Page 3 of Flock Around and Find Out (Flocking It Up #3)

I twisted my hand to open the portal that gave me access to the delivery bay. It felt strange and yet familiar, something I’d done for so many years but had rarely used recently.

I had to admit, it felt good.

Did I love being a delivery girl? No, I really didn’t. It hadn’t been my dream growing up as a child to turn into a package bitch for supernaturals, but I doubted many people became what they wanted.

Well, Tony Lutes had said he’d be a gynecologist when he was twelve, and fuck if that boy didn’t end up there. I knew because he’d been on the other side of the stirrups during one awkward checkup one year. Judging from the way he’d dragged himself around, however, I didn’t think it had gone the way he’d hoped. Instead of being bright eyed and excited about the daily new serving of vagina, he’d looked like a man who had lost the mystery and magic of the world.

Maybe that was some sort of lesson about being careful what you wish for?

Whatever the reasoning, I sure hadn’t seen this as my future, but at least I understood it.

“Is that it?” the vampire asked, hardly restrained distaste saturating the sharp words.

“That’s it.” I handed off the small envelope to them, long past worrying about what was inside it.

I delivered a multitude of things, after all. Sometimes they were personal letters, trade agreements, courting requests. I’d once delivered a live squirrel. That had been strange, and I’d nearly kept the thing because I rather liked it.

So long as it wasn’t a murder weapon, I really didn’t care, and I only cared about that if I got blamed for it.

The vampire turned on her heel and walked away as though I weren’t of any interest any longer. I doubted I’d ever been that interesting, though.

At best, most of the Spirits saw me as a curiosity, something worthy of a side-show and little else.

Since gaining my seat on the council, of course, that had changed a bit. I got more side-eyes. They now saw me as a slightly more interesting freak, but little else.

It was weird, really. In some ways, I was on par with Kelvin, with Galen, with Porter. I was the head of a clan, after all, with my own lovely little seat at that weird-ass table. However, once you moved past the fancy title, the rest of it?

I had no power, wasn’t super-strong, not scary, no army at my disposal. I still barely made rent most months, so what exactly did I have to show for any of it?

Without an answer, I could only sigh and glance down at my forearm. No more deliveries assigned to me for the day. It left me with the rest of the day free, something I could probably use. Fuck knew that all my time tended to get taken up by Kelvin or Galen or some other emergency.

In fact, I wondered if I’d had a real break since I’d almost gotten executed for murder.

My phone rang, earning me the immediate glares from others in the room. Vampires didn’t tend to like cell phones that much—Kelvin being an obvious exception—and apparently one ringing in the center of their precious central space was just unacceptable.

I smiled as though I had no idea they were mad, then looked down to see who called.

The moment I did, I answered. It didn’t matter what was going on in my life, how much it all went to shit—when my mom called, I fucking answered.

“Hey, Mom,” I said as though I were in the library instead in the middle of a room full of vampires—glaring vampires.

“Hey, honey. Are you coming?”

“Of course I am! Where?”

She sighed—the universal sound of a mother so over their child’s shit. She managed to do that still, after all these years, as though it were going to make a bit of difference.

It hadn’t in high school, I doubted it would do anything now. This was when old dog and new tricks came into play.

Still, bless her heart for never giving up on me and always trying.

“Saturday, we’re having dinner here.”

“Right. Saturday. And today is…”

“Thursday.”

I nodded as though all the pieces were falling into place finally. I was going to Galen’s tomorrow, Friday, which meant I’d be dead or free come Saturday. “Right. Then yes, I’ll be there.”

“You should bring someone.”

“Someone?” I paused and thought about my options.

Galen? He was probably the easiest to pass off as a respectable boyfriend, but if I let him get anywhere near my mom, he’d just join in with her to lecture me more. I didn’t need that shit.

Kelvin had already met her, but I had somehow managed to survive that awkward evening. I didn’t need another.

Porter would probably laugh at me if I invited him. I didn’t see him as a real ‘go with’ who’d attend just because I asked.

What other options did I have? Harrison still didn’t answer calls from me, so there went that one.

Ruben?

I choked on the very idea. I was pretty sure he hated me most of the time, and when he didn’t? No thanks. If I brought him, he’d probably just tell me about how dangerous it was to expose humans to the Spirit world. No doubt he thought that cutting them off would be the best, safest option for all involved.

If we got past that, he’d just tell my mom what a horrible employee I was.

