Alien in the House

Where, exactly, is this safe place? Your office?” He shook his head. “Security deposit box?” Another head shake. “Bus locker?”
    “No. Why would I go to the bus station, ever?”
    “Pardon me for sullying your pristine reputation. So, where the hell did you hide these instructions from a mysterious person that you both believed and obeyed?” I’d worry about why he was so stupid later. Like once I’d found this information later. If it was real, we had the means to be able to have a hope of tracking where, and possibly who, it came from.
    “I kept it at work.”
    “Your office?”
    “No, I’ve been free—” Eugene was interrupted by two things. The first was the shriek of a Peregrine that appeared between us and shoved me just a little to the right.
    The second was the arrival of a bullet through his brain.



CHAPTER 30
    A S BLOOD SPLATTERED, Prince slammed into me and George the Peregrine. I went down, to be quickly covered by Hughes throwing himself on me and, by association, the animals.
    Men were shouting, and I heard more shots being fired along with the van doors being slammed shut, even though the shots didn’t appear to be coming toward the van. Anymore.
    “You okay, Kitty?” Hughes asked.
    “Yeah. Can we get up yet?”
    “No,” Walker replied. “You stay down. Matt, stay on top of her.” He sounded tense. Couldn’t blame him.
    “That bullet was meant for me, wasn’t it?”
    “Yeah,” Walker said. “I think it was. Good thing the Peregrine showed up when it did.”
    Gave George a nice scritchy-scratch between his wings and petted Prince while we all lay on the floor of the van. A lot of things were running through my mind, not the least of which being that I had a really good guess as to who’d just shot Eugene: Raul the Assassin with a Grudge.
    This line of reasoning raised many more questions than it answered, of course. Like where were the Dingo and Surly Vic, what was really going on, and what was the rest of the sentence Eugene was going to speak? I was most interested in the last one, since it was the only way to find whatever he’d been sent.
    The shooting stopped. Someone banged on the van three times. Hughes got off me. “The shooter might have been aiming for both of you,” he said as he helped me up.
    “Yeah.” Walker was examining the part of the van behind what was left of Eugene’s head. I pointedly looked at the big hole in the metal, versus the big hole in Eugene. Realized that I’d sort of asked for Eugene to be executed in the public square and this had been pretty close to matching my request. “I think it was an armor-piercing bullet, meaning it would have gone through Kitty and into Montgomery here, too.”
    “Intentional double-duty or just didn’t care about who else got killed?”
    “Depends on who hired him,” Hughes said. “I mean, we all agree this was the work of a professional, right?”
    “Seems like it to me.” Hoped this was noncommittal enough that neither one would ask the obvious question.
    “Which assassin that’s tried to kill you before do you think did this, Kitty?” Walker asked.
    So much for noncommittal. “Tell you guys later when we do the team debrief I just know we’re going to have.” Looked down at my dress. Sure enough, there was blood and dirt all over it. “My dress is ruined.”
    That said, I burst into tears.
    The van doors opened and someone had their arms around me in record time. “I’ll take it from here,” Jeff said as he picked me up. “One of you take the dog and get him inside the Embassy safely. The bird can take care of itself I’m sure.”
    I buried my face in Jeff’s neck as he zipped us out of the van and into the Embassy. At least I assumed that’s what he was doing. I was too busy crying like a baby. Though Jamie rarely cried like this, truth be told.
    Heard a door close and lock. Jeff sat down with me in his lap. “We’re back in the bathroom, baby.” He cleared his throat. “And the bird’s still with us.”
    “Good.” Maybe I could wash my face and attempt to not look like a bright red Christmas ornament. “George is just making sure we’re really okay. How’d you know to come get me?”
    “One of the other Peregrines showed up and started pecking at me while a couple Poofs did their jump up and down and mew in an authoritative manner thing.”
    “You can understand them now?”
    “No. I just figure that when the animals are acting up like that, it has something