Kill Monsters, Get Rich 2 Chapter 4

“Sami doesn’t want to risk getting flagged in the system,” Kylah said as she read the texts off her phone. “So she’s not going to try and check out any books with the stolen card.”

“She’s going to be doing all that research all on her own?” I asked with a frown, because that was a lot of reading, and even for someone who loved books as much as Asami Tanaka did, it was a daunting task.

The sheer breadth of information she would need to sift through would be immense. She didn’t have a password for Jake Haystead’s login, meaning she wouldn’t be able to use the internet and skim-read e-books by searching for useful terms. Admittedly, the Sanctuary hadn’t seemed too big on technology-- insofar as digitizing its resources went-- but even with access to an academic library, there would still be a lot of wrong stuff for Asami to sift through.

Kylah gave a soft little laugh that reminded me of a tinkling bell, and she twisted a lock of hair around her finger as she put her phone back in her pocket.

“Don’t worry,” she said with a knowing smile. “She’ll be fine. And if she isn’t, Kegan can just steal another student ID, and one of us can go help.”

“Not it,” Carmen said immediately, and I shot her a look, but she just shrugged. “What? I don’t like research. Don’t like reading. I’m more of a hands-on, practical learner.”

As a matter of fact, I knew exactly how ‘hands on’ my sister liked to be with her learning, because she’d disassembled the engine to our foster father’s prized 1930s Cadillac when we’d been fourteen. Allegedly, this had been so she could compare the differences between its engine and that of a modern Cadillac, but I still didn’t know where she’d gotten a modern Cadillac engine from and for many reasons, I didn’t want to.

Theo had not been pleased about the engine. He’d been slightly less not-pleased when Carmen reassembled it flawlessly. The day my sister turned fifteen, he’d helped her get a part-time mechanic job at a nearby garage, and she’d gone full-time upon graduating high-school, while I’d joined the military.

Even if we’d had the money for college-- which we hadn’t-- neither I nor Carmen were the academic type. I didn’t much like research either, but I still felt a bit guilty about Asami doing that much work all by herself.

“She really will be alright, Leo,” Kylah insisted with a smile. “There’s nothing Sami likes more than to be surrounded by piles and piles of old books.”

Kegan walked over to sit at the end of the bed, right next to where Carmen was sitting, cross-legged. The blond man peered over my sister’s shoulders for a few moments, and then he looked over at Kylah with a grin.

“Well,” he said to Carmen in a low enough voice that Kylah didn’t seem to hear it, but I did. “I reckon I can think of one-- maybe two-- things she’d prefer to be surrounded by. Don’t you?”

I had no idea what Kegan was referring to, but evidently my sister did, because she let out a snicker, and when I shot her another look, she just smiled at me as pleasