34. Janie
Chapter 34
Janie
I t was quiet without Tana.
I hated it.
“Has anyone heard from Tana?” I asked Teresa. I shifted on my feet as I stood in front of her desk. She spent half her time at the desk. Only during overtime did I see her at the microscopes. I hadn’t worked here for that long and I was still the baby of the lab.
She looked over her glasses with annoyance. “No. I think they are putting the ‘no call, no show, you’re fired’ paperwork in process today.”
“I went to her apartment the other day. I think she’s in trouble,” I whispered. Tana can’t lose this job. This wasn’t her fault; I knew it. Why didn’t anyone else?
Teresa sighed and rolled her eyes. “You know, Tana. Party animal. Probably on a bender.”
“She’s not. She’s more than that,” I muttered as I turned around. Could I call the cops? It’d been a few days. “Maybe someone should call the cops. File a missing persons report.”
“Can you take those envelopes to the hallway and get a box of jars? We have more orders to put on the tumbler,” she requested. “The good news is that I will have to train you on the 860s.”
I didn’t care about being trained on a new skill. I wanted Tana to be safe, but Teresa ignored me. Are people like Tana and me completely replaceable? Unease settled through me as I grabbed the box and stepped into the hallway. Something snaked around my torso and pushed me into the wall. My mouth fell open to scream, but a tendril wrapped around it. A pulse of heat coursed through my abdomen. Meical stepped out of the shadows in his monstrous form and loomed over me. Fuck, I forgot how big he was in his natural form. Another tentacle wrapped around my neck while he lowered the one from my mouth. I couldn’t stop my pussy from responding and drenching my panties. Why did he have this hold on me?
“You can’t alert the police or they will interfere with our things.”
“What happens when we find her?”
“I know of people who can help. Witches and all that kind.”
“But you said the witches don’t trust you?”
“I’m just a demon to most witches. They won’t know, but they have healers and hospitals that could help her.”
“Even if it’s not magical?”
“Yeah. Most aren’t magical folks only. A lot have human degrees and work in the human fields of medicine.”
“What if we find a body?” I whispered and swallowed. I didn’t want to think like that.
“I can taste your fear, little one. Don’t worry. Urien isn’t worried, but the days are ticking by. We can’t have the police bothering us. Have faith.”
Tears brimmed in my eyes. His tentacle touched the side of my cheek. “What if we’re too late? What if this could have happened to me? I’m?—”
He crashed his lips against mine before pulling away from me. “You’re safe. Nothing like that will ever happen to you.”
“But what if?—”
“You can’t deal with what ifs.”
“It’s spinning around and around. What if you had never seen me?” I whispered. “What if you weren’t following me and saw what?—”
“That was months ago.”
“What if that day I went down another road? That could have been me.”
A comforting tendril touched my face. “It’s not you, though. We’re going to save your friend. I can try to help others that are caught in the darkness of humanity. That’s what I’m here for. My purpose.”
“But—”
His hands gripped the sides of my face. “No. No spinning. You are safe. We are here. There is no reason to be worrying about what is not reality. This is our current reality. Period.”
“Yeah. But?—”
“I will gag you with a tentacle if you don’t stop.”
“I can’t stop. I have all day to worry about it,” I whispered.
He smirked as a tendril slid up the middle of my thigh. “What if I helped you think about other things?”
I tried to bat the tendril off my thigh as I cracked a smile. “Stoooop, I’m at work.”
“Didn’t stop me the other day.”
“Or the other one,” I muttered as I turned away. “I need to go back to work. ”
Meical wrapped his arms around me and whispered, “You’re safe with me. Always. You’re my forever.”
“You two are using me as bait.”
“It’s helping your friend. And your idea.”
“I know that. It’s just . . . I’m conflicted. This. None of this is normal. I’m struggling. And I’m worried.”
A tendril rubbed my cheek. “You shouldn’t worry.”
I nodded. “I don’t think I have that much confidence that it will work out.”
“Go to work,” he said. A bunch of shadows lurched from the floor, pushing the box into my arms. I grabbed the box and stepped out of the hallway. The light from the windows blinded me. Something pushed me forward, and the door shut. “It’s bright in here,” I muttered as I took the boxes to the tumbling room. This room was much darker than the lab, and the shadows pulsated around me. As I dropped the box on the floor, I caressed the edge of a shadow. A small tendril poked out and touched my hand with the same amount of reverence. Was I the only one with a shadow . . . lover? That didn’t feel like the right word for Meical. I had been rejecting him for days. The other day was the first time I let him get intimate with me, even if it was just oral. I wished I had a friend that I could talk to. Someone that understood the dark. He said the witches didn’t like me. Even at the bar, no one liked him. Was that a warning or what he said? Species problems?
“Janie!” Teresa said.
With a gasp, I popped up and looked around. “Sorry. Sorry. I was looking for my pen. I dropped it.”
As I slipped my hand into my lab coat pocket, I could feel the smooth texture of my pen. “Good thing I have an extra one here!” Fake. This whole interaction was fake .
Teresa shook her head. “Well, I need you to do lots 156 to 165 by the end of the day.”
I stood on my tiptoes to look over her toward the lenses under the window. “Is that even possible? Are they big lots? I’m not fast enough.”
“I guess it will have to be till we release Tana and hire someone else. Then we’d need to train her.”
“I don’t think Tana is blowing this job off,” I muttered as I grabbed the first lot when I passed her. At least, Meical believed me about Tana.