Page 12 of Muted Voices (Broken Ashes #1)

M y inner rambling makes me snicker out loud.

I hear River ask Evander, “Dude, is she crazy?”

“All the best people are!” I yell back happily as I reach the front door and yank it open.

“Not officially,” Evander answers him, and then they all chuckle as I just flip him off without looking.

“What are you fucking looking for?” Griff asks me.

“Ah, I’m glad our time apart hasn’t changed you. I miss the charming way you phrase things,” I reply snarkily.

“Dude, she’s fucking brilliant,” the guy with the multicolored black hair replies.

“Thank you, Sir, it’s nice to be appreciated,” I reply.

“Neith, seriously, what are you looking for? Maybe we can help?” the tattoo guy asks.

I get distracted because not knowing their names is driving me nuts and I turn around suddenly on the massive front step, “I need names, I’m not creative enough to keep making shit up in my head.”

“What . . .” River starts to ask only to get interrupted by Evander.

“Dude, don’t go down that rabbit hole,” he warns, and I stick my tongue out at him because I am a mature adult.

Ransom clears his throat and starts the introductions, “Obviously, you know, River, Griff, and me.”

I nod.

“And me,” Evander adds.

“I’m Doc,” the tattooed hottie says.

“Real name or because you’re a Doctor?” I ask.

“Second reason, my real name is Camden, but all my friends call me Doc,” he replies with a wink.

I smirk, “Fair enough.”

The guy with gorgeous black eyes raises his eyebrow at me and says, “I’m Raiden.” He then continues with a wicked grin, “You know you don’t seem very concerned that you’re a human in a house full of supernaturals that could do unspeakable things to you.”

“Raiden!” Ransom exclaims and then looks worriedly at me.

I bat my eyelashes at Raiden exaggeratedly and smile as I ask, “Do you promise?”

Raiden immediately bursts out laughing while the others all just look in various states of disbelief.

“I like you,” he chuckles.

Smiling, I turn to the only guy here who hasn’t introduced himself, “What about you?”

“Erm, I’m Reed.” He still looks shocked, and I feel like if I asked him why, he wouldn’t actually tell me why, so I just let it go.

I do want to try and ease that sadness, but I don’t know him well enough to figure it out yet. Unfortunately for them, I’m going to be sticking around for a while, so I’ll figure out a way to make him smile.

“Great, now I can stop calling you all weird things in my head,” I reply and then turn back around. Immediately, I spot Betty just off to the side past the step, “Betty!”

“Betty?” Evander asks, sounding thoroughly confused.

I don’t bother answering as I rush to get her and pick her up, wincing at the state she’s in.

“A shotgun?” Ransom asks incredulously.

I nod, “Please tell me you guys have the equipment to clean her, she’s in a right state.”

“You named your shotgun Betty?” Raiden asks as he moves out of my way as I push through them and head back into the room I was initially in.

I may be feeling a hell of a lot better than I was, but I’m still tired and fucking hungry.

“What else was I supposed to call her?” I ask as I sit heavily on the couch, cradling Betty.

“I suppose you kind of made a point,” Doc replies with a frown. “You really haven’t had enough of the IV. Can I please use my magic to scan your vitals and see if you need it put back in?”

From the tension around his eyes and in his posture, I can tell that he’s expecting me to freak out or something, “Oh sure, go ahead.”

He shakes his head as he holds his hand over mine, “You are a complete anomaly, you don’t behave like normal humans, even those who are comfortable around us and are used to working with us.”

“I’ve never been normal,” I shrug as an explanation because, honestly, I don’t know why I have the level of comfort with supes as I do, although I do assume that it’s in part due to growing up with Evander and his family.

Oh, that’s a whole other can of worms that I’ve opened by getting in contact with Evander again, and I need to warn them all about why I’m here. Betty can wait.

My stomach chooses that moment to growl loudly, and Doc chuckles, “Your levels are still low but not dangerously so, and I’m guessing from the sound that your stomach just made you’d benefit from actually eating something.”

“Fuck, yes please. I’m starving, and I can’t remember when I last had a proper meal,” I reply with a grateful smile.

“I don’t like that,” Griff grumbles, as they all frown at my answer. “Why aren’t you eating?”

I roll my eyes, “Look, it's been a stressful few days, and I’ll explain why I’m here. But I could really do with some food?”

“We haven’t got much in, but we could order something?” Evander suggests, and the others all nod in agreement as River plops down on the seat next to me. “What do you want?”

“Me?” I ask, somewhat unnecessarily since he’s looking at me. When Evander just rolls his eyes and nods, I reply, “I’ll eat whatever I’m not picky.”

“Good,” Raiden replies, for reasons unknown to me.

