Page 34 of A Malicious Menagerie (Fangs & Fables #1)

The Organization

T he second step in my plan to liberate Chase and the other residents is to get Nan out of Sunny Shores.

Which is how I find myself at the retirement home’s empty front desk my next morning off, tapping my toe while I wait for someone to notice I’m here and assist me.

I shouldn’t be so impatient, but ever since I overheard Mathis and Radha’s conversation, I’ve felt the threat to Chase hanging over my head like a guillotine blade.

Finally, a middle-aged woman with graying brown hair and a frazzled expression exits the door to the office behind the desk. “Yes? Can I help you?”

“Good morning,” I reply with a cheerful smile. More flies with honey… “My name is Anna Carmichael. My grandmother Darla Paulson is a resident here.”

“Ah, yes, I know Darla,” the woman replies, lowering her considerable bulk into her sagging desk chair with a sigh. Now that she’s closer, I can see that she has a name tag that reads ‘Gloria.’ “Such a sweet woman.”

“I think so,” I agree. “There has been a… change in my circumstances, and I’d actually like to pull her from Sunny Shores and take her home.”

Gloria freezes, a half-empty cup of tea frozen partway to her lips. “Take her home?” the receptionist repeats as if the words are foreign.

“To her house,” I explain slowly, wondering what has the woman looking so bug-eyed. “To live with me. I have a new job, and I can afford to get her home care now.”

“Well, isn’t that… well.” Gloria pushes back her chair and stands again with an audible creak that might come from her knees. “I’ll be right back.”

Mystified by the woman’s reaction, I hover by the desk as she disappears back into the office at twice the speed she left it. Well, that was a little… ominous. Is something wrong with Nan?

Before I can sink too deep into panic, the office door opens again, and a pretty young woman with long, dark brown hair and freckles appears. She smiles at me, making the dots across her button nose dance like fleas at a circus. “Ms. Carmichael,” she greets me, and I have to suppress a groan.

“Rebecca,” I reply flatly, recognizing that voice from our phone conversations.

I haven’t spoken to her in at least a couple of months since starting my job at the menagerie, but I used to have nightmares about her overly chipper voice.

It’s not one I’d be likely to forget so quickly. “It’s… nice to meet you in person.”

“And you as well,” she replies smoothly. She comes to stand on the other side of the desk from me but doesn’t sit. She raises perfectly groomed dark brows at me. “How can I help you?”

“As I said to Gloria, I want to start the process to take Nan—Darla—home. With my new job—thanks for that, by the way—I can afford to get her home care. And while I appreciate everything Sunny Shores has done for her, she’s expressed how much she misses her house.”

Rebecca stares at me with her big brown cow eyes for so long that I start to fidget and wonder if there’s something on my face. “Okay,” she says at last, her expression and tone both carefully blank. “Why don’t you come with me so we can discuss the process?”

“Thank you,” I reply slowly, still with some general sense of foreboding. Damn, why didn’t I seek out Rory when he didn’t come to say hi the last time I was in his enclosure? I could use a little insight into how bad this is about to be.

Rebecca leads me down a side hallway before coming to a plain wooden door.

She opens the door and motions me into a small, windowless room with a wooden desk, two chairs arranged with one behind and the other in front of the desk, and a dusty floor lamp.

There’s a drooping spider plant on one corner of the desk, the edges of its leaves limned in brown.

“Is this your office?” I ask nervously. “You should water that plant.”

Ignoring my nervous babbling, Rebecca motions to the chair in front of the desk. “Have a seat. Someone will be right with you.”

I stare at her, mystified. “‘Someone?’”

“Someone who can help you.” She motions again to the chair.

Feeling a bit like a fly caught in a spider’s web, I perch carefully on the edge of the chair, ready to flee at a moment’s notice. Rebecca gives me an approving smile before closing the door behind her.

I wait in the tiny, claustrophobic room alone for what my cell phone tells me is five minutes.

I entertain myself by studying the diploma on the wall—Rebecca Hill, BS in Human Resources from Indiana University of Pennsylvania—and chewing my already ragged nails.

I even take a half-empty plastic water bottle from beside the mouse pad and give the rest to the thirsty desk plant.

I’m just tossing the empty bottle in a recycling bin next to the desk when the door opens.

I glance over to see a large man with a bald head and heavy brow taking up the entirety of the doorway.

He’s wearing a black T-shirt that stretches over a solid chest and round biceps and black cargo pants over tree trunk thighs.

