Anathema Pt. 02

"Why do you call me your keeper? It doesn't sound like a good thing," Billings asks when I set my phone on the counter and rummage through the fridge for a snack.

"You report on my behavior and keep me from eating people I'm not supposed to. You're my keeper. It's not meant to be insulting or anything." I pull out a yogurt and grab a spoon, then sit in my favorite chair and fold my legs up under myself. "Help yourself if you want a snack or something to drink. I'm a terrible hostess, so you'll probably waste away waiting for me to offer things."

"When do you need to start the special hunt?" He gets up from the couch, but instead of going to the kitchen he kneels in front of me. It's vaguely familiar, and a memory of the conference room at the office swims up. His green eyes bring different thoughts, though.

"I'm psyching myself up for it. Forgive me if I'm a little daunted to be handed a job by death gods." I scrape the last of the yogurt out of the little container. These things never last long enough.

He takes the cup and spoon from me and sets them on the coffee table before turning back to me. "You need to feed, Kaya."

"I'm fine."

"You're still phased. Feeding will help that regress."

"It will fade, Billings. If you insist on feeding me every time I phase out in the Underworld, you'll be drained. I come back like this almost every single time."

"So you were insisting on a Feeder for your last hunt because..." he lets the sentence hang, but sits back on his heels and gives me a little space.

"Two hundred hours, Billings."

"Quin."

"Quin." I stand and take the yogurt and spoon back into the little kitchen. "Nine days without a feeding, without sleep. Just hunting. I was insistent because the brass knew about G's daughter, knew he was feeding her, and hadn't reassigned him."

"It's hard to find a compatible Feeder for some of you."

I look at him over the little peninsula and just wait to see if he's going to add to that excuse. "His daughter is four, Quin. Predators start feeding at around six months. That's a long time to wait and see what happens."

"You know you're listed as one of the pickiest of the trackers in the service?"

"Yep, and do you know why?" I come back around and take back my chair. He doesn't move closer to me so maybe he's starting to get it.

"They don't list a reason, just that you're difficult to work with."

"I can just imagine what that file looks like. It's probably about five miles thick, and filled with things like 'unpredictable hair color, likes long walks on the beach as long as there isn't anybody else there, listens to music too loud, makes asinine bets with death gods, and doesn't like temporary Feeders because they're painfully temporary.' Am I close?"

"Well, your file is in a really big binder," he gets up and moves back to the couch. "Your hair color changes with your moods and emotions, but none of that other stuff was in there. Why don't you like the temps?"

"Because they're temporary," I shrug.

It was weak, but all I wanted to say out loud. Using the temporary Feeders on a long hunt made me feel like I was using a hooker. Mainly because we would meet at a truck stop, they would climb in the car and I would feed, then they would leave and I would move on. It was skeevy and I hated it, and it was why I had hoped for so long that G would be reassigned. To have a permanent Feeder again.

I couldn't do more than sip from him every few days because to do anything more would risk his daughter taking too much when she fed. Those sips weren't enough. They made the hunger so much worse. It had been easier not to feed from him and just wait for the next fix.

"So I would get points if I take you to a deserted beach and let you wander by yourself?"

"Eh," I curl my lip, then grin. "You got points for the breakfast tacos and coffee."

"I'm not going to convince you to feed today, am I?"

"No. And please don't try to put me on some kind of feeding schedule. Unless I'm on an active hunt, I usually feed every three days or so."

"They don't train us for this, you know," he flops over so he's laying with his head on the arm of the couch and looking up at the ceiling. When I don't have to see those eyes from my dreams I can look at him more. "They bring in a weak tracker to the training classes for the Inhuman Division so they know if there are any Feeders. The tracker for my class couldn't even phase as much as you are now, his hair went kind of gray and he grew tiny fangs and said it was a full phase. I think if you'd shown up it would have been better."

"I'd have scared the living shit out of everyone in the room and none of the Feeders would ever volunteer for even a temp status on the lists."

He waves that off. "They point out the Feeders, and if someone volunteers the tracker will feed so we can see what it's like. I volunteered and it was rough, so I didn't sign up as a temp back then. Went into the regular service, but when the Top Five all started to refuse this case Lucy asked me to come as an incentive for you because of your requests for Feeders."

