16: Dangerous Direction

RIKA POV

“That should do it,” I mutter to myself as I plug in the last HDMI cable in my elaborate configuration of monitors, cables, and communication boxes for the surveillance cameras and microphones that Zoe and I planted in the lycans’ townhouse.

“Lookin’ gooooooood, girl!” Zoe commends me as I crawl out from under one of my desks and join her in surveying my handiwork. Each of my dozens of monitors shows a different perspective within our targets’ dwelling. Most noteworthy at present are the ones in their living/dining area, specifically the section where the lycans have their collective home office set up. All three of them are there, sitting at their respective desks, but from the looks of things, Xander and Callum are far more interested in interrogating Drake than doing any actual work.

“Let’s see if we have sound.” I mess with the settings on my main desktop, asking my devices for audio feed from the microphones in that room. My speakers crackle and hiss for a few seconds, and then we hear Xander as though he’s standing in the room with us.

“—there for the better part of an hour with her and you’re telling me you didn’t even try to hold her hand?!” he demands, seeming unreasonably outraged by the idea.

“We were both holding bubble tea,” Drake responds. Even from our remote vantage point, it’s clear that he wants his friends to leave him alone.

“This may come as a shock to you, Xander, but not everyone lookin’ to score on the first date,” Callum tells his mohawk-sporting friend wryly.

“Seems Drake’s something of a gentleman,” Zoe observes as they guys continue to banter.

“Indeed. But that’s only good if they’re not actually worthy of being our targets,” I muse. I wonder how Sasha feels about it. She should be back soon, since he’s already home from their outing.

“Anselm seems pretty…invested in this mission. Do you think he knows something we don’t?”

“Highly unlikely. I would’ve found it by now. I’ve been scouring WASP’s files for additional information on these lycans. Their pack has some interesting history, including a few past run-ins with WASP, but nothing noteworthy specifically naming any of these three. But Anselm might be prejudiced against their pack, based on those past incidents.”

We hear the front door open downstairs. “Come on up, Sasha!” Zoe calls, darting to the doorway of my tech hub, which directly faces the top of the stairs. “We have something fun to show you.”

“Ah good. I was wondering if I’d get a treat for going on a date with him,” Sasha’s sultry tones respond, laden with undercurrents of mixed feelings. I envy her effortless beauty and personal magnetism. It’s no wonder Drake’s so into her; more surprising is that the other two don’t seem to be equally drawn to her. “Sashimi, maybe?”

“Was the bubble tea not enough of a treat?”

“It was delicious, but I….” Sasha’s voice trails off as she enters my domain and sees my wall of surveillance monitors. “Oh, wow. The two of you have been busy.”

“Since all three of them left for this date of yours with Drake, we decided to make ourselves useful,” I explain, quite proud of myself. I think this is the fastest I’ve ever set up a surveillance rig this extensive.

“Excellent audio and video quality. And extremely thorough coverage. The two of you must have worked very quickly.”

“Fastest ever, I’m pretty sure. But their layout is the same as ours. Rika had everything planned down to the tiniest details before we went in,” Zoe brags on me, making my smug smile broaden. I love her so much.

“Well, with any luck, this should keep me from having to go on more dates this week, before our supposed weapons-related adventure with them Saturday, anyway. Have you and Callum started discussing that yet, Zoe?”

“Not yet. He has my number but I don’t have his—I know he texted me last night, but my phone updated and things are wonky and I can’t find the message—so I’m just kind of waiting for him to text me. Don’t suppose you could pull a string or two with Drake to speed that along?”

“More than likely I can, but I’d prefer to wait a few hours before I text him again. Don’t want to seem too eager.”

“And why not? Wouldn’t you rather move things as quickly as possible to get it over with?” I question. I’m genuinely curious. She’s been more closed-off than usual about her interactions with this target, as opposed to others she’s ended up having to flirt with or romance in order to achieve our mission objectives.

“I told you, I’m not seducing him.”

“Doesn’t seem like you have to. He’s pretty smitten,” Zoe replies, gesturing to my wall of monitors. We all listen for a few moments as Drake struggles to articulate just how good Sasha looks in her red dress with her hair loose and wavy. She could pass for a siren, without those cat pupils. Xander and Callum are exchanging glances; more than likely they haven’t seen Drake this far gone for a woman before, at least not one he’s only had a couple conversations with.

“That’s part of the problem,” Sasha grumbles, agitated enough that her canines are elongating, whiskers are sprouting near her nose, and her fingernails are extending into wickedly sharp claws. “He’s been so kind and gentlemanly, not like the past targets for this sort of work who were just looking to fuck. And he’s legitimately committed to helping the disadvantaged and the downtrodden. He hasn’t said anything remotely incriminating at this point, either! It’s not even out in the open that either of us is anything but human!”

