Page 47 of Nothing More

She dropped her hands and lifted her head, and wondered how long she’d been standing here like that, like someone pathetic who was angry over someone who didn’t deserve a second thought. She tidied her hair, and attempted a smile in the face of Melanie’s concerned look.

“Will you send Nicholas in when he arrives? I have a new fitting challenge for him.”

“Of course.”

She steeled herself, and went back into the office – where Shep was seated at her desk, merrily eating a multigrain bagel, poppy and sesame seeds all over her blotter.

“Hey,” he called, as she heeled the door shut and felt her face pull tight with anger. “Do you got any real milk? This is some kinda soy shit or something, and it sucks,” he said of his coffee, peering down into the cup with a grimace.

The latch clicked into place.

“First of all, Shep,” she said, “let us establish some ground rules…”

~*~

Toly stood for a long time in the shower downstairs, letting the hot water pound the back of his neck and shoulders. It felt nice, but did nothing to relieve the tension that was mounting there: the ugly, crawling tightness that had begun the first time he forced his gaze away from Raven, and which had grabbed him hard minutes before, when he’d walked away from her.

He wasn’t used to feeling sick with guilt over the way he’d treated someone.

So far, he could tell a shower wasn’t going to help.

Eleven

“Uh…” Cassandra said, eyes comically wide as she glanced between Raven and her new shadow.

“Yes, Toly’s gone,” Raven said crisply. “This is Shepherd. He’s…a work in progress.”

“I can hear you, you know,” he grumbled from his place two steps behind her; he’d tried to walk beside her, and she’d had to explain the finer points of “guard” and “shadow” to him.

“Yes, but you clearly didn’t hear me when I told you that if you’re talking, you’re not watching for threats, so.” She mimed zipping her lips, and earned a disgruntled snort.

“What happened to Toly?” Cass seemed genuinely distressed.

Raven looped an arm around her shoulders and steered her through the school vestibule and toward the wide double doors. “Apparently, he can better serve our safety needs from afar. He works better on the street.” She rolled her eyes, and offered a wave to the administrators bidding goodbye to the students. The Rover waited down the steps at the curb, their driver ready to open the rear doors for them. She wondered if Shep was scanning their surroundings, searching for threats behind those bushes, that sign; if he was assessing the pedestrians – the woman walking a tiny dog, the two young men with hats pulled low – for threat levels. How fast was he on the draw? Would he shove them to the ground, get them behind cover, return fire, onlookers be damned?

Worries she’d not experienced when it was Toly at her back.

“But I like him,” Cass whined. “He’s scary. He scares other people. And he’s all strong, and silent, and moody – like an actual badass. Not…” She glanced not-so-subtly over her shoulder at Shep.

“You’re a real pair of sweethearts, huh?” he groused.

Raven snapped her fingers. “Hey. Be on duty.” She gestured to their surroundings, and then urged Cass into the Rover ahead of her.

As Shep walked around the back of the car to get to the front passenger seat, she allowed herself a sigh. “I know, I know,” she told Cass. “Toly was far preferable to this dolt, but I don’t think we have a choice in the matter. He wanted off the assignment. I couldn’t make him stay.”

Not that she’d tried. Had insulted and spit venom at him instead, but the less said of that the better.

Cass frowned. “What did you say to him?”

Damn. “What?”

The frown deepened. “I know how you get when you think people are beneath you. Did you say something nasty? Or tell him to leave?”

“I don’t know what you’re–”

She gasped. “This is because you like him!” she exclaimed, just as Shep slid into his seat.

Raven sent her sister a warning look.