His words register as something I should probably be listening to, but I'm just looking at him. Until I meet those bright green eyes and drop my gaze before I start to blush. "They bring in the weak trackers because those of us strong enough to go to the Underworld don't get a lot of time off."

"Do the others feed like you?"

"I don't know. I've never actually met any of the others in person." I scrunch up my face. "Come to think of it I don't think I've met any of the weaker ones either."

"It feels really good when you feed," his voice is quiet. It's been soft this whole time, but now it's quiet like he's telling secrets. "I've talked to some of the temps you've fed from and not a single one of them complained about feeding you. Don't get me wrong, they complained about you being a royal bitch, but every one of them said they'd feed you again if asked. Gantry said his daughter feeds like you."

That makes me blush. "I might have had a hand in that. G mentioned she was a little rough so we got a temp one day when we were close to his house and I showed her how to feed."

"Your hair's back to normal now," he gives a small laugh. "Eyes are still black, though."

"The eyes take the longest." I look up and it's still mid-afternoon. The day seems to have been so long already, and I needed to see if I could get something from the hair. I also needed some way to carry the coin that would let me get to it fast enough to pull an escaped soul from a body. Would the body die? Was the original soul still in there, squished off to the side or something? I had no idea how any of this was supposed to work. "I'm going to get some more sleep before we start the next hunt."

"We?"

"You're my keeper, remember? Make sure to play up that royal bitch angle in your reports. I have a reputation to uphold, after all," I get up and stretch. "If I start getting calls from the academy to do training classes, I'll know who to eat."

"I'm not just a Feeder, you know. I can help on a hunt."

"Being an inhuman something-or-other kind of comes with the Inhuman Division badge."

He sits up and catches my wrist on my way to my bedroom, "I'm a dreamwalker, Kaya."

"Can you find souls in your dream world?" The question is glib, but inside I'm shaking. If he's a dreamwalker then those dreams that leave only an impression of his eyes weren't just dreams. Was it flirting? Had he known it was me in the dreams, or known about the reassignment? I do my best to keep my thoughts off my face but I'm sure my traitorous hair is up to no good. Sure enough, he's not watching my face, so I give up. "Did you do it on purpose?"

"No." His eyes finally make it to my face when my cursed hair calms down and he frowns, "You really don't sleep enough."

I smile and raise my eyebrows, "If that's what you got out of those dreams we can stick with that."

If it saves me the embarassment of him knowing he's been in the starring role in my wet dreams, I'm all for this tangent.

I'm not that lucky. He stands and is so close that my skirt catches on his jeans for a moment. "Your eyes are always black in your dreams, so when you walked into the conference room and hadn't phased I didn't know it was you. I was terrified because I could feel your hunger, and then you looked at me and phased out."

He lifts a hand and his thumb strokes over my bottom lip. "I've never been so scared and turned on in my life. You were literally the woman from my dreams, and all I could think was that I could feed you and stop that gnawing hunger. How do you live with that all the time?"

I roll my lip under for a second. "This is probably going to ruin the mood here, but I don't remember much between G waking me up that day and then waking up in your bed. Which sucks because you said I phased out and Lucy fainted, and I don't remember that at all."

"You drooled at her and she freaked," he laughs. Then he bends toward me.

All I have to do is lift my chin and I can kiss him, but I don't. Ducking my chin, his lips land on my forehead. Those dreams have been going on for a year. He's right in front of me, but I can't let this go that far. I take a half step back. "I can't, Quin."

"I can stop the phase for you, Kaya," he whispers against my hair then steps around me toward the door. "I'll see you in the morning?"

"Yeah." Then he leaves and I'm left with a ton of questions and feelings I don't want to poke at too much.

===

Somebody was beating at my door and I had to drag myself out of bed. At least this time I had actually gotten sleep before the noise started. Ignoring the door for a little bit, I go to the bathroom and pull a long tank top on over some bike shorts then head to the door. I blink up at Quin who is grinning and holding a cup of coffee like the day before didn't happen. I take the coffee and turn to take up space in my favorite chair.

