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Page 2 of Second Shooter (Betas in Waiting #28)

She woke up to her phone ringing again. Damn it.

“Hello?”

“ Win? Oh, the couple and their legion want to thank you for stepping in. Where are you? ”

She looked around and laughed. “In my car in the parking lot. I passed out.”

“ Oh no. What happened?”

“You know. No meal, no soda, no sugar, no dessert. I did the whole day on two Danish and a sandwich with one cup of coffee.”

“ There was a meal for you. ”

“No one told the kitchen, or the person I asked about it forgot or never knew. Fine, I will come and meet the happy legion.”

She got her cameras and brought them with her, slogging back to the hall where the quad was waiting with smiles, and Agatha looked so relieved.

Agatha took a look at her and jolted. “Oh, god. Give me a minute.”

Win walked up to them and smiled at how happy they looked. For this kind of grouping, the big night usually occurred when they formalized their link. Tonight was just a party to celebrate the beta being able to inherit legally and for any and all children to have a custodial chain.

“Congratulations to you all. It was a lovely day, and I hope to have the raws up in a day or so.”

Zara looked at her with two different eye colours and scowled. “What happened to you?”

She looked at her arm. She was greeny-grey, which meant she was out of power.

“Oh, I am powered by sugar. I also used my second shooter today, and that takes it out of me. I have a rider with Agatha to provide me with things, like food and beverages. Nothing fancy, just stuff. Today, she was so excited, she forgot.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t the first time.”

Agatha returned with a huge pitcher of orange juice.

“No glass?”

“No. They are cleaning up the bar.”

She held the pitcher with both hands and tipped it back, not spilling a drop. She felt the surge through her body and rocked her neck.

Agatha asked, “Better?”

“Better.” She smiled at Zara. “Borrowing souls? Very nice.”

“What?”

Win pointed toward her eyes. “The eyes are the windows to the soul. That’s why the demons burn them out. So, after your link, you are borrowing their souls to see through.”

Zara blinked and looked at Randolph with a wide smile. “Why didn’t you put it like that? That sounds sweet, not creepy.”

The other two chuckled.

Agatha cleared her throat. “They would like you to go over the images with them in person to find out which ones they want in their wedding album and which they need touched up.”

“Oh. Sure. When?”

Zara asked, “When are you free?”

“Um. I work for a warehouse, so I can move things around. You all look like you have actual jobs.”

Randolph smiled. “How about Wednesday at Lykon’s winery?”

She looked at Agatha. “Can you get me the address and give me a time? My time management is about as good as my ability to remember to eat.”

The broadest of the three was smiling at her. “May she give us your cell number?”

“Sure. Agatha, work number only.”

“Right.” Agatha smiled. “I have another wedding coming up that needs a photographer.”

“No. You know that I worry myself into a coma if I have a certain date and time, plus some couples want a thousand fancy effects that require a big-budget budget... and I still don’t get to eat.”

Zara smiled. “Well, for today, I want to thank you for coming. Alexi was able to enjoy an event, and he only had to pick up a camera when he wanted to, and you let him. You didn’t pitch a fit, and you didn’t storm out. We had three photographers that we were interviewing who pulled out just because Alexi would be here. It was disappointing to find that Harry had pulled out, but we were happy to find out that Agatha had a trusted and reliable photographer in the wings.”

Randolph cleared his throat. “There is just one thing. We haven’t seen any images of your work, so we were just wondering...”

She laughed, hauled her tablet out of the bag, and flicked through a small gallery she had made from the day. This always happened.

The male on the right—Taka—smiled at the images. “This is lovely.”

Zara was crying. “Oh. Oh.” The next moment, she was hugging Win, and Win had to pat her back until she was done.

Randolph smiled. “So, I see Agatha knew what she was doing. Why haven’t we heard of you?”

“I like taking pictures. I don’t like people. I don’t advertise, but a friend who was using Agatha had a photographer fall through, and they called me. Now she knows I exist.”

Lykon nodded. “I get that. The work is everything.”

“Yup. Well, my work is grunt work moving pallets in a warehouse, but this is how I have fun. When fun and work overlap, it can either go very good or very bad. This was my day off.”

Agatha sighed. “She did say she isn’t good with people. I will get you her information.”

Win bowed. “Thank you for the chat. I wish you an excellent and enjoyable few days until I try and find an address for a place I have never been before.”

Agatha smiled. “It’s easy to find. It’s just outside of town. All straight lines.”