“Hi,” I squeak when he just stands there for several long moments, his massive frame looming intimidatingly. “Are you here to help me take my grandmother home?”

He doesn’t reply, just walks to the corner of the room behind the desk and crosses his arms, his glare fixed resolutely over my head.

When he doesn’t act as if he plans to move or speak any time soon, I try again. “Sorry, can I help you?”

“Yeah,” he grumbles at last, his voice irritated. “You can help me by sitting down and shutting up.”

I’m too intimidated to be affronted. My heart is speeding up, racing at breakneck speed, and if we have a lifetime limit to our heartbeats, I’m toast.

“I’m just going to go,” I warble, pointing my thumb at the door. But when I head that way and try the knob, it’s locked. “I’m very uncomfortable, and I’d like to leave,” I tell him, trying to sound commanding but failing as my voice wavers.

“Sit. Down,” he growls. With no other options, I do. I keep an eye on him out of the corner of my eye but avoid direct eye contact the way I would with a combative dog.

Long minutes full of panic tick by. I take surreptitious peeks at my watch, and after twenty minutes of stifling silence, the door finally opens again. I whip my head that direction and recoil when I recognize Nathan. “What are you doing here?” I blurt.

He doesn’t reply, instead turning to the brute in the corner. “Leave us, please.”

The bald man goes without a backward glance, closing the door behind him. Then, it’s just me and Nathan. “What’s going on?” I ask, my voice more sure now that the intimidating bruiser has left.

Nathan doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he crosses the small room to take the seat behind the desk and faces me, his expression grim and his hands folded in front of him. “This conversation does not leave this room.”

“Okay,” I agree warily.

“You cannot take Nan from Sunny Shores Retirement Village while you are employed by Mars Mathis. It’s in your contract.”

I blink rapidly. “What? No, it just said that part of my salary would go directly to Nan’s bills. It didn’t say I couldn’t pull her out of here and take her home.”

He grimaces. “It’s on a different page. Purposefully hidden to make it hard to find unless you read the whole contract in exquisite detail.”

…Which of course I didn’t. I thought I had the gist and was too enamored with the salary and benefits for Nan.

“You let me sign a contract that purposefully misled me?” I ask, my voice tinged with hurt. I know Nathan and I don’t know each other well, but he always seemed like a resource. Like someone who wanted to set me up for success.

“I had no choice,” he argues, and for the first time since I met him, he seems ruffled. He runs a hand through his perfectly styled hair, rucking up his bangs and making him look truly human for the first time since I’ve known him. “This is my job. I was just following orders.”

I snort, not swayed by his explanation. “So to take Nan out, I have to quit?”

He just stares at me, aquamarine eyes solemn, and a frisson of foreboding courses through me. “He’s not going to let me quit, is he?” I ask quietly.

“There’s a reason I told you that you couldn’t leave when you tried to put in your two weeks’ notice,” Nathan explains, his usually bright eyes stormy. “Why I more or less bribed you to stay. I was protecting you.”

I don’t feel very protected at the moment. “Have any of his previous employees quit, or just disappeared?”

“He doesn’t keep them long,” Nathan explains grimly. “About six months, usually. John has been an exception because he’s cruel and uncaring. He doesn’t make waves or ask questions. He just does the job. He’ll last longer than most, but I don’t know how long Mathis might tolerate him, either.”

“So the others? They were more like me?”

“Not quite,” Nathan murmurs, his expression softening. “They weren’t as kind as you. But they did start to ask questions. To make mistakes and give things away to friends and relatives. And Mathis doesn’t give second chances.”

The gravity of what he’s saying starts to sink in, and I stifle a whimper. “I just blew my only chance, didn’t I? So you’re… what? Here to make me disappear?”

“No,” Nathan replies firmly, lunging forward so quickly that I flinch.

But all he does is cover my hand with his.

“No, Anna, not at all. I’m here to tell you something.

Something important that no one else knows.

Something that cannot leave this room.” He stares me down.

“So, I’m asking you. Can you keep a secret? ”

“I’ll add it to the list,” I reply dryly.

His lips tip up in an almost imperceptible smile. “I might work for Mathis, but not really. I’m undercover.”

I just stare at him, trying to process this bomb he’s just dropped on me. “For the police?”

“Not quite,” he hedges. “I work for an organization called FABLE. ”

“FABLE?”

“The Federation for the Autonomy and Betterment of Legendary Entities.”