“Forget it.” Chloe had little patience for those who would not hear. Instead, she gestured to the two chairs in front of her desk. “Sit, Jace.”
Jace tried to pull her arm away but Rachel wouldn’t let go. There was a brief tug-of-war, but when Jace finally got loose, she began slapping at Rachel, who slapped her back. That went on for a bit until Chloe cleared her throat.
She’d trained them to know that a throat-clear from Chloe was as good as a nuclear weapon from an anti-American country.
Both women, still glaring at each other, sat down in the chairs across from Chloe, and their leader smiled at Jace.
“How are you feeling?”
“Okay.”
“I heard you killed a bunch of people today.”
Fed up, Jace immediately started yelling, “I did not—”
Chloe held her hand up, a big smile on her face. “Stop. I know exactly what happened. Kera came in here to tell me you didn’t kill anyone because she was so outraged that the rumor had spread and there was a lot of desk pounding and words like ‘morally’ and ‘outrageous’ and ‘God,’ and ‘America’ was in there somewhere at some point. To be honest, I stopped listening because I didn’t care. I just . . . I just didn’t. And you know how she is. She can just . . . go. With no brakes on that car that is her mouth.”
Chloe let out a breath. She did that a lot now that Kera was part of the Crows. “But after last night and today . . . I have to say we’re getting a little worried about you.”
“You don’t need to—”
Chloe held up her hand again. “Let me finish. Now, some of the Crows think, and I do have to agree with them, that you just don’t get out enough.”
“Chloe—”
“Look, I get it. You’re a shy little flower in a wilderness of squawking Crows. That can’t be easy for you.”
“But—”
“But if you get out more, I’m sure you’ll learn to tolerate people better.”
“You don’t under—”
“So Rachel had a good idea.”
Jace reared back. “Rachel?”
“Yes,” Rachel snapped. “I had a good idea. I get good ideas.”
“Really?” Jace couldn’t help but ask. “Steroid use is a good idea? That heart attack at thirty-three, a good idea?”
“Before,” Chloe bellowed, “this gets out of hand!” She blew out a breath, lowered her voice. “Why don’t you just hear the idea first?”
“Okay.”
“How about you get a job?”
Jace began to blink. “A . . . a job?”
“Uh-huh. Nothing big. Something part-time. But it gets you out. Gets you around people. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
“No. No, that doesn’t sound nice at all.”
“You don’t wanna work?” Rachel asked. “You’re lazy? You want everything handed to you?”
Jace’s hands curled into fists and Chloe quickly jumped in.
“What I’m sure Rachel means—and maybe she should shut up now—is that a little contact with the outside world would be very good for you. Staying here, cooped up all day, reading those extremely depressing books, can’t be healthy. But a little fresh air, a little time out meeting new people . . . this could really help.”
That’s when Jace realized they still didn’t get it. None of them got it except maybe Erin and Kera. After all this time her fellow Crows didn’t understand.
“In fact,” Chloe went on, completely oblivious to the panic Jace was now feeling, “I’ve already talked to the other Crows who have offices. And they are more than happy to give you a job. Receptionist. Or secretary. Office management. There’s a lot of different options for you. You just have to pick one.”
And now Jace knew Chloe had made up her mind. No amount of rationalization was going to save Jace. Nothing she said or did now would change Chloe’s mind. Over the years, she’d seen others go up against the Great Wall of Chloe Wong and no one had ever breached those walls. Because she, again, had her mind made up.
Which meant . . . Jace needed another option.
When Chloe opened her mouth to start speaking again—offering her more office jobs that required talking to people most likely—Jace raised one finger. “Can you give me a couple of minutes? I’ll be right back.”
Chloe shrugged. “Sure.”
Jace stood, walked out the door, carefully closing it behind her, moved down the hall, grabbing the backpack she always left by the front door, opened the door, walked outside, closed the door, then took off running.
Chloe watched Jace run past her office window.
“Is she running away?” Rachel asked, already on her feet.
“No, no. Sit.”
“But—”
“Sit.”
Rachel dropped into the seat. “You sure she’s coming back?” “She said she’d be right back.” Chloe shrugged. “I’ve never known Jace to lie to me. Besides,” she added, unable to stop the smile, “I kinda want to see what the fuck she’s up to.”
Ski pulled open the front door to the Protectors’ Pacific Palisades’ home and blinked in surprise at the panting, sweaty Jacinda Berisha standing there.
“Hi, again.”
“Hell . . . hell . . . o.” She took in deep breaths.
“Are you all right?”
She held up her hands for a moment, then placed them on her knees and bent over at the waist. Ski patiently waited until she could speak again.
“Uh . . .” she finally got out, “is that . . . is that job still open?”
“Sure, but—”
“Great . . . I’ll . . . geez . . .” She took more breaths in. “I’ll take it.”
“Are you sure? You seemed pretty adamant that you didn’t—”
“I’m taking it.”
“Okay.” Now Ski held his hands up, but for a different reason. “Actually, that would be great.”
