“Now what?” I asked as Amy and Kaye stood facing each other in the living room, neither one speaking.
Kaye glanced at me but didn’t reply. “You can put him down,” she told Amy.
She’d chosen not to blow my cover, which meant she still didn’t one-hundred percent trust the gorgeous angel who’d just helped bust us out of this joint.
Amy bent forward and set me on the floor, staring at the bound and gagged Roberts on the far side of the room. “I can’t believe it’s over.”
Kaye plopped down on the sofa and blew her hair off her forehead. “Either I’m getting old, or that boss of yours was unusually strong.” She shot me a warning look before I could point out that both were probably true.
“You did great. Nobody else was able to get this far, and believe me, they all tried,” Amy said while bobbing her head.
Kaye sat straight up. “What am I doing sitting? The other agents? Are they here? Are they hurt?”
Amy held up both hands. “Calm down. I made sure they were taken care of. Roberts never even went downstairs to check on them after he tossed them inside.”
Kaye whirled and rushed down the basement stairs. I followed just in time to see her dart into the room where she and I had been held. A moment later, she popped back out carrying Amy’s magic scissors.
“Which rooms?” Kaye asked Amy, who had just reached the bottom of the stairs.
Amy rushed over and opened the door across the hall from us. “Agent Cooper?” Kaye gasped as she peeked inside. “You’re alive!”
“Agent Godwin. Good to see you,” came a gruff voice.
I peered around the corner to find a short, balding man staring at Kaye with wide, disbelieving eyes.
Well, you better believe it, buddy. Maybe now the other agents would respect Kaye more. She certainly deserved better treatment than she’d gotten thus far.
The man held out his hands and Kaye took the scissors to them. “I’m so glad to see you alive.”
“You and me both.” He started and glared over Kaye’s shoulder, not even noticing me. I turned and realized Amy had come in behind me. “What’s she doing here? You realize she’s in on the scam, right? She’s the one who brought me here in the first place.”
Kaye nodded. “I know, but she’s also the one that freed me so I could take Roberts on. We owe her a debt of gratitude.”
Agent Cooper rubbed his wrists and let out a groan. “I’ve got my eye on you,” he told Amy, giving her a look I did not appreciate.
But then he backed away and flexed his hands, rolling his wrists as he sucked in a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second. The room heated quickly, ratcheting up at least ten degrees within a few seconds and becoming unbearably warm. “Ahh,” Cooper said with a big satisfied grin. “That’s better.”
“Good to see everything still works as it should,” Kaye said with an eye roll. “While you play with your powers, I’m going to look for Johnson and Brewer.”
“This way!” Amy backed out of the room and unlocked the next door down. “Johnson, are you ready to bust out of this joint?” Kaye asked as she walked in with a bit of a swagger.
“Kaye!” a male voice called out in apparent astonishment. “Dang, woman, it’s good to see you.”
When I entered, I found the agent’s ropes had already been cut and his arms were now wrapped around Kaye in a tight hug.
Well, then. They were friends, at the least.
“C’mon,” she said, pulling back and grabbing his hand then hurrying into the hallway.
Johnson spotted Amy and stopped short. “You!”
“Back off. Amy helped us, long story, let’s get Brewer,” Kaye charged toward the next room with Johnson and Cooper both hot on her tail.
I watched from the hallway, forgotten as the real agents reunited. Amy hadn’t forgotten me though; she bent down and picked me up, then buried her face in my stomach.
“I’m getting nervous, Moss. Everyone’s so angry at me. Do you really think they’ll go easy on me?”
How I wished I was myself so I could hold her in my arms and promise everything would be okay. If I had my magic back, I could create the perfect illusion to calm her frazzled nerves. We could ride off into the sunset and onward toward our happily ever after. Just two shifters crazy in love, except of course she had no idea what I really was.
I couldn’t do any of that, though. Not yet. And so I let out another rumbling purr. At least I knew she liked that.
Amy smiled and pressed a kiss to the top of my head, which only made my purrs grow louder and more persistent.
“We need a cell phone,” Kaye said, returning to the hallway with all three of the freed agents. “Got one?”
Amy shook her head. “No, but Roberts does. Upstairs.”
“A part of me wants to curse you into oblivion, but I will say you took very good care of me,” the last of the three agents said to Amy, looking her up and down with a mix of emotions.