“We’ll see,” I answered, unwilling to outright tell her no but having absolutely no intention to just gather people who I hardly got along with at the best of times to join me at some family get together.

They didn’t need my fuck buddies crashing the party.

My brother was still pissed about the whole bringing a Mind into his urgent care thing. I’d dodged his calls best I could, pretending I was just super busy instead of having to have any more talks with him. I imagined that hauling in any of those other folks would only make him worry all the more.

“Okay,” she said, her tone one of thinking I’d still do as she wanted even if I fought it a bit. That was usually her way, though.

She told me what I should do then waited for me to learn the lesson all on my own. She was there to help me, don’t get me wrong. She was there to support me when I inevitably fell on my face with the first attempt, but still, it was nice to know she’d at least help me up afterward.

I finished the call and hung up, only to find even more people glaring at me. It seemed taking a call in their lobby was something they absolutely couldn’t accept.

In fact, I even got a look from a few thralls that seems to imply they struggled to believe I’d be that stupid—or still alive.

Then again, if they only knew how many stupid things I’d survived, I figured they’d be mighty impressed by it all.

Really, I was most of the time.

I slid my phone back into the pack of my jeans and went a step further than the smile to actually wave at all the disapproving glances.

I wondered if word of this would get to Kelvin. Maybe they’d call and complain to Ruben? Who knew? It felt like a win either way. Some pathetic little part of me that had never grown past being a kid who thought all attention was good attention reveled in the idea of being a problem.

And my passenger—that crow spirit that was full of mischief and chaos—enjoyed it far too much as well.

I strolled out of the lobby of the ground floor, the place where I’d waited for the receiver of the letter to meet me, and onto the street. The sun had just started to dip behind the mountains, and I had no more deliveries for the day, which meant it sounded like a fantastic night to take myself out for a good meal.

* * * *

Chalk this up as one of the few good choices I’d made in my life. The large platter of nachos—piled high with cheese, carne asada and more toppings than I could count—smelled beyond fantastic.

I’d nursed it—along with what could have passed as a fishbowl of margarita—for an hour and it hardly looked as though I’d made a dent in either.

Music poured through the restaurant, a bit too loud to allow for much conversation, but seeing as I was flying solo, I didn’t mind that a bit. It overshadowed everything else—the sizzle of foods in the kitchen, the laughter from the drunk college girls a few tables away, the fighting from the old married couple behind me. Those things drifted away so I could only hear the music, like some ambient noise that drowned out the rest of the room.

I popped another chip into my mouth, a thick piece of carne asada on top, and held back a moan at the taste. There was something about Mexican food that just soothed the soul, that made me think everything would turn out okay.

The server stopped by and replaced the small empty bowl with another full of salsa without a word. He kept a close eye on the table, quick to grab anything I needed.

Then again, I came here pretty often. It wasn’t on the strip, and tourists usually didn’t venture quite this far outside of the happening areas. That meant the prices were lower, the building less busy and rideshares didn’t have to fight with valets in order to pick me up at the end of the night.

All in all?

It was a favorite of mine, and the servers knew me well enough that they were always nice to me.

Well, almost always. The time I got into a fight with a guy at his bachelor party had ended with them banning me for a week.

Fuck, had I missed their food…I could have starved!

“A pretty girl like you shouldn’t eat alone.” The cheesy pickup line might have made me roll my eyes, but when I peered across the table to find a man who was hot enough for me to pretend it had been a good pickup line, I lifted an eyebrow.

“How do you know I’m not waiting for someone?”

“Because I can tell. If you were waiting for someone, you’d be looking at the door every time it opened. You just keep staring at your food or drink, so you don’t expect anyone to show up.” He sat across from me in the booth without asking.

“Maybe I just like eating alone.”

“Again, you’d look happier if that was true.” He sat back in the seat, his gaze unnerving.

He was tall, but narrower than many of the men I dealt with. He wore a polo shirt, the buttons undone at the collar to show off a little bit of chest. His eyes were dark, intense, and they made me uneasy. It felt like he clearly was hiding something, something I didn’t want anything to do with.

Yet, for a reason I couldn’t understand, I struggled to tell him to get the fuck away.

Why?

Maybe it was because everything else in my life was such a mess, why not add a little more?

It was like having your phone fall to the floor, then deciding to pick it up and throw it against the wall. It made no sense, but people still did it.

And I still sat here across from this asshole. “What’s your name?”

He smirked as though he’d just won something. Maybe he had—who fucking knew? “Ergon.”