“Okay, good.” She finally stood straight, but her hand rested against her side like she had a stitch in it. “So if any of the Crows call asking . . . I’ve taken the job. I’m working with you. Understand?”
“Sure, but . . . why would they ask?”
“Just . . . just promise me you’ll tell them that if they call or ask.”
“Of course.”
“Great.”
She turned to go.
“Don’t you want to know how much we’re paying?” he asked casually, fascinated. “Where you’ll be working? How long? What you’ll be doing? Any of these questions interest you?”
She shook her head. “No. See you tomorrow. I’ll start tomorrow.”
“Okay. Great.”
Then she took off running again.
“What was that about?” Gundo asked from behind him.
“We got her. Jace. She said she’d do the translations for us. She’ll be starting tomorrow.”
“Oh. Okay. What changed her mind?”
“No idea.”
“Where did she go?” he asked, looking out the door.
Ski pointed. “She took off running that way.”
“Running?”
“I could be wrong . . . but I think she’s running back to Malibu.”
Gundo blinked. “The Bird House is like twenty miles from here.”
“Yeah.”
They stared at each other a second before shrugging and going back into the house.
Jace was running down the sidewalk when she heard a car horn. At first, she refused to look, in no mood to field lecherous attacks from idiot men, but the horn didn’t stop. So she put on her best glare and looked over, nasty words in Albanian on her lips. But it was Danski Eriksen.
“I can drive you,” he said through the open passenger window.
With a stitch in her side and sweat pouring down her face, Jace decided that might be a good idea.
Flying she might be good at and could do for hours, but running. . . clearly not her strong suit.
She walked to the corner, and the car stopped in front of her. S
he got in and closed the door.
The car was nice. Really nice. A top-of-the-line Mercedes. Like her father, Jace had a weakness for cars. She didn’t drive much, though. In fact, she’d only gotten her license two years back when she’d become a Crow. And she’d never driven her sister-Crows anywhere. Ever.
Eriksen pulled back into traffic. When they stopped at a light, he brought up the Bird House address on his GPS and let it do the rest of the work.
They drove in silence for a good twenty minutes until Eriksen asked, “So, what made you change your mind? About working for us?”
“Does it matter?”
“It might. You’re a Crow. For all I know the whole lot of you could be up to something.”
“We’re not.”
“Well that’s good.”
Jace continued to stare out the window, believing the conversation was over.
It wasn’t.
“So what made you change your mind?”
“Timing.”
“Ah. I see. Timing is always very important.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Will your sisters have a problem with you working with us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you worried?”
“No.” But she was worried this conversation would never end. Why wouldn’t it end? Was he going to insist on talking to her while she was working, too? She doubted that. They needed the translations done, so she doubted Eriksen or any of the Protectors would waste precious time by insisting on painful chitchat.
Jace knew that almost all of her sister-Crows would take this time to get to know someone as handsome as Danski Eriksen. Except that Jace didn’t really have anything to say. Nothing of importance anyway.
And she’d promised herself two years ago, when she’d landed in her Second Life, that she would never force herself to indulge in “small talk” ever, ever, ever again.
Even for someone as adorable as Danski Eriksen . . . who was still talking.
Studying everything around her outside of the car, Jace made her move.
Ski heard the passenger door close, and he looked to see the seat beside him empty.
“Did she combat-roll into the street?” he asked absolutely no one.
Hitting the brakes, Ski stopped his car and jumped out, gazing over his roof while ignoring the honking horns and cursing coming from the drivers around him.
Mouth open, he watched Jacinda Berisha run across the Pacific Coast Highway—managing somehow not to get mowed down by anyone—and run up John Tyler Drive.
“Thank you!” she yelled out as she kept running. Running like the devil himself was behind her.
“Move your car, asshole!”
Annoyed, Ski snapped his head around. The female driver squeaked in shock, and Ski realized he was not keeping control of himself. It was never good to show the Unknowing—as they were called by the Clans—what his kind truly was. They simply couldn’t handle it.
Ski got back into his car and drove until he could make a legal U-turn.
She is really shy, he thought to himself. Because that had to be the answer, right?
He couldn’t be that repulsive, could he? Could anyone?
“See,” Chloe pointed out to Rachel. “There she is.”
Hours after having left, Jace ran into Chloe’s office, dropping to her knees right inside the door and panting hard.
Patiently, they waited for Jace to get her breath back.
When she did, she practically screamed out, “I have a job!”
“What job?” Rachel demanded in that tone that pretty much ensured she’d never be the leader of the LA Crow Clan. She was just too bossy. They’d all rise up and kill her one day.
“With the . . . the . . . the . . . Protectors. Translating text. From . . . Russian to . . . something.”
“Most likely English,” Chloe filled in for her.
“Probably.”
“That’s great,” Chloe said.
“It is?”
She glared at Rachel. “Of course it is. It’s a job that’s out of this house. All good.”
“I start . . . tomorrow.”
“Excellent.”
“Wait.” Rachel shook her head. “The Protectors? Isn’t their house in Pacific Palisades?” Eyes wide, she demanded, “Oh my God, did you run all the way there and back?”