They all decide to order some Chinese food. Thankfully, Van just hands me his phone in order to add what I want, so I don’t need to deal with the incredulous looks about how much I order. Evander did give me the go ahead to order whatever I wanted, which he’s most likely going to regret when he sees just how much I want. Usually, I would order a normal human amount of food, but I know that I almost dangerously need to eat and a lot in order to get me back to normal, I also know that unless Evander has had a significant personality transplant, he’s not going to mind.

“Thanks,” I reply as I hand Van his phone back. He doesn’t even look at what I ordered or the cost; he just presses a couple of buttons and then puts his phone in his pocket.

“Alright, now that’s sorted, tell us why you’re here, what happened to you, and why you didn’t want us to take you to the hospital?” Ransom asks, clearly impatient to know what’s going on.

I open my mouth to start to explain while strategically leaving some things out, not even Evander knows about the darkness and death and well craziness. Before I can begin to weave the intricate web, Reed comes back into the room with his arms full of everything I’d need to clean Betty and a look of understanding on his face.

I’m not going to lie, I almost tear up. Somehow he gets that Betty is important to me, more than an inanimate object probably should be.

Looking slightly awkward, especially since all of his friends are staring at him with little smiles and raised eyebrows. There is a hint of apprehension on all of their faces though, and Griff and Doc, in particular, are watching me closely as if they’re waiting for something.

I smile, “On the floor, please; I like to spread out when I clean my guns.”

He nods and lays everything out in the middle of the room, including a sheet so that I can clean it without messing up the floor. Once he’s done I put Betty in the middle so she gets no mud and grime anywhere in this very expensive house.

Standing back up, I wrap my arm around his waist and give him a quick side hug as I say, “Thank you. I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate until she was clean.”

Sitting down next to the supplies, I meticulously start to clean before realising that it's gone silent. Looking up at the once again shocked faces, I ask, “What?” their eyes just switch between a frozen Reed and me, and I wince, looking up at him apologetically, “Shit, sorry, my surly friend, I should’ve asked before hugging you.”

Shocking everyone, he bursts out laughing, once he’s calmed down a bit he shakes his head and asks incredulously, “You’re apologising to me?”

Tilting my head to the side in curious confusion, I reply, “Yes?”

He shakes his head again, “You don’t ever need to apologize for hugging me.”

“Oh, okay then,” I reply, and then add with a smile, “you are one confusing dude.”

“This whole situation is confusing,” River mutters from the couch behind me.

Evander clears his throat, and I’m starting to think that he’s the unofficial leader of this group, which makes sense because he always used to try to be the leader when we were younger. I was never very good at being told what to do though and it used to amuse me immensely to not listen to him.

“Let’s move on, shall we?” he asks the room as a whole, and everyone takes seats as I go back to cleaning Betty, “Why are you here, Neith?”

“That’s a tiny bit complicated,” I start, “so I know you’re a SID agent, pretty high up actually, congrats by the way.”

The tension ups slightly before Ransom asks, “Oh, did you assume he was because we are?”

I shake my head, “No, I didn’t know you knew him before I arrived. I’m not just a waitress; I also do some freelance work for the HID.”

“What?” Raiden exclaims, “You work for the agency that hates supes?”

I bristle, “A few things, one I agree they’re all cunts, two I didn’t exactly have a choice, and not just because it was either that or starve and three, despite the fact they’re all assholes, they do save people, and I liked being a part of that. So reel in the judgey for a moment, would ya?”

Looking properly chastised, Raiden snaps his mouth closed and nods. “Sorry.”

“That’s how you knew about the defect on the new badges,” Griff suddenly says, splitting the tension.

I nod, “Well, kind of; I just like to be well informed. I doubt any of the fuckers that work there actually know that little bit of information.”

“Fair enough,” Doc says, “so what happened? How did you end up here?”

“I had literally just walked in the door after saving your asses,” I start, lifting my head from looking at Betty and smirking at Ransom, Griff and River who are all grinning back at me.

“Yeah, that’s something else we need to discuss,” Evander says, raising an eyebrow.

I shrug, “I’m a good shot and I’ve been trained. Obviously, I work with the HID.” Before anyone can question me further, which I’m sure will happen because even with all the training that I told them I received even though I didn’t, my reaction times were still a lot faster than they should’ve been for a human. Which is why I say immediately, “Anyway, as soon as I stepped inside I got a phone call saying I was needed for a job, and they were picking me up imminently.”

Reed frowns, “Does that usually happen? They give you a job with barely any warning and just expect you to go?”

I chuckle, “Yes, they know I need the money, and they don’t like me, so they try to inconvenience me as much as possible. They’re also a bit pissed because I have the best success rate of all the agents, and I’m not technically even an agent.”

“Seriously?” River asks.

