Page 59 of Up in Smoke

“It’s true,” I agreed. “And after the time I’ve spent living in the Alley, I’d do some seriously sketchy things for a good steak.”

“I’ll keep that in mind the next time I need you to go somewhere you don’t want to go. I’ll just use steak.” With a sly smile, he added, “Or fresh salsa.”

I swallowed at the thought of enjoying more of his salsa. “We’ll talk about the salsa later.”

“Talk?”

My fox wanted to drag Sandro home and reward him for his cunning. “On that happy note, we have to get to my next date with a beating in the interest of teaching me how to defend myself. Take care, Noah.” I waved and headed in the direction of Batbayar’s new martial arts center, and as I wanted Sandro to know I viewed myself as the victor of our conversation, I swished my tail along with swinging my hips.

Sandro caught up with me through lengthening his stride until he paced me. “I have no idea what that was about, but I’m fairly confident you won. Something about that man concerns me, though.”

“That’s because you’re smart, Sandro. The only time you should ever fully trust him is if he owes you his life—and only until the point he decides he’s paid that debt back. Everything has a price with him. That’s just who he is. He’s plenty friendly if he has a use for you. If he doesn’t? Watch your step and your back.” I shrugged. “For the most part, I like him. But if I were you, I wouldn’t trust him.”

“Interesting. You trusted him?”

“Only up until he paid back his debt to me. Now? The only thing I’ll trust is his willingness to sell me out if the price is right. Kind of like a bounty hunter but lacking a general grasp in ethics.”

“I’m going to feel that one for a while,” Sandro complained.

I grinned. “It’s okay. You have a general grasp of ethics, although we’re going to have to work on some parts of it. You were supposed to turn me in for a bounty, not marry me.”

Sandro threw his hands up in the air. “Marry the bounty target once, and I’m labeled for life.”

I laughed all the way to Batbayar’s studio.

Friday, June 26, 2043.

Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The Alley.

Batbayar took an almostdemonic glee in pitting me against Sandro, and between the two of them, they beat a healthy sense of self-preservation into me. I’d feel the bruises for at least a week. I needed to thank whoever had added nice support beams near the ceiling of the studio. It made an excellent place for a panicked vixen to climb up out of the reach of the two devils chasing me.

While I wasn’t a cat, I hissed at the pair of them from my perch near the ceiling, crammed between the plaster ceiling and the dark-stained beam.

“Honestly, I’m impressed you got up there. How did you do that?” Sandro demanded, tapping his practice sword against his leg, likely planning on how to retrieve me. “I hadn’t even realized there was a gap up there.”

“I hadn’t, either,” Batbayar admitted.

The students snickered, and a few flat-out laughed at my disruption of the lesson, which had somehow turned into a game of catch the vixen. While I wanted Sandro to catch me, I wanted the catching to happen in the comfort of home in the general vicinity of bed, not with a stick carved to resemble a sword. To make it clear I wasn’t going to resume being beaten without a fight again, I hissed again, pinning my ears back. “Only an idiot wants to get hit with those things.”

“I barely tapped you,” Batbayar replied.

While true, his taps hurt a lot and often bruised. “It still hurts like hell.”

“Pain is an excellent teacher when the student is given guidance on how best to avoid that pain in the future.”

Also true, and a lesson I meant to learn as of yesterday. “That is precisely why I am up here, safe from that torture device you’re wielding.”

Sandro laughed. “How did you get up there? That’s all I want to know at this point. How did you even get up there?”

I wiggled on my perch and pointed at the wall, which had numerous small shelves meant for storing practice blades of various lengths. “He put the mounts in the wall studs, so I just used them as steps before jumping up here.”

I’d gambled on that, and I’d dodged tumbling back to the floor by a hair. Getting off the support beam would take some work, but I would manage. Eventually. Somehow. To make certain nobody got any bright ideas, I checked my tail and placed it where nobody could grab and pull me down.

“She learned that lesson the first time. I grabbed her tail once and only once, and now she makes certain I can never do that again,” Batbayar said with amusement. “A good but important lesson she needed to be taught only once. Jade, while you’re evading us, the exercise was for you to evade us on the ground.”

“Evasion is evasion,” I countered. “And I’ve successfully evaded you evil men. I didn’t even get to hit either one of you.”