“That’s a weird fucking name.”

“What’s yours?”

“Grey.” As soon as it came out of my mouth, I winced. Maybe Grey wasn’t that usual, either. Who was I to talk crap about anyone’s name? “What are you doing here? Other than picking up girls who aren’t interested?”

He chuckled. “You’re feisty, aren’t you? I tend to like that, personally. It’s so much more fun than women who are dull. There’s nothing worse than a woman who is as entertaining as drying paint. I get bored easily, you see, but I could tell with one look at you that you weren’t boring.”

“Right, because a girl stuffing her face with nachos is exactly what any man is looking for.” As soon as I uttered that, it made me stop.

If that was what he was looking for, he had to be a freak, right? What was he, someone with a feeder fetish? Because while every woman dreamed at some point of getting fed grapes by some super-hot shirtless man, it had been a long time since my fantasies had gone in that direction.

I tended to have more weird fantasies now. Like getting abducted and the kidnapper ending up being super attractive, or my tax accountant having to deduct my pants one year. Maybe it was a sign of my damaged psyche. My point was that I certainly wasn’t into someone who liked to watch me eat.

That was too freaky for even me.

I went to stand, but realized the ground was moving around me. A glance at the margarita revealed I’d drunk much more of it than I’d thought, with the drink almost entirely gone. That accounted for the spinning room.

Except, Ergon didn’t spin. He stayed right there, staring at me the whole time, like reality twisted around him.

Be careful, little crow.

The words echoed around in my skull, and I scratched my ear as though to dislodge it. Knot had been missing in action for a while now, so I didn’t need echoes of his words, especially as a drunken hallucination. I’d prefer that if he had something to say, he’d come right out and say it. That would have been the polite thing to do.

“You don’t know your own limits, do you?” Ergon said and somehow was beside me so fast, it was like he didn’t even move. He slid an arm around my side, holding me up, keeping me from collapsing to the floor.

He was larger than me, and he held my body easily, trapping me against his side.

“I need to pay.” The words came out slurred, unclear. How had the alcohol hit me so fast?

It wasn’t that I wouldn’t get drunk—my many many antics before proved that to be a lie. It was just that I usually saw it coming. I’d eaten, too, so why the hell was I this out of it?

He reached into his pocket and took out a stack of bills. Anyone keeping that much cash on them was bad news, and as a former drug dealer to school children, I knew bad news. He tossed a few hundreds onto the table, more than enough for the cost of the meal and a good tip.

At least the servers wouldn’t get mad at me.

I leaned over for my bag, and only his hand on my waist kept me on my feet.

“Let’s go,” he said, guiding me toward the front door.

I shouldn’t go.

It wasn’t just Knot’s voice in my head, but also my mother’s, and every true crime video I’d ever watched. This was an absolutely horrible idea. I should not head out to fuck knew where with some asshole who I’d just met.

However, no matter how good that advice seemed, it couldn’t gain any footing. I couldn’t stop myself from following his lead, from heading out into the cool evening.

I should have called a rideshare—that had been my original plan. Doing so didn’t occur to me as he guided me toward a waiting sports car, the sort that sat so low to the ground it was like an acrobatic trick to get me inside of it.

Getting in was the last thing I remembered, too. I didn’t even recall the door shutting, the car starting, none of that.

It was like the world had grown fuzzier and fuzzier up to that moment, then disappeared to nothing right afterward.

When I opened my eyes again, when my brain jumpstarted back to working—at least as much as it ever did—I found myself… in my bed?

I patted to the side, looking for Ergon.

Nothing.

I forced myself to sit up despite the pounding headache, my dry throat. While I hurt quite a bit, I didn’t ache in those specific spots that implied anything had happened.

I wore the same clothes from the night before, none of them askew. I didn’t feel sore anywhere, no signs of hickies or evidence that he’d done anything.

So he’d just taken me home?

That didn’t sit right at all. I was too smart to believe in there being people who were kind just to be kind, who looked out for others just because it was the right thing to do. That was like a fairy tale, and I didn’t put stock in those anymore.

I looked around, the sun having risen to midday, telling me I’d slept in late, and I couldn’t work out exactly what had happened.

If I was fine now, though, it couldn’t have been that bad…right?

Except, no matter how much I told myself that, how much I wanted to believe it, some little part of me just refused.

I had a feeling that Ergon would come back to bite me in the ass, even if he hadn’t done that last night.