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The van stopped in traffic at a red light. We were still two blocks from the gym, but I couldn’t take it anymore. The air was stifling. I unbuckled my seatbelt.
“Where are you going?” Honor demanded.
“I’ll walk the rest of the way,” I said and threw open the door.
Honor called after me, but I didn’t stop for him. I ducked down a narrow alley to take a shortcut, one he couldn’t follow me through. I was only putting off the inevitable, but dammit, I didn’t want to talk about that shit with him. Not now. He’d only been back a few days, and I was still getting used to that.
The morning air was chilly, and I didn’t have any gloves, so I shoved my hands into my pockets, hurrying down the alley. A fence separated one lot from the next. I hopped it easily and found myself in the rear of the strip mall where the gym was. Flies buzzed around the putrid dumpster, and there was fresh spray paint of an erupting penis on the wall, but it was on the martial arts studio’s side, so it was their problem.
Ursula was already there when I walked in. She stood at the checkout counter, nibbling on some hash browns from the fast-food place down the street and reading one of her steamy romance books. The tail end of the morning crowd was stillpresent, with a couple of regulars huffing and puffing on the treadmills.
“Hell has finally frozen over.” Ursula lowered her book and glanced up at the clock. “Axel Rose is early for his shift.”
“It’s the end of the world as you know it,” I quipped, coming up to join her behind the desk.
“Those Men in Black got you running scared, huh?” She popped another miniature hash brown into her mouth.
“I’m not scared and I’m not running,” I scoffed and sat down in the wheely chair, spinning it around. “Least not from them. By the way, you’re going to have to come pick up your van at my place.”
Ursula narrowed her eyes. “What did you break?”
“Nothing, I swear. It’s just… Someone else brought me to work. Which reminds me, if you see a weird guy with an eyepatch hanging around, just ignore him.”
Ursula quirked an eyebrow. “Your boyfriend?”
I choked and almost fell out of the chair. “No! Gross. That’s my pop!”
Now, both her eyebrows shot up. “Wait, the guy who abandoned you and gave you all these adorable daddy issues?”
“I do not have daddy issues, Ursula! And if I did, they wouldn’t be adorable.”
“Speak for yourself. I love a good tragic backstory.” She sighed and turned around in her chair, straddling the back and staring at me. “So?”
“So, what?” I didn’t look up from pretending to be checking memberships up for renewal on the computer. We were supposed to look once a month for members whose memberships were about to lapse and call them to renew, but that was wasted effort. Everything was on automatic these days, and if people went through all the trouble to cancel theirmembership, they weren’t going to be talked back into renewing it.
“I want details,” Ursula pressed.
I ignored her, opening the pinball app on the desktop. Every game but that one was blocked. “About what?”
“Your sociopathic, possessive boyfriend. The government agents trying to assassinate you. Your estranged father coming back from nowhere.” Her chair rolled closer.
I snorted. “It’s really not that interesting.”
“Are you shitting me? This is some next level shit, Axel. You could put all this in a book and nobody would believe you.”
And the truth is even weirder, I thought. With a sigh, I abandoned my pinball game and turned to face her. “What if I told you I’m not fully human, Ursula? That I was half fae, half monster, and half human?”
She crossed her arms. “I’d say you probably failed a couple of math classes because that’s three halves. And then I’d say you sound like every woman in a paranormal romance novel. Should I be expecting a vampire werewolf threesome anytime soon?”
“But Ursula,” I chirped in a high-pitched voice and batted my eyelashes at her. “I’m not like other girls! I’m only clumsyoutsideof combat!”
She gave my chair a shove. “Go fold the towels, chosen one.”
“But I can’t! I have to defeat the evil overlord who’s also secretly my father. And I’m in love with my sworn enemy!” I threw my forearm dramatically against my forehead.
Ursula threw a pen at me. “Leave my cheesy romance book tropes out of this!”
“You’re the one who brought it up.” I picked the pen up off the floor and pocketed it.