Jace, now curled into a ball on the floor, shook her head. “Danski Eriksen drove me part of the way back, but . . . but . . . he kept talking to me.”
“About what?”
“Just chitchat!”
Rachel leaned down a bit and asked the struggling-to-breathe girl, “Would it have killed you to make small talk with someone? Anyone?”
“Yes!” Jace screamed, startling them both. “It would have!”
CHAPTER SIX
Jace passed Lev’s care off to one of her sister-Crows, knowing she’d take care of her baby.
Yes, she was now at the point where she considered Lev her “baby.” She’d never thought she’d be one of those dog owners, but here she was.
She smiled a little, thinking how annoyed her grandmother would be. Nëna considered animals either food or protection. There was no in between for her.
“Don’t get so attached to that goat, little inat,” she’d say. “He’s probably tomorrow’s dinner.”
Her grandmother never said those sorts of things to be cruel. In her mind, she was just toughening up Jacinda to the harsh world around them.
“You are too sweet, little inat,” she liked to say, using the Albanian word for “ire.” “You can’t be so sweet. Boys will only use you to make their lives easier. And I never want that for you.”
Jace stopped walking. She couldn’t keep thinking about her grandmother. It only hurt her heart. The memory of Nëna’s face when she’d tried to see Jace but they’d stopped her. She hadn’t seen her grandmother since. Jace had been too ashamed to let her grandmother know how weak she’d been for staying so long.
And, of course, for choosing. Jace had made a choice and for that Nëna would not forgive.
After giving herself a moment, Jace started off again. She made it downstairs and was about to head toward the hallway when a hand clamped down on her arm and another around her mouth. Then she was yanked back until she was under the stairs.
A few seconds later, she saw Rachel and a couple of Crows from Rachel’s strike team appear in the hall. The three women stood there, looking around.
Looking for Jace.
Jace rolled her eyes. Rachel was trying to push herself into this, too. Trying to “help” Jace out.
Jace couldn’t express, in words or actions, how much she did not want any help from Rachel. Not when it came to her life in general. During a fight? Sure. Help away. But any other time, Rachel just irritated the fuck out of Jace. She wouldn’t say she hated her or anything. Jace didn’t hate anyone.
But the more annoying a person became—and Rachel was really annoying—the less time Jace wanted to spend around that person.
After looking around, Rachel gestured to her team. “I doubt she left yet. I want to talk to her before she goes. Find her.”
The three women split up, heading in different directions to track down Jace.
Once they were gone, the hands on her loosened and Jace turned to see that it was Erin and Kera who had rescued her.
Loyal sister-Crows to the end. Protecting her from annoying yentas. One of the few Yiddish words her grandmother used extensively when talking about women who annoyed her, but whom she didn’t actively hate.
Without saying anything, the three of them made a run for it. But as they went around one corner, they quickly realized that Rachel had gotten her entire strike team involved in tracking Jace down. Probably so she could give Jace one of her irritating “pep talks.”
They froze, the back of their sister-Crow to them, and waited a few seconds before darting down another hallway, into the dayroom, out of the dayroom, and into the next hallway over.
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They all slid to a stop when they realized that Rachel was there. She was just turning toward them when all three dove into the nearest closet.
Clinging to each other like terrified orphans, they watched Rachel stomp by through the crack in the open door. When she disappeared, they let out a breath and Kera began to ease out the door just as Annalisa was walking by. She frowned at the sight of them huddled in the closet, but before she could say a word, Kera mouthed, Rachel, and pointed.
Annalisa smirked. She wasn’t a big Rachel fan, either. She suddenly pushed Kera back into the closet and stood in front of the door.
Rachel reappeared, stopping in front of Annalisa and looking her over. “What are you doing?” she finally asked.
“Just thinking about my day. What are you doing?”
“Trying to find Jace. Have you seen her?”
“Trying to find her? Why? Is it because she’s Albanian?”
“I’m trying to . . . wait . . . what?”
“You hate her because she’s Albanian?”
“I don’t hate—”
“Is it just Albanians you hate, or is it all East Europeans?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Wow. I had no idea you were like this.”
Another sister-Crow showed up. “Like what?”
“Rachel hates Eastern Europeans.”
“I do not!”
“So you hate all Europeans? Is that what you’re saying?”
“No!”
“My God, Rachel.” The other sister-Crow shook her head, disgust on her face as she walked off. “I’m really disappointed in you.”
“Wait . . .” Rachel glared down at Annalisa. “Jesus Christ.”
“So you hate the Christian God, too?”
“Oh my God! Shut up!”
Rachel stormed off, calling after the sister-Crow who’d been so disgusted with her, and Annalisa opened the closet door. “Anglo guilt . . . it’s so my favorite thing.”
Ski opened the front door and again found Jace Berisha standing there. This time, however, she wasn’t panting like she’d run a desert marathon.
She also wasn’t alone.
With a sigh, she said, “I couldn’t shake them.”