Chapter 3 The Proposition
The Proposition
Brok
The human world was designed for five-foot-nine people who had no muscle density and enjoyed suffering.
At the moment, I was folded into a rented Fiat across the street from The Cocoa Bean, my body contorted in ways that would make a yoga instructor weep.
My head was brushing the fuzzy fabric of the roof.
The steering wheel pressed against my abdomen, unaware that every breath I took brought it closer to destruction.
I felt like a bear trapped in a lunchbox. A very sad, very uncomfortable lunchbox.
“This is ridiculous.” I shifted my weight, and the car groaned in protest, squeaking in pure mechanical defeat. “Whose idea was this again?”
“Yours, Brok.” Barnaby pulled the beige bucket hat lower over his head.
His big, floppy ears pushed it back up, and he went back to nervously chewing on the celery stick I’d forced upon him.
His anxious gnawing was driving me slowly insane.
“You said your truck was ‘all bulk, no stealth.’ You said we needed something with a ‘leaner profile’ for the mission.”
He was right, which only made it worse. My truck was a lifted Ford that looked like it lived on a diet of pure protein powder and the dreams of smaller vehicles.
It attracted attention wherever it went.
Normally, that would be a problem, but for some reason, humans didn’t find it odd.
It was also the worst possible vehicle for a stakeout.
This coffin with wheels was the price we needed to pay to stay hidden. “We have no choice. Remember, Barnaby. Discipline requires sacrifice.”
“Brok, no…” Barnaby dropped the celery and slumped against the door with a hopeless despair that would’ve put a banshee to shame. “Can we just go? Please? We’ve been here for hours. I have eaten four green sticks of sadness. My glutes are vibrating, Brok. Is that normal?”
“It means they’re working.” I kept my eyes fixed on the pink awning across the street, refusing to be distracted. The cheerful color was an affront to everything I stood for. “And we’re staying. This is important.”
“Everything is important to you,” Barnaby muttered, but he stayed put, which was all I could ask for.
This was a crucial phase of his training, though I couldn’t tell him that directly.
The principle was the same one Chieftain Grafka had used to build our toughness back in the Iron Steppe.
You had to train the will by making the body uncomfortable.
You had to expose the weakness until it hardened into strength.
Grafka had done this by throwing us into pits filled with snakes.
It was unpleasant at the time, but it had made us immune to naga venom.
I had an even tougher job ahead. Barnaby was nowhere near ready for his Easter performance.
And he never would be unless I built up his immunity to the poison of Hazel’s tempting truffles.
The shop’s door opened, the little bell above it jingling cheerfully.
An elderly human female stepped out, frail, with a posture that screamed ‘future hip replacement.’ She clutched a small white box like it was a lifesaving elixir.
Then, she pulled a cookie from inside. As she took a bite, a blissful, vacant smile spread across her face. The poison was fast-acting.
“That’s Mrs. Higgins.” Barnaby’s voice went thick with longing as he pressed his face against the window. “She gets the oatmeal-raisin cookies. Hazel says they help with her digestion. The fiber is really good.”
“That’s just a sugar high.” My tone came out harsher than necessary, but I needed him to understand reality. “A quick rush that’ll crash in an hour. It’s a lie.”
A beautiful lie, if it was anything like the person who’d woven it. The woman with fire in her hair and curves that made me forget basic gym safety protocols.
No. Stop thinking about the pretty chocolatier. Focus on the mission. Focus on Barnaby. Focus on anything except how she’d smelled.
Okay, so maybe this stakeout was training for me, too. Barnaby wasn’t the only one with a problem. But I couldn’t let Hazel mess with my head before the real battle had even begun. The job I’d been hired for was too important.
Mrs. Higgins rushed off down the sidewalk with surprising speed for someone her age. For a few moments, the street was quiet. The morning sun climbed higher, making the inside of the Fiat uncomfortably warm.
And then, the door of the shop opened again.
It was her.
Hazel stepped out of her little store, holding a broom in her hand.
Her hair was pulled back in what humans called a ‘messy bun,’ but loose curls had escaped around her neck and face.
She wore an apron covered in what appeared to be chocolate smears.
Or perhaps, the remains of well-balanced diets everywhere.
She was magnificent, in an infuriating sort of way.
Her gaze swept the street, checking the nearby cars, the sidewalk, the storefronts. And then it locked directly onto our vehicle. Onto me. And she started walking.
