered.
There was a cart in the lab with bottled water and a single-cup coffee machine. I grabbed two of the bottles, then used my badge to swipe myself into the holding room. I couldn’t go anywhere in this building without this badge, but at least I was one of the few people who had access to every single room.
I stepped carefully over the salt line at the doorway then shut the door behind me. The metal click of the bolt latching made my skin prickle.
I could get into the room no problem, but I couldn’t swipe myself out again. It was security protocol. Someone on the outside needed to open the doors. That way if someone inside managed to get ahold of a security badge, they couldn’t simply use it to get themselves out.
Still, it made me nervous knowing I was in here on my own.
The demon stopped pacing and fixed me with the kind of look that was hard to read but made me queasy.
“This feels very much like a cage,” he mused.
“It very much is a cage.” I held the water bottle out to him, and he took it, his long claws grazing my skin and sending an unpleasant shiver down my back.
I was truly appreciating how stupid this idea was right about now. I wouldn’t be telling Tyler that, because his “I told you sos” would be epic and infuriating, but yeah, I could see I’d made a mistake by bringing home a stray demon and suggesting we keep it as a pet.
He poked at one of the protective wards on the floor with his hoof and made an indignant sniffing noise. “I thought we were friends.”
“Friends don’t let friends use their demonic superpowers around unarmed human beings.?