Text Messages & Stakeouts #2
But as soon as the words left his mouth, she was back, twirling a dagger through her fingers. “Is it, Hunter? Or are you just inefficient and incapable of completing simple tasks?” she asserted with a sneaky grin my way.
I didn’t want to smile, but I did. She always got under Phillip’s skin. Problem was, he deserved it. It was pretty ironic to hear him bemoan her inability to work as a team when he struggled to do that exact thing himself. Talk about calling the kettle black.
More and more, I felt like the mother of the group. He and I might work well together, but he couldn’t be bothered to pretend to like Jo or Cash, and it made traveling together…painful.
Walking over, Jo wedged herself between me and Cash. His disdain for her twisted his face, but instead of doing anything about it, he was back on his phone. Then mine vibrated in my pocket too many times to count.
God help me.
Maybe I should ditch my phone before we entered the cave. With my heightened senses, the vibration was yet another distraction I didn’t need. I hated how quickly I retrieved it to see what he sent, but I couldn’t help it. The texts always made me laugh even when I tried not to.
Cash: Her Evilness is heading for a much-deserved spanking.
Cash: …
Cash: I mean it, love. That woman is in desperate need of one.
Cash: …
Cash: I mean, who does she think she is?
Cash: I can tell you what she is. The Devil. Darkness manifest, dove. The root of all evil. *devil emoji*
The laugh that erupted from my mouth I barely smothered in time not to totally give away our position. Fuck. I knew better. The warning glance Phillip gave me was all the punishment I needed to rein it in.
Sometimes, I wondered if Cash knew how often he made himself the butt of the joke. Too often for it to be an accident. Though, it was very unlikely he intentionally put a sexual spin on anything to do with Jo. For someone as smart as he was, he got a little stupid talking to me.
I quickly texted back even though I should ignore him.
Me: Thought you didn’t like her like that, you suave charmer you. But it’s more likely you’ll be the one spanked, let’s be honest. Something tells me you’d be into that. *winky face emoji*
I sent the text and waited for his squeal of horror. It came just as Jo started to talk again, but unlike me, she easily ignored him like he didn’t even exist. And maybe to her, he didn’t.
“Fortunately for you, Hunter, I’m good at what I do.
But unfortunately for us, it doesn’t matter how good I am when you’re up against a witch who’s spent her entire life on the run.
Every possible entrance is protected by a thick blood barrier.
Unless she’s shared blood with you, there’s no way in.
" Shared blood? Gross. "I could get in, but that’d still leave the rest of you to figure it out. My way isn’t something you guys can do.
If you’d prefer, I can do a little recon and see what we’re up against while you three figure out another way into the cave. ”
Interesting. Did her shadow form give her access to places and spaces no one else could reach? That was super fucking cool. The mayhem I could cause with an ability like that…
I hadn’t shared the secret of her abilities with anyone. Something told me she didn’t want me to. I hadn’t gotten a chance to ask her about it, but her statement about how we shouldn’t disclose our abilities to anyone because it could get us killed stayed with me.
She’d let me see her that way. I didn’t know what that meant, but based on what I knew about Jo, it was a big deal she had. It felt wrong to share something about her with anyone else. It wasn’t even clear what she could do. I didn’t want to lose her trust.
So, I kept her shadow form to myself. And from the way she looked at me since last week, she knew I had. The little smiles were different. It would be impossible to explain how I knew, but it felt like she appreciated that I hadn’t told anyone.
“I don’t like to agree with the cock-blocking princess over there…
” Cash’s ghoulish gasp only reaffirmed her point, and I lost it for a second.
Jo went on like the smooth assassin she was, “But maybe the bait idea will get the witch to take one of her barriers down long enough for us to get inside and move into action,” Jo argued, visibly uncomfortable because she’d even remotely aligned herself with Cash.
The pompous platinum-blonde landed a hand on his hip with his other hand out as if he was a mother who’d spent the entire day arguing with her children.
“See. Even Her Evilness agrees with me, you brute. That old hag uses blood sacrifices every chance she gets, and it’s impossible to get in without being implicitly invited.
Not unless you want to be shredded to bloody pieces.
Even with your regeneration abilities, you couldn’t recover from her blood magic.
Blood barriers…it’s a new one, but not outside her usual tricks. ”
At least Jo could do a little recon. That was better news than going in blind, but I didn’t want to rush ahead without exhausting all of our options.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mind being bait, but after what occurred last week, Phillip wouldn’t agree to it.
Not even if we didn’t have any other options.
He’d argue that there had to be something we missed.
“What if we used butterfly dude? We could get a little of his blood and use it as a way to enter.”
Phillip’s eyebrow rose in confusion. “Butterfly…dude?”