Page 28 of The Vampire's Storm

“Well, that doesn’t sound fair. Do we need to speak to your employer?”

Water sprayed from her mouth.

“No. Mom. It’s fine. I volunteered,” she replied quickly and swung her legs out of bed, sitting up.

I’m awake now, damn you.

“You don’t need to move over here. I’ll visit. I told you that,” Brooklyn added, wiping water off her chin and down her front.

“It’s already been a month and we haven’t seen you. You’ve rung once.”

Ugh.

Brooklyn was enjoying her new life. Sage treated her with respect and now that the shock had passed learning about a new race, knowing what few other humans did was exciting.

Well, when Logan wasn’t threatening to eat her.

And her mind wasn’t drifting to the more sexual meaning, which was completely inappropriate.

And yet, that’s where she’d gone.

But yes, she was enjoying her job. Brooklyn considered herself smart and a quick learner.

Her manager, Susan, at BioZen had thought otherwise.

“I haven’t received the results from your research project yet.”

“Oh. I understood the deadline was next week.” Brooklyn had felt heat flush through her body at the worry of missing a milestone.

“Yes. But I would expect to see preliminary data first so we can go through it,” Susan had said.

Then why hadn’t she said so?

“I see. Perhaps we could have put that as a note in the project timeline, so I knew,” Brooklyn had stupidly said.

Susan had glared back at her.

“You won’t get far by deflecting blame, Brooklyn Wade. I would expect you to ask questions and understand how these things work. BioZen employs the best and I won’t have you making our team look bad to the directors.”

She had been there for years, but Susan was fairly new and, for reasons she never understood, seemed to feel threatened by Brooklyn.

At least that’s how she explained away the bullying behavior.

“I’m sorry,” she’d replied. “I wasn’t—”

“Dr. Rogers might believe you have potential, but I’m not convinced.” Susan had continued, referring to one of the senior scientists. “You have a long way to go if you can’t follow simple instructions.”

She’d then been dismissed and sent back to work that day.

It was one of many conversations she’d had with Susan, where she’d call her out in front of people, nitpick at the smallest things, and set her almost unachievable deadlines.

Brooklyn had met every one of them.

Sage had been present during one of the occasions and, later that week, asked if she was okay. “That was out of line. Your work was outstanding. How do you stand it?”

“Thank you,” Brooklyn had replied, surprised the younger scientist had said something. “Susan doesn’t like me, but I’ve seen managers come and go, so I can handle her.”

Although, in truth, it had been wearing her down.