“Yep, shameless brag there, I’ll admit. Anyway, I looked over the file in the car as usual, got a feel for the job, and then had a quick nap. I woke up when I heard the driver talking to someone and realised that the car had stopped moving. We had no scheduled stops; we never do, so I pretended to stay asleep and listened.” I explain, “It turns out that they really don’t like me so much so that they planned to kill me, and they were supposed to take me to some guy that they’d been taking any supernaturals that they came across, something to do with experiments they didn’t say much more on that. They thought I was one even though I'd been through all of their tests to ensure I wasn’t. Apparently my boss was looking for any excuse to get rid of me and decided to kill me instead. The guy said that they wanted it to look like an accident but also paint me as the bad guy,” God, making shit up but sticking close to the truth is exhausting, “then the guy who wasn’t my driver said sorry, I heard the sound of a gunshot and the thud of a body hitting the floor and the car door open beside me, the next thing I felt was sharp pain on the side of my head and I was out cold. I woke up in the middle of a forest underneath the very dead body of my driver, my shit nearby, since they didn’t want to leave any evidence in the car, and a very large bear sniffing around.”

“Fuck,” Ransom mutters while all of them stare at me.

I carry on cleaning while I wait for them to catch up before I continue my story. Right now, it’s a mix of fact and fiction, and I can't slip up. I have a feeling that if I told them that I got blown up and somehow survived but not really because the darkness had me and that’s why I showed up nearly dead on their doorstep, there would be even more questions, and quite frankly I have no idea how to answer them, because I don’t know the answer myself.

“Oh shit,” I suddenly exclaim as I stop what I’m doing and lift my shirt, yanking the gross, hardened by dirt and blood fabric away from skin. Looking at an apprehensive looking Doc, I say, “Dude, you healed me, thank you. That was going to be a bitch to recover from, especially since I'm fairly certain I had an infection.”

“You’re welcome,” Doc replies although it's clear that my response was not the one that he was expecting.

“I’m guessing from the looks that you’re all sharing you have an idea about who these agents are talking about?” I ask.

“We might,” Evander admits. “How did you end up here? It can't have been a coincidence, and it's concerning that this happened so close to where we live. If it’s a warning for us to back off, then it’s a stupid warning, and how do they know about our link.”

“You don’t need to worry about any of that,” I tell him and then realise that in order to reassure them all that there’s not a threat to them or that anyone knows there’s a link between us, I was very careful about that, for a very good reason which means I’m going to have to warn them about that too now I’m here, although there’s a chance that so long as I lay low, they’ll think I’m dead too?

That may be wishful thinking.

“I don’t think you know enough to be able to tell us if we should or shouldn’t be worrying about it,” Griff says gruffly.

“Give her a moment to explain, you grumpy fucker,” Raiden replies.

“Thank you,” I reply primly and then continue to explain, “They didn’t drop me off anywhere near here.” I’m going to have to fudge this a little bit, because the whole I can find anything I’m looking for thing would, again, be difficult to explain, “I need to explain that obviously, because of what I’d overheard and the fact that they very much thought I was dead, I couldn’t go to anyone in the HID to tell them what I heard, they’re all dicks anyway so chances are they’re all in on it. I could’ve just gone straight to SID, but again, everyone thinks I’m dead, and I’d like to keep it that way. Not only that, but getting someone to listen to me there and take me seriously would be difficult, and the people at the HID are prideful enough that they actually know very little about supes, and the way these agents were talking they’d rounded up a lot of them to give to this guy, which suggested to me that they had supernatural help. I’m not saying that SID is involved, but I couldn’t risk it even if I didn’t need to stay under the radar.”

Evander nods, “Understood, but why do we not need to be concerned about things I mentioned before?”

“I’m getting to that, still impatient as ever. I knew where you were from research, by the way, you’d done really well to keep your address off of everything, so only the vague area was known apart from a delivery that happened about five years ago, I scrubbed that from everywhere as soon as I found it by the way, so know one else will know where you are. Anyway, because I knew where you were and what you did, I figured you were my best shot at helping those supes and putting a stop to whatever the fuck the HID have got going on. I’ve always been pretty good with directions, so I found a street sign since my phone stopped working pretty fucking quickly and then walked here. Obviously, the wounds were slightly concerning, and I gained more the more I traveled, especially since I had to stay out of sight. At some point I gained the animals that I arrived with, which by the way I’m really glad you saw too.”

“You could see them?” Raiden asks, something powerful hidden in his tone.

I nod and answer him honestly, “Yeah, I knew that if I stopped moving I wouldn’t get up again, so I leaned on them. I actually did fall down at one point and wanted to give up but they wouldn’t let me and helped me get back up, I then leaned on them for support the rest of the way here. They didn’t leave until Van opened the door, even the grumpy bear that thought I’d be mad because it was one of his kind that hurt me.”