Ash got a tingle when he called her his girlfriend. A genuine, schoolgirl tingle that made her want to punch herself in the face. This was precisely the kind of emotional entanglement that got operatives killed in the field. And yet, she couldn't deny the warm glow that spread through her chest like high-end whiskey. She smiled as she extended her hand to his sister in greeting, the perfect portrait of innocence wrapped in designer denim.
"But my friends call me Ash. Nice to meet you."
When their hands touched they shared an instant recognition with each other. In an almost telepathic communication they both had the same thought.
I know what you are.
The realization hit Ash like a tactical missile -precise, devastating, and impossible to ignore. This wasn't just any sister. This was a sister who knew. The cosmic chess board had just reconfigured itself, and Ash wasn't sure if she had been promoted to queen or was about to be sacrificed as a pawn.
"I'm Kylie, nice to meet you too." The words were pleasant enough, but the undercurrent was unmistakable -a shark's fin breaking the surface of calm waters.
"Silly, you didn't tell me you had a sister."
Ash softly elbowed Nile in the ribs, maintaining her cover with the practiced ease of someone who'd been lying since before they could tie their own shoes. Kylie raised her eyebrow at him as he shrugged, a silent exchange that spoke volumes about their relationship. File that away for later exploration, Ash noted mentally.
"Must have slipped my mind." Nile rubbed at the spot where she'd nudged him, oblivious to the electromagnetic storm of tension crackling between the two women.
"He does that sometimes. Anyways, no worries. Have you two ordered your drinks yet?"
"No, not yet. Nile got so caught up in the music he sort of forgot the reason why we were in here."
Ash made a small pouty face in mock sadness. She and Kylie shared a look that contained multiverses of unspoken communication. It was the look of two apex predators acknowledging each other's territory while deciding whether diplomacy or violence would be the day's special.
"Well how about this. I'll take your orders and then we can all sit down and have a nice chat. What do you say?"
"Oh, great," Nile said with little enthusiasm, completely missing the subtext that was practically skywritten above them.
"Sounds wonderful," Ash said, infusing each syllable with just enough saccharine sweetness to make a diabetic wince.
Kylie took both of their orders and headed to the bar. Ash sat with Nile for a few minutes before she excused herself, her mind already mapping out contingency plans A through Z.
"Sorry hon, nature calls. I'll be right back, ok?" Ash said, the pet name feeling less foreign now, which was its own kind of danger.
"Sure, have fun," Nile said, as if visiting a public restroom was an adventure park.
Nile took out his phone and started swiping across its surface, the light from the screen playing shadow games on his face. The sounds of coins being collected and blocks being crushed sang lightly from his hands. Ash noted how utterly normal he looked -a boy playing a game, existing within the narrow bandwidth of ordinary human experience. She envied that sometimes, in the quiet moments between heartbeats.
Ash made her way towards the ladies bathroom, which just happened to take her past the bar where Kylie was standing, watching her approach with the focused intensity of a sniper. Each step Ash took was measured, her posture a careful balance between casual café-goer and ready-for-anything operative.
"Hi," Ash said, testing the waters with the verbal equivalent of a toe dip.
"Hey," Kylie replied, returning serve with equal brevity.
"Nice night eh?" Ash said, playing the small-talk gambit while her senses remained on high alert.
"Cut the crap ok? I know what you are. What are you doing here and more importantly why are you with my brother?" Kylie demanded, skipping the appetizer and heading straight for the main course.
"Let's use our inside voices ok? No need for everyone to hear our conversation, in particular the brother you seem to care so much about," Ash said dryly, her tone suggesting she'd navigated hostility with far more dangerous adversaries than coffee shop managers.
Ash sat at the far end of the bar, out of direct sight of Nile. Kylie leaned in and rested on her elbows as they began to talk, their postures mirroring casual conversation while their words conducted warfare.
"The real question is, what are you doing here? I wasn't told that anyone else was assigned to this area," Ash continued, a hint of something unwelcome in her voice. Territory had been breached, protocols broken. In her world, those kinds of surprises typically ended with someone in a body bag.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
"I'm here because of what happened to my parents. And my brother needs me. There was something not right about their accident. The authorities said it was some kind of animal. But what kind of animal leaves no trace after leaving that sort of damage behind?" Kylie said, her words carrying the weight of grief transmuted into purpose.
"You think it was something else? Like what exactly? This place isn't really known for its creeps if you know what I mean," Ash asked, mentally flipping through her briefing files. Nothing about mysterious animal attacks or dead parents had been flagged. Someone had seriously dropped the ball on her intel, and that kind of oversight usually came with a body count.
"There is one it's known for." Kylie's words hung in the air between them, heavy with implication.
"You mean the Bug Man? From what I was able to gather on it, he doesn't exist. He's an urban legend. A myth," Ash dismissed, though her instincts were already spinning up contingency plans like a nuclear reactor going critical.