He sets a box of tacos on the bar then takes a spot on the couch and opens his mouth like he's going to rip apart the silent reverence of the coffee moment. I lift a brow over the cup and he shuts his mouth. Why do Feeders have to be so happy in the morning? It's disgusting. Half done with my coffee, I get up and grab a taco and even forgive him the potato, egg, and cheese nonsense because he got the coffee right. I eat a taco and finish the coffee before sitting again.

"Can I talk now?" He asks.

"Proceed." I make a grand motion then go back to my huddle on the chair with my general hatred of waking up.

"When do you want to start the hunt?"

"I don't." Something about taking an assignment from the Underworld made me want to run and hide. Not like it would work. I'm pretty sure they could find me on their own if they wanted, or send the wraiths after me.

"We can talk about yesterday afternoon instead."

"We could go visit a proctologist, too. Either of those options seems like the better choice over this hunt." Mainly because if Nelda hadn't gotten a bite, and nobody else had when I texted them last night, I was probably the 'it' girl on this. Yay for me.

"Why didn't you sleep last night?"

"You said yourself I don't sleep enough. Up for a colonoscopy?"

"I'm trying to be serious here, Kaya."

"I'm not good at being serious this early in the morning."

"It's almost ten."

"Fuck, it's not even noon yet?" I hadn't gone to sleep until sometime around three. Par for the course on the sleep thing. I get up and go to my nightstand and grab the card box out of the drawer along with the coin. Then I start rummaging through the lower cabinets in the kitchen.

"What are you doing?"

"Starting the hunt. Sort of."

He says something, but I miss it because I find my big road map. The kind that's stupid annoying to fold back up which explains why it's crammed into a grocery bag at the back of a cabinet that will never have large cooking things in it. I come out of the kitchen and can feel myself phasing, feel the need to hunt and find and consume washing over me. When I phase in the Underworld, it's just my appearance. None of the rest of it comes following. But here on Earth? The phase brings on the hunger.

Quin steps in front of me and I take a big step back as I look up at him. "You need to feed, Kaya."

"No. This is the hunt. I know you feel the hunger, but it's part of how this works. Ask G, but I need to move my furniture." I duck around him, holding the phase at the edge just before my teeth start to go. I push my couch back until it's under the counter of the peninsula and then move the coffee table.

From the grocery bag I pull the huge road map of the United States out and spread it on the floor. Somewhere, probably in that same cabinet, is a similar map of Mexico and part of Central America. Quin pulls out his phone and perches on the arm of the couch to watch. I'm not sure how much of this he'll see. G said he only ever felt the hunger. Always the hunger.

I sit at the top of the map where Canada should be and pull the lock of hair out of the card box, setting the card box aside because it seems to work to hold the hair. Groaning, I feel a pull amost immediately. My gums burn to reveal my fangs.

Osiris was right. Even the piece of this soul is twisted. Those are the ones that taste the best. Spicy and tangy like a real good salsa. My hand moves over the map, mostly over Texas but the soul isn't in my home state. That would be too easy. I move west and the pull lessens so I move east until the hair all but pulls my hand down on top of Mississippi. I won't be able to narrow it down more than this without a state map and Google doesn't work. I've tried, but it's like the magic or whatever fuels this doesn't recognize the electronic map.

I pick up the card box and drop the hair into it so it doesn't get messed up, then I go back to the cabinets. No, I need to go to my closet. Quin is saying something, but I'm beyond conversation at this point. I have an atlas somewhere and there should be a somewhat zoomed in state map of Mississippi in it. I don't want to have to hunt the entire state if I can narrow this down to a region first. My mouth is watering at the spicy tang of the piece of the soul in the hair. I might be drooling again, but I can't bring myself to care. I need that atlas.

It's one of those comically large books they used to sell in gift shops or something. The damn thing is bigger across than my chest and it weighs a ton. I thump it down on the floor between the bed and the closet and flip through the pages, just aware enough not to tear through them as I search for the right map. I don't need an accurate representation of the streets and highways, just the borders and enough to get a general idea of where to start.

It may not work for this finding shit, but GPS works great for the rest of it. I don't even pull the hair out of the box this time. I just stick my fingers in to touch the strands and my palm slams down in the northern part of the state. Boo. I've never been to Biloxi and that might not change this time. Not that I would remember it anyway.