“She’s coming over!” Barnaby scrambled for cover, grabbing a newspaper from the back seat and holding it up in front of his face. The headline on his flimsy shield read ‘Local Gym Offers Senior Discount.’ It felt like an omen.
My heart hammered against my ribs with the same rush I got before a fight. I stubbornly forced myself to calm down, to stop acting like a foolish kid with a crush. Getting caught had always been a risk of watching her store. I refused to be intimidated by a human chocolatier armed with a broom.
Barnaby had no discipline, no training in staying hidden. But not me. “We do not run.” I planted my hands on the steering wheel, ready to face whatever came next. “We face the battle head-on. That is the way of the warrior.”
“You’re insane,” Barnaby whimpered behind his newspaper fortress. “She has a broom, Brok. A weapon.”
“It’s a cleaning tool.”
“It’s a stick! Humans are excellent with sticks! They invented baseball!”
I ignored his desperate logic, keeping my gaze fixed on Hazel instead. She was so small, so tiny compared to me. I could probably lift her with one hand, hold her against the wall while I—
No. Bad thoughts. Very bad thoughts.
But there had been surprising strength in her when she’d jabbed her finger into my chest yesterday. A core of determination that spoke of someone who knew how to hold their ground despite being smaller.
That same strange energy from her shop coiled low in my gut. It was a distraction. A dangerous one. The kind that got warriors killed because they were thinking about soft skin instead of watching for attacks.
She reached the car and struck the driver’s side window twice with the wooden handle of her broom. Thwack. Thwack. Sharp and accusing.
Barnaby let out a whimper. I took a deep, bracing breath and opened the car door.
Getting out of the Fiat was… not exactly graceful. It was an awkward process that required bending my body at unnatural angles. My bones cracked as I unfolded myself from the driver’s seat. Less than ideal, and more painful than I’d have liked.
By the time I stood to my full height on the pavement, the top of Hazel’s head barely reached my chest. I had to look down at an almost vertical angle to meet her eyes. She didn’t seem to care.
“You’ve been parked here since 6:00 a.m.,” she said, glowering at me. “It is now 8:30. Two and a half hours. You’re scaring my regulars.”
That was… unfortunate. I’d spent decades in the human world and had been unnoticeable until now. I knew how to blend in, how to seem less threatening. But this mission required sacrifices, and I wouldn’t let anything stop me.
“I am legally parked.” I gestured to the parking meter, which still had forty-three minutes remaining. “No violations.” After all, an orc couldn’t get a parking ticket. It would be… undignified.
She crossed her arms under her breasts, immediately drawing my gaze to areas I should be ignoring. “Are you being deliberately obtuse? Your parking space is beside the point. Mrs. Higgins thinks you’re either a hitman or someone from the IRS. Both are very bad for business.”
Bad for business? That was supposed to be my line. Mrs. Higgins would probably benefit from fewer cookies anyway, but I was the one trying to prevent a complete disaster. I was worried about preventing Barnaby from relapsing and ruining the most important day of his career.
But I couldn’t explain any of that to a human who believed I was just Barnaby’s overly intense trainer brother. “The watching is necessary.” I jerked a thumb toward the car, toward the still-hiding Easter Bunny. “For his sake. His health. His future.”
Hazel followed my gesture and peered into the car. Her irritated scowl melted into confusion. “His sake? You mean… Barnaby’s?”
A cold feeling rushed down my spine. It was the same sensation I’d felt moments before ambushes back in the Steppe, that primal warning that something had gone terribly wrong.
I turned.
The passenger seat was empty. The half-eaten celery stick lay abandoned on the floor mat like a fallen battle flag. Barnaby was gone.
Unacceptable. It was one thing for him to try to sneak out of our training sessions in the Iron Grove when I was busy preparing the terrain. But to run off while I was sitting less than two feet away from him? I didn’t know he possessed that kind of sneakiness.
Fortunately, there was only one place where he could have possibly gone.
I spun back toward the shop, growling under my breath. Hazel must have had the same realization, because she turned at exactly the same moment. We looked at The Cocoa Bean together.
The door was swinging gently on its hinges, the little bell above it suspiciously silent. He must have muffled it somehow, the sneaky little schemer. Perhaps with his bucket hat.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Hazel murmured. “He went inside? While we were talking?”
“Clearly, I underestimated him,” I replied, miraculously managing to keep my voice level.