"Yeah well maybe my research has just been a little more thorough than yours, because I've found evidence. I've been tracking him through the hills and I think I may have found out where he's been hiding," Kylie said smugly, the satisfaction of one-upping a professional evident in the quirk of her lips.
Ash's curiosity was peaked. First she discovers that Nile has a sister, second that that sister is awakened, and third that the accident that killed Nile's parents may have been caused by a creature she had written off as a myth? How in the abyss did her intelligence fail to inform her of such important details?
Then she caught herself. If she had been in contact with the Guardians Network, then she would have been able to get all of the information she would have needed. Instead she'd chosen to go dark -over a boy. Over feelings. The universe's ultimate cosmic joke, making her the punchline.
Regardless, what Kylie was saying rang true, and that meant it was a problem. The kind of problem that couldn't be solved with a witty comeback or a perfectly timed hair flip.
Intriguing indeed.
"Are you sure? I mean, that you found its hideout?" Ash asked concerned, her mind already cataloging the arsenal she'd need if this "Bug Man" was even half as dangerous as Kylie's expression suggested.
"I've narrowed it down to a small area of Angeles Crest due East of the abandoned ski resort. There are a lot of rocky outcroppings there and natural caves. A perfect place for a creature like that to call home."
"Well then, why haven't you gone in and cleaned house?" Ash demanded, the tactician in her wondering why Kylie would sit on this information rather than act on it. In her experience, hesitation usually meant either fear or something else.
"Honestly, I was waiting for just the right moment. Which I think has now come," Kylie said with an ominous tone that would have made B-movie directors weep with joy.
Kylie looked purposefully at Ash and it only took a moment for Ash to get her intentions. Like recognizing the punchline of a joke before it's delivered, or seeing the trajectory of a bullet before it's fired.
"You want me to come with you."
It was a statement, not a question. The inevitability of it settled over Ash like a second skin -familiar, yet constricting.
"Yeah, if we both went in there together, that thing wouldn't stand a chance. I'd finally be able to rest easy knowing that the creature that killed my parents was put down and that Nile was safe. Did you know that he was up in those mountains the night they were attacked? It could have been him."
There was a fierce determination in her eyes as she looked at Ash. Ash only took a second to make up her mind. Just the idea that Nile could have been killed in those mountains, and that they would never have met, was enough of a prod to get her into action. The realization that she cared enough to feel that way was something she'd examine later, preferably with several strong drinks and no witnesses.
"Let's go bag us a Bug Man."
The words tasted like destiny on her tongue -bitter and sweet and terrifyingly real. Whatever game the universe was playing with her, it had just leveled up from casual diversion to cosmic chess match. And Ash had never been one to forfeit, even when the odds suggested she should have folded long ago.
She cast one glance back toward Nile, still absorbed in his game, blissfully unaware that the two women in his life were about to hunt down a mythological creature that may or may not have orphaned him. For a split second, a treacherous thought surfaced in her mind: What if this is where I'm supposed to be? Not just for the mission, but for... me?
She shoved the thought back into the lockbox where she kept all such dangerous ideas. There was no room for existential crises when there was a Bug Man to hunt. And besides, she'd already used up her quota of character development for the month.
∞
"Hey babe, would it be ok if we called it an early night? I'm not feeling all that well and your sister said she could take me home. So you don't have to miss the next set." The lie rolled off Ash's tongue with the practiced ease of someone who'd majored in deception with a minor in strategic misdirection.
"I can take you home. It's totally no worries." Nile's earnest concern made something twist inside Ash's chest -a sensation she'd previously experienced only when disarming particularly complex explosive traps.
"No hun, you stay. Enjoy yourself. Let us have a little girl time while she drives me." Ash infused her voice with just enough fragility to sell the "not feeling well" angle without overplaying it. Oscar-worthy performances were part of the standard curriculum where she came from, sandwiched neatly between "Improvised Weapons 101" and "Advanced Infiltration Techniques."
"Oh, umm, sure. Yeah I guess that's cool. Thanks sis'," Nile said, disappointment clouding his features like a weather system moving across a particularly adorable landscape.
"We'll be sure to gossip all about you, I promise." Kylie winked, an act that could have meant anything from sisterly teasing to "I'm about to expose your girlfriend as a supernatural operative."
Ash's look was mischievous as she leaned in to give Nile a hug and kiss goodbye. The kiss -intended as perfunctory cover- lingered just a heartbeat longer than mission parameters dictated. File that away under 'increasingly problematic attachment issues,' she noted mentally.
Nile eyeballed his sister in silent warning, the universal sibling language for "don't embarrass me or I'll resurrect every awkward thing you've ever done since childhood."
"Call me if you need anything, ok Ash?" he said, his concern genuine enough to make Ash wonder if karma was finally catching up with her. She'd accumulated enough cosmic debt to finance a small celestial economy.
"Ok, I will. I love you," she said. The words escaped before her internal censor could tackle them to the ground and drag them back into the vault where vulnerable emotions belonged. Three syllables that changed everything and nothing simultaneously.
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