“Good. Well, now for a well-deserved rest in a spot that doesn’t have a steering wheel.” She held her cameras, bowed with a flourish this time, and made sure she had her tablet stowed before she left the way she had come, high-top sneakers and a dress that passed for formal in silhouette.

She had made it through the entire day with no breakdowns and only passed out once. It was a banner day for her.

Win got out of her car, brought her equipment inside, and went to take a shower. She used the scrubbing gloves and the poofs to wash her body and then washed the scents of wine and sweat out of her hair. She smelled like fruit, just like a normal beta.

She loaded the memory cards into her computer, and when they were doing their thing, she got the hard drive ready. Once that was set up, she headed to bed.

Win had one day off this weekend, and she was going to lose it all to eating. She set up the preorder on her phone and crawled into bed. When she woke, she was going to hit the order button, and from there, she would eat until she was full. That rarely happened, but it was a goal to shoot for.

Her phone was ringing again, and the allure of living on the side of a mountain with no contact struck her again.

She sat up and grabbed her phone. Mom. She croaked. “Hey, Mom.”

“Win, oh, you sound horrible.”

“Thanks. What’s up?”

“Are you up to family dinner tonight?”

“What time is it?”

“Noon.”

“Oh. Okay. I am having a big food day, so I will cram as much in as I can.”

“Oh. Right. I will put in another roast.”

“Thanks. When do you want me there?”

“Four. We are having a family meeting about Cori’s school trip.”

“Why? Mom. She can’t go.”

“Of course, she can. She earned it.”

“Let me take her to the islands then.”

“She wants to travel with her friends, Win. Come at four. We will discuss it.”

Win growled, and her body flexed. “We will discuss it. If you send her, I am going as a chaperone.”

“Win. You can’t.”

“Put it in for a point of discussion. If she goes, I go.”

Her mother sighed. “Of course, Win.”

She said, “Okay. Off to eat. See you in a few hours.”

Win hung up, stretched, and went to get dressed. Her first delivery was arriving in twenty minutes, and she still needed to make her backups of the wedding photos. She didn’t screw with people’s memories.

Win set up the hard drive and began the raw copies. Those were for her. Her next few days were going to be spent editing and tidying up the files.

She started to work on the files while she waited for her food. Most of them needed some light cropping, and a few needed brightening, but all in all, she had had a pretty good day.

The pasta arrived, and she kept working. She drank plenty of coffee, had three rounds of takeout, and had gone through the first five hundred images, uploading a batch of them to the private gallery.

She worked right up until the moment she had to leave. The more she did now, the less she would have to do later.

Win saved everything to a separate hard drive and put her shoes on. The photos could not be recreated easily, so she copied the hell out of things and kept her files for one year after any wedding she worked.

She put on a jacket and got her purse and her keys. Time to head out and drive the twenty minutes to her parents’ house.

Win locked her apartment and skipped down the stairs to her car. She got in, buckled up, and was on her way.

When they were all sitting around the table, her mom asked, “So, Win, you were at a wedding yesterday?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “It was pretty. The bride was lovely.”

Her dad smiled. “Ever think of having one of those for yourself?”

She looked at her father and raised a brow. “That’s a doubter.”

He sighed. “Come on. You are the oldest. It is strange that Maggie got married before you.”

“Not strange. It is normal.” She looked at her family. Three siblings and the two generous and open-hearted people who had taken them in. The girls were of different ethnicities but had one thing in common. They were all genetically half-Elite.

Maggie was twenty-five and had just gotten married to her husband, Thomas. They were a nice, cheerful young couple, and their wedding had been gorgeous.

Maggie smiled. “I can find a nice guy to hook you up with.”

“Hookups aren’t a problem, Mags.” She flicked a glance at her sister.

Maggie turned scarlet. Thomas put his arm around his wife and said, “She’s told you to let it go, so let it go.”

Cori cleared her throat. “I have won a place on the team, and we are going to nationals on Thursday.”

Win straightened. “I thought we were discussing this.”

Her mom said, “We are. We are looking to see if anyone can afford some spending money for her so she can have a really good time.”

Win ran her hands through her hair. “It’s dangerous.”

Cori frowned. “There hasn’t been a child or woman taken from the city in over a decade.”

Win rolled her eyes. “The city is protected. The rest of the world isn’t.”

Her father said, “Win, relax. I am sure that it will be fine. She’s with a group of other students. She won’t be on her own.”

Cori smiled. “It’s going to be fun. I will be fine.”

“Do you already have chaperones?”

“Yeah. Why? Oh. No, definitely not.” Cori shook her head. “I am not going to have my sister on this trip.”