“I tried,” Amy mumbled, keeping her eyes on me instead of raising them to look at him. “I did what I could with the restrictions he put on me.”
Everyone clomped up the stairs, except me because I had a sweet ride in Amy’s arms.
When we entered the living room, we found Roberts had managed to roll over onto his stomach and inch halfway across the living room.
Amy squeaked and jumped to the side, sort of behind Agent Johnson, who’d just emerged from the stairwell.
I wanted to be the one she hid behind, the one who made her feel safe and happy.
Curse this furry body!
The third agent, whose name I hadn’t yet gotten, waved his hand, causing Roberts to go rigid. “There. He won’t move now until the backup gets here.”
“Over there,” Amy called, setting me down so she could point to the kitchen area. “His cell was in the kitchen last I saw it.”
Kaye got the phone as the other agents raided the fridge and started nibbling on the slow cooker chili from the night before.
“Where are we?” Kaye asked, lowering the phone for a moment.
Amy shrugged. “I don’t know. He never told me. We go through a portal and the area where we put on the show is here, wherever here is. Then when we leave, he does his wand swirl thing, and we end up driving to this place. I could get you back to the staging area, the big round gravel lot, but I don’t have a clue where we actually are.”
Kaye nodded and went back to the conversation.
A few minutes later, she sighed and sank down beside Amy on the couch.
“Might as well give us your story now,” Kaye said softly. “They’re going to track the signal from Roberts’ cell. Asked us to hang tight while they work on it. No telling how long it’ll take them to get here, though.”
Amy searched the room with wide eyes. “Uh, well, okay. I guess I owe you that after what I did.” She paused and sucked in a deep, stuttering breath.
I took this opportunity to jump up and make myself comfy on her lap.
“I was in a sorority at the University of Tennessee. And we had this big Halloween party. You already know I can shapeshift. I used my abilities to make my Halloween costume really convincing, you know?”
We all nodded, even me.
I covered myself by pretending to lick my paw, but luckily, everyone was focused on Amy’s face above me as she stroked my fur.
“I went to this big party looking like a wolf woman… thing. And Roberts was there. He was running some card scam, taking money from drunk rich frat boys and sorority sisters.”
“He recognized you for what you were?” Cooper asked, joining the conversation out of nowhere.
Amy nodded. “Yeah. So, he started blackmailing me back then. I didn’t want anyone to find out, because I loved my classes and my sorority. And he said it was my fault for using my powers so openly, that they’d lock me up for life because I exposed magic.”
“What happened?” I asked.
But, of course, it was just a meow. Darn it.
“Oh, sorry, Mossy,” Amy said, resuming my pets. “So, yeah, he mostly doled out idle threats and asked for occasional favors. That is, until my junior year. We had another party for Halloween, and I shifted into like a ghost thing to scare everyone.”
Johnson winced. “Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.”
Amy’s eyes filled with tears. “It was too convincing. People panicked. Drunk idiots started running everywhere. The sorority house caught on fire, and a couple of people got hurt.” She sucked in a deep breath. “Roberts even told me someone died.”
“And Roberts used that to get control of you,” Kaye finished.
Amy nodded tearfully. “That was four years ago now. He’s never hurt me. He’s not that twisted even though he puts on a good show, but he has gotten worse and worse the longer we’ve been together, and I’ve gotten more and more afraid.”
“Why did you stay?” Johnson asked. “Or not tell somebody what really happened?”
“I knew what happened was my fault, and that Roberts was right. I could end up in prison for the rest of my life. I can’t take shifter jail. It’s just too horrible.”
She didn’t know the half of it.
“It sounds like a horrible, unfortunate accident. You’ve got to stop beating yourself up. We don’t even know if anyone actually died,” Kaye said with a soothing, motherly tone I hadn’t heard from her before. She looked to the other agents. “Anybody hear about this when it happened?”
They all shook their heads.
Kaye winked at Amy. “Seems like it’s unlikely anyone died. My guess is that Roberts was just trying to make you more desperate so he could control you better. I bet we can get you off with community service.”
Amy burst into tears yet again, and this time Kaye was the one to comfort her.
I stayed on her lap as Kaye hugged the frightened young woman to her chest.
And once again, I purred.