I must have misunderstood. No way they’d just throw someone completely new out in front on something like this. “You’re going to use me as bait?”

“What job did you expect? You can regenerate, you’re the perfect candidate.”

Was this how I came across to everyone? All snarky like this Starren? Maybe I needed to drop a little of the attitude after all.

“Well, yeah, but that doesn’t mean I want to get messed up in the first place. It still hurts. Don’t you have someone that regenerates and is trained to do this stuff?”

A look passed between Starren and Wade. “Regenerating is a rare gift. And the high fae prefer Faerie to Earth. We don’t have anyone that could pass as a human. Looks, yes, mannerisms and speech, no. The few that are available, he already knows. You he won’t even notice, he has no way of knowing you’re fae.”

I looked back at the pictures. He didn’t look dangerous.

But I’d thought that about Wade too. “What are his powers?”

Starren just stared at me.

I looked at her and then to Wade, then back. “All fae have some type of power, right? What is his?”

“Not all of us have powers, Trish,” Wade answered. Ugh, did he have to call me Trish? He didn’t have that right anymore.

“Don’t you know anything about Faerie?” Starren asked.

She didn’t seem upset, just resigned.

But I did know quite a bit about Faerie. My mom had told me stories of the place like they were bedtime stories; only these weren’t the happily ever after kind. Faerie was a rough place, where everyone cared only for themselves. The Council had final authority over everything, but basically left everyone to figure things out on their own. Survival of the fittest and all that. No, it was definitely not somewhere I wanted to go. Ever.

“Powers aren’t supposed to manifest until eighteen. We have a week to catch him before we need to worry about that. We assume your records are wrong,” Wade said, like he was reading my mind. “Do you know when your real birthday is?”

I had been healing since I was eight. Ten years early.

What did that mean?

I ignored Wade’s question. If he thought we were going to be friends now, he was dead wrong. Not only had he tried to kill me, he had also only wanted to date me because of his job. He was toast where I was concerned. I was still bumping him off and sending him to Faerie if the chance came up.

“So he has no powers, but he’s dangerous and was able to injure guards in Faerie and escape. Nice. What happens to him if we do catch him?” That was the part I wasn’t sure about. Doubt wiggled through the pit of my stomach. Did I really want to be a bounty hunter? The actual job sounded kind of crazy, but nothing I needed to worry about physically. It was the whole getting involved with the fae thing that was giving me pause. What had the guy really done? It didn’t matter in the end. If it was him or me, I was definitely picking me.

“He will be returned to the facility where he was being held in Faerie, where he can be contained until the Council decides what to do with him. Are you ready to leave for California? His last known address is there. His home is being watched, but so far nothing. We will be searching any areas where our tracker can feel unregistered fae activity until we find the right one.”

California? As in, on the other side of the country, California? “How am I supposed to miss school without my teachers noticing? What about Dan and Nina?”

“What about them?” Starren asked. “They are your foster parents, correct?”

Wade nodded at her and I glared his way for answering a question aimed at me.

“Yes. They wouldn’t take kindly to me disappearing again.” And I would worry them to death. But I didn’t need to say that part out loud.

“Who said anything about disappearing? You will ask for a new foster home and one will be provided. One that is more, shall we say, open to the job description.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Nina’s sad face filled my head and my stomach clenched. It would be so easy to get a new home after Lester’s visit this morning, but as much as I complained to myself about them both, they had been nothing but kind. No, when it came down to it, they were the closest thing I had to family since Mom had left me. But I wasn’t going to let these fae know that. Somehow I got the feeling they’d use that knowledge against me if they thought they needed leverage. I wanted badly to dislike my fosters, for their own safety, but they made that pretty difficult.

“How are you going to get me to California? I don’t have any way of getting on a plane without my fosters.”

“We have ways of traveling more quickly than humans,” Starren said haughtily.

Portals. They had to have portals of some kind. Mom had mentioned them before. “If you find a way that the school doesn’t complain I’m gone and give me an excuse for being home late every day, I’ll help during school hours. If this doesn’t work out I need a place I can go back to and I’ve got Dan and Nina trained.” So that wasn’t completely true, but it must have been true enough or my fae blood wouldn’t have let me say it. I carefully kept all the emotion off my face. So far Starren hadn’t been too happy when I tried to think for myself and so much hinged on this. If they were going to try to force me away from Dan and Nina, I wasn’t really left with many options.

“You aren’t giving the orders here,” Starren gritted out between clenched teeth. So she had a temper. Good to know.

“Starren, be careful.” Wade said. He jerked his head toward the corner and headed that way. Starren followed. “We’re supposed to bring her in on this, no matter what.” Obviously they didn’t understand the fact that my regenerating also helped my body function better in every way, his voice was almost as loud as if he was talking straight to me. “Don’t get her mad. She’ll walk. Trust me, I know her. No matter what the incentive, her temper will get the best of her.” So that’s what he thought of me. Good. I thought a lot worse of him. “The Council won’t be happy if we lose her.”

Starren closed her eyes and a breath hissed out between clenched teeth. Apparently my personality grated on her. I got that a lot.

They came back over together, Starren hiding her emotions very well. Stereotypical fae. At least I had broken all the molds growing up with humans.

“Time is of the essence with this case. We can’t allow a criminal to roam free here. We agree to your terms. Can you start tonight? Tell your parents you will be at a sleepover, or some such human nonsense. It will be close enough to the truth that you should be able to get it out.”

Wade snorted. I glared.

“What?” Starren asked.

“Trisha? At a sleepover? She doesn’t have any friends.”

I glared even harder. So what if it was the truth, did he have to be such a jerk about it? I could be a jerk back and remind him that he was supposed to be my only friend. I sighed. That meant I was back to having no friends at all. Amy had been nice at the party, but I didn’t think us hanging out for an hour made us friends.

Starren rubbed her eyelids. “I should have known. First light in the morning then. Surely you can find an excuse to leave for school early.”

I nodded. Maybe this would be a good time to make some friends. At least friendly enough to be able to tell Dan and Nina I was heading to the movies or some such nonsense, hit the movie theater for five minutes and then come here. It was enough of the truth that I could get away with it, and they might lift the grounding if they thought I was being social. Now just to figure out how to make friends. On top of not being in school. I sighed again. Things were always so complicated.

“You may go. Prepare whatever you need before you come back in the morning. Seven-thirty sharp.” She went back to looking at stuff on her desk. My blood started a slow boil. Did she really think she was so much better than me that she could just dismiss me like that? I was going to have to work with two jerks. At first she’d seemed okay, but I should have known better. My mouth opened by itself, about to hurl an insult, but I caught it. If I had to work with them, I needed to keep things as civil as possible. Just until we caught this guy. Then I was home free and could say anything I wanted and there was nothing they could do about it. I stood and stalked to the door.

Wade held it open for me on my way out, then followed me through the doorway and closed it behind us. I refused to look at him. Cumat was waiting for me on the other side.

“Ready to be escorted out?” he asked. No doubt they’d had him wait for me because they didn’t want me getting curious about what was behind any of the other doors. They didn’t need to worry about that. I’d met enough backstabbing, rude, obnoxious… and everything else fae to last me a lifetime.

I nodded at Cumat, not really wanting to talk. He didn’t have the same problem. He chitchatted about everything and nothing as we walked up the hallway, but I wasn’t listening. No matter what, I could not show these fae how I felt about Dan and Nina. That thought kept cycling through my mind, chased by worry. And I couldn’t let them take me away. And I couldn’t get killed by this criminal, or let Dan and Nina find out I was skipping school. Wonderful. Plus, I still wanted to do something to Wade. I just needed to figure out what.

Maybe stabbing him or whatever wasn’t really a good idea anymore since he was supposed to be watching my back on this job.

We finally arrived at the entrance. “We’ll see you tomorrow, right here,” Cumat said cheerfully, like I was coming over for tea, not to hunt some runaway fae guy that I hardly knew anything about.

“Him or me” that was going to be my new mantra. And he was a criminal, which meant he had done something. At least that was what I was going to go with. Maybe I’d get a better idea of what in the morning.

For right now, I needed to get home. Before Dan noticed I was running late, and I lost my home even after all of this.