“Hey, breathe,” Zoe says soothingly, placing a comforting hand on Sasha’s shoulder, which makes our assassin comrade flinch, but her feline features slowly start to recede into the guise of humanity. “You don’t wanna ruin that dress, especially not after it was such a smash hit.”

“I don’t want to continue with this mission,” Sasha hisses darkly. “I am absolutely the wrong operative for this.”

“If you want the mission to end quickly, I think you’re exactly the right operative for this,” I assure her, my mind processing through various calculations and possibilities as I speak. “As much as he seems to like you, it should be no time at all before he’ll answer any question you ask him truthfully and we can wrap this up sooner rather than later. Anselm will have to get off our backs about them if you keep turning up no incriminating evidence.”

“But how much deeper into dating him am I going to have to go to convince Anselm that they’re not a threat?” She’s staring into middle distance towards my monitors, seeing but not seeing as Xander lights into Drake for dragging things out.

“The next time you see her, you’d best be finding out for sure if she’s the one or not,” he orders Drake. “No sense wasting time on her if she’s not. You’ve been wrong about girls before.”

“And we don’t wanna see you get hurt again,” Callum adds, more earnest and less fiery than Xander.

“We’ll…see if a good opportunity presents itself, the next time we go out,” Drake hedges, glancing involuntarily towards his phone. Sasha twitches, the stifling of an involuntary shiver.

“You like him,” I accuse gently, although I can hardly believe it even as the words leave my lips.

“I don’t want a relationship. I don’t want to date anyone, let alone a lycan who’s also a target for a mission, and I certainly don’t want to be his soul mate.” Her words are venom, her eyes emerald fire. But she didn’t outright deny it. My eyes meet Zoe’s as Sasha stares into middle distance again. What are we going to do? This has never happened on a mission before. Of the three of us, Sasha is by far the best at keeping her feelings out of her work.

“I know you don’t want to, Sasha, but you’ll probably have to go on at least a couple more dates with him, to accumulate the evidence and documentation we’ll need to prove that these lycans aren’t a threat to the established order and are not in violation of any WASP policies,” Zoe tells her, regretful but firm.

“Maybe, maybe not. Rika, you’re recording all of this surveillance footage, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am,” I reply, mildly annoyed that she felt the need to ask. “Several external hard drives are hooked into the system to save hard copies of all footage. I’ll be going through and deleting footage with no lycans in it periodically to free up space, but even if I wasn’t doing that, we have enough storage space for several days’ worth of straight footage. We could in theory be here for weeks before I would have to invest in more hard drives, although I know we all hope that we’ll wrap this up much sooner than that.”

“Absolutely. Thank you. I just had to check, for my own peace of mind. I know you’re a professional.”

“Damn straight, and much as we all would rather not be at HQ, I’m not interested in dragging this out if you’re going to be miserable.”

“I appreciate that.” Her eyes focus on Zoe and me again, but something in them tells me she’s seen metaphorical writing on the wall, and she’s not pleased with what she’s read.

“Are you…good, Sasha?” Zoe asks.

Sasha’s expression hardens. “I will do what needs to be done.”

“That’s not what I asked, babe. Are you all right?”

“I’m…fine. Perfectly fine. More committed than ever to the execution of justice. Just…tired.” She forces a smile, bright but brittle and far from convincing. “You know how it is. No matter how much we try to train it out of me, I’m still a cat, and cats still need to sleep for the majority of the day. I’ll just…go take a nap, and then I’ll text Drake about the potential group outing on Saturday, and we’ll discuss next steps from there.”

She darts out of my tech hub and into her bedroom next door before either Zoe or I can reply.

“She is not fine,” I mouth to Zoe, and she nods vigorously.

“Whatever you send Anselm in today’s report,” she replies so softly that I have to lean closer to hear her, even with my enhanced senses, “do not tell him anything about her and Drake.”

“Of course not,” I reply in kind. Whatever the specifics may be, it’s very clear that Sasha is in something of a fragile state of mind, and any extra pressure from Anselm might well push her in a very dangerous direction. “Not like we have much that’s concrete in that regard, anyway, other than that he’s super into her.”

“We might be able to get more, if they’re still talking about the date.”

We turn our attention back to my surveillance apparatus for a few moments, but it seems the lycans have settled into doing their actual jobs at this point.

“No worries. We can watch the replay, and if anything new and exciting starts, the replay can be paused.”

“Good call.” Zoe grabs my spare chair from the corner and pulls it up next to me. “Let’s find out about this date, then.”