“This is too much,” I declared, holding up my purse filled with cash, gift cards, and a new makeup kit I’d put to good use as soon as I found somewhere to pull over without getting caught. It included glittery eyeshadow, and while it wouldn’t cover my scars well, I’d have pretty eyes.
I’d leave the state before making use of my better makeup kit to hide my scars.
“Deal with it,” Harvey ordered before kissing my cheek. “When you refuse our offers of help, we have to resort to drastic measures.”
“Using the kittens was rather ruthless and drastic, yes.”
“But effective. Be careful with the chicken. Mom’s brain is broken, and I’m pretty sure she used cinnamon to go with the cayenne, and she had the saffron out. I hope you survive. I hope we survive. The kittens are getting macaroni and cheese just in case Mom made poison instead of fried chicken.”
Fortunately for Harvey, our mother hadn’t heard him. “You better get one of our brothers to take over the cooking until the second trimester,” I muttered.
“We have a plan. Dad will distract her, and we’re taking turns proving to her we’re capable of living on our own. Tomorrow, Uncle Henry will be doing the cooking. The kittens have asked for fried fish, and Uncle Henry claimed dinner duty, much to Dad’s relief.”
The house would be a war zone for at least another month. “I’m going to ask my boss if I can take an extra unpaid week to delay having to come back to this mess. You bastards paid me enough I can afford it.”
If I could score three weeks of bounty hunting, I might return home with a fixed face and debt to go with it, but it would be worth it. If I was the lucky bounty hunter promoted to having a handler, three weeks might be enough to pay for the whole damned thing if I landed some good jobs.
“You should. You haven’t had a vacation in years. I bet your boss would approve it, since there’s always people trying to get extra hours where you work. You complain about how hard it is to get extra hours all the time.” My brother lifted the strap of my new purse off my shoulder and gave it a shake. “Get yourself a new phone, too. Yours is an antique. If you get low on cash, tell Uncle Henry you need a phone. He’ll bite.”
“He’s not a charity.”
Uncle Henry marched out of the kitchen, put his hands on my shoulders, and shoved me towards the front door. “I bite, and I’m not a charity. I’m your uncle. Stop whining, or I’m showing up at your home with your daddy’s copy of your keys, and I’ll be leaving presents you can’t return all over your place. I’m a bored, single lycanthrope, and you’re our family’s only little girl. Don’t challenge me. You will lose.”
I checked the time, narrowed my eyes, and considered my few options. “You can leave a decent but not too expensive phone on my coffee table, but I swear if anything has been touched beyond that in my place, I will hunt you, skin you alive, and sell your fur. Then I’ll wait for you to heal and do it all over again.”
“How about I keep your new phone here, and you can pick it up when you’re back from vacation? I value my fur.”
“Vain cat.”
“That I am.” Uncle Henry pushed me out of the house. “Leave.”
Laughing over my eviction, I headed for my father’s truck, opened the passenger door, and dumped my purse next to my excessive collection of creatively spiced fried chicken. The cab contained all of my luggage, including the backpack with my cheap laptop. As my family would find ways to keep me from getting on the road, I hurried to get behind the wheel, locked the doors, started the engine, and eased the big truck out of the maze of vehicles. While tempted to test my luck and drive right over my junker, I restrained myself.
To make certain none of my nosy family followed, I drove for twenty minutes before pulling over and indulging in chicken. Despite my mother having gotten creative in the kitchen, the chicken classified as unique but edible. As I often failed to eat enough, I rampaged through the entire basket of chicken and licked the bones clean.
Saffron, cayenne, cinnamon, and whatever the hell spices my mother used didn’t really belong together, but the lycanthropy virus liked meat, approved of my feeding frenzy, and took herself to a corner to pass out for a while.
I needed to remind myself excessive eating could tame my virus and keep her from suggesting I should waste less time worrying about my face and spend more time thinking about luring some male cat to bed. My virus would be disappointed. Most male lycanthropes fell into the canine category, and I was related to the majority of male feline lycanthropes in my state.
Most feline lycanthropes started their hunt for a mate early, with my family being an oddity with a high number of single young men. I played a part in their unwillingness to pick a mate, settle down, and join my parents in adding to the state’s birth rate. Until they determined I could take care of myself or I roped a male, they’d hover. Brothers who hovered over their sister didn’t date, which left them single and available to drive me crazy.
Maybe I’d check out Cincinnati’s population of single feline lycanthropes. I couldn’t strike out forever even with my scarred face, could I?
Damned scars.
I stopped at the next gas station, tossed out the chicken bones, and programmed my father’s truck navigation system to take me to Fargo. Ridding myself of my scars would be my first step. Then I’d cut a deal with my virus, and we’d hunt for a man capable of handling my entire family. She wanted a cat. I’d accept a human—or even a damned wolf as long as he treated me right.
If my virus had an opinion on my thoughts, she kept quiet for a change.
Fargo, North Dakota made an excellent place for me to start my dirty work. Most folks minded their own business, I’d been through often enough to not draw attention at my preferred coffee shops, and I didn’t feel like I needed to sell my soul to the devil to buy a drink. Armed with an extra sweet coffee, I dug out my old laptop, booted it up, and began the tedious process of tunneling into a chain of compromised servers until there was no realistic way the government would be able to trace me to my actual location. It cost more time than I liked, as my preferred server in Germany liked to give me problems on a good day, but it served as an excellent speed bump for anyone trying to identify my location. After an hour and a second beverage, I hit up the CDC’s bounty site, logged in with my legitimate credentials, and checked the list of available jobs.
A red banner at the top of the screen informed me that my presence was required at a CDC center, with a preference for the one in Fargo, which was where I typically showed up when someone wanted to get a hold of me.
As the flag didn’t bar me from picking up new jobs, I searched through the available contracts for a naughty lycanthrope in need of a whooping and some community service time. A kill bounty would put more money in my pocket, but with the one big job ready to put me in the running for starting the scar-removal process, I refused to ruin it all taking too many chances.
My entire family wanted me to accept my scarred face, but I’d accepted long ago I hated everything my scars represented and wanted them gone. In part, I blamed my momma, as she’d raised me to be stubborn. My daddy took the rest of the blame, because I wanted a man to look at me the way my parents looked at each other.