Win sighed. “Give me your phone.”

“Why?”

“I am putting a tracker on it and installing a hot button. If you tell it to call me, I will be there in three minutes. You just have to hold on for three minutes.”

Cori frowned. “You are really worried about this.”

Win nodded. “I am really worried about this.”

Their mom said, “Just because something bad happened to you, Win, doesn’t mean it will happen to Cori. It is highly unlikely that they will find her in a group of girls.”

Win stared at her. “You forgot.”

“What, Win?”

“You forgot that I was with a bunch of friends at the beach when I was grabbed. All out in the sun. Three thousand people at the beach. They just grabbed me and disappeared. I managed to get myself to the hospital, but I don’t want anyone to go through that.”

Her parents paled. Mom muttered, “I... forgot.”

Dad looked at Cori. “You aren’t going.”

“I am. You can’t stop me. You already said I could. I worked and made the money for the trip. I earned this. I deserve this. I am going. I don’t care what happens.” Cori thumped her fist on the table.

Win sat back and nodded. “Well, you will have what I didn’t. Someone waiting to help if I needed it. Like I said, when you call me, there will be three minutes, and I will be there.”

Cori crossed her arms. “I am not going to need to call you.”

“I hope so.” She smiled and switched topics. “Now, who wants to know which celebrities I saw at the wedding yesterday?”

The conversation switched, and they chatted as if the previous warning hadn’t occurred.

The wedding was the talk of the evening, and Cori was pressing for images, but Win just looked at her. “You know I am not going to show you images before the couple has seen them.”

Cori smiled. “Yeah, but the ones in the tabloids aren’t any good.”

Win blinked. “Tabloids?”

“Yeah. They must have been quite a distance away. The lens is horrible. No drone images either.” Cori opened her laptop and showed the gallery of blurry images taken of the bride and her legion.

“Oh, the outdoor shoot. Right.”

The image of a blurry Win with Alexi standing next to her, heads together, was suggestive of more contact, and Cori asked, “Who’s this?”

“Alexi. He’s a bound beta to an alpha and omega. He is also the best photographer in the city, so we were swapping images.”

Cori snorted. “Sure. Sure.”

Win nudged her with her arm, and they continued looking through the fuzzy images with the hilarious taglines.

No one was paying attention to her in the images. It was obvious that she was the photographer.

She looked at Cori and took out her phone, sending her three hundred dollars for the trip. “I know I am a worry wart, but I don’t want you to be scared; I want you to be aware. There is a weird feeling in the air when they arrive. The hair on your arm will stand up, and the back of your neck will feel it. Your hair will prickle up, and your eyes will feel electric. I don’t know how else to describe it, but if you feel any combination of those and aren’t licking a battery at the time, call me. I will hide until I know they are there. You won’t be embarrassed. I promise.”

Cori swallowed. “You don’t embarrass me. The girls on my team think you are amazing and imposing, and it makes me feel smaller.”

“Aw, honey. I became amazing and imposing because I wouldn’t let those bastards win. I have practiced and worked out, and if I see them again, I am not going to be seventeen and petrified. They are going to meet an angry woman in her thirties, and I am a crazy fucking bitch.”

“Win!” Mom shouted.

“Pardon. I am a rabid, copulating female dog?” Win looked at her sister. “Pay attention. Language matters.”

Cori giggled, her golden hair sliding over her shoulder, and it mixed with Win’s dyed dark locks.

Dyeing the hair was what they learned first. They kept their hair their birth colour because no one noticed. The eyes were explained away by saying that they were red because of an infection and expressed natural-coloured contacts started the next day.

Mags had gone for her natural red, Cori was blonde, and Win was brunette. They probably all looked like their mothers, but they had all been given up in different cities across the continent and brought here where it was safe. They each arrived seven years apart, and their parents had tucked them in and made sure that Win didn’t feel ignored when the new ones arrived.

She had held Maggie when she was four days old and Cori when she was three. No one wanted to hold onto the bastards of the Elite and definitely not the females.

She looked at their parents, talking to Thomas and Maggie about the new house that they were building. Thomas was good. He was a nice, steady beta and exactly what Maggie always wanted, which is why she married him.

Win hoped that being married to a beta was enough of a cover for Maggie. From what she had heard, it wasn’t, so Win was hoping that her sister and brother-in-law were smart enough to call if they needed her.

She had all of her family set up, and if they called, she would be there. She wasn’t sure what she would do, but she was going to be there... and the Elite were going to pay.