I let the hair go, shut the atlas, and start to shove it back into the closet so I can grab a duffel bag and start packing when hands grab me and pull me out of the closet.

"Damn it, Kaya, you need to feed!"

I'm not thinking that this is supposed to be my partner. I'm not thinking that this man has been nothing but a good keeper in the time we've been assigned to each other. All I'm thinking is there is food right in front of me and the hunger is right there. My fangs erupt from my jaws and I bite into the first thing I can reach.

The hot blood spilling over my tongue is like a slap to the face and I let go, falling away from him and into the closet. "No. Nononono."

Quin's shoulder is a bloody mess, the shirt ripped away and he looks terrified. I huddle down into the side of my closet, forcing the phase to regress as my fingers push through my hair. It flashes between pitch black and the silvery white of my fear. It happened again even though I tried to stop it. Why was he in here? G wouldn't have told him to try to pull me out of the phase. Had he even talked to G? Why did he grab me?

I can't even look at him. Tears burn down my face as I reach for my phone in the little pocket of the shorts. I text G our SOS signal. He'll know how to help Quin and hopefully they won't cart me off for almost eating my keeper. The phone slips from my hand with a thud and my head falls to my knees. I resign myself to whatever is going to happen to me. I don't know what they'll do to someone like me.

I don't know how long we stay like that - him sitting on the edge of the bed and me hiding in the closet - but eventually G's there. He gives something to Quin and then he's kneeling in front of me.

"Kaya," his voice is even and his hands are out like I'm a scared animal. Maybe I am. "Kaya, baby. What happened?"

"Just like last time," I mumble. I lick my lips but I can still taste blood so I change to trying to wipe my mouth on my shirt. "They're going to kill me, G."

"Nobody's going to kill you, Kaya."

"Why did he touch me, G? Why did he have to touch me?" My throat is tight and I can't stop crying or rocking. I wrap my arms around my legs and try to make myself smaller. "I should be locked away."

Somewhere I can hear water running, one of the neighbors has their music really loud, but I can't seem to get a grip on anything. "If you get locked away who's going to teach my little girl how to hunt, hm?"

I shake my head against my knees. There are other trackers and he knows it. Safer trackers. Trackers who don't eat their keepers.

I can hear G shift on the floor in front of me. "Quin's new, Kaya. Not to the Bureau, but to Feeding. You're his first Predator. His first real feed was the day you made Lucy faint in the conference room. He's never felt the hunger of a hunt. This isn't your fault, or his. If anybody is to blame it's me. I should have told him to leave the apartment altogether, but I didn't think he'd try to touch you. Look at me, Kaya."

I sniff and look at him over my knees. "Remember, I was assigned to Nelda before you. I knew more of what to expect when you became my ward, and you still hit me like a Mack truck upside the head on our first hunt. He didn't have that experience." He tilts his head to the side, "Now look at him. He's fine."

I turn my head and somewhere in all the talking Quin has sat on the floor with his back against the bed. There's not a lot of space so he's closer than he should be considering I just tried to take a chunk out of his shoulder. He must have been the one running water and I can see the edge of a bandage under his shirt, but he no longer looks scared. Concerned, maybe, but not terrified like he had been earlier.

"I have to say this explains some things," Quin tries to joke, but G waves him down.

"I did tell you not to touch her during a hunt unless she comes to you for a feed. I should have explained that more," G says.

I move out of the closet and Quin flinches. It's not a big motion, but I see it and I fall back with a sob I can't seem to control. G curses, but doesn't move to touch me for a minute. I can see my hair turning black, but I don't feel like I'm phasing. It's just the cursed hair. "I can't do this anymore, G."

"You can, Kaya," he says. Then his fingers graze my arms over my legs and when I don't lunge to bite him, he pulls me closer. "All the good Feeders have scars, and we're all a little scared of our trackers. Don't tell the others I told you, though. They think it's a big secret."

"Nobody ever said anything about this," Quin says quietly.

G shifts, resting his chin on the top of my head and rubbing my back. "You know there are different levels of power for the trackers? They do still teach at least that much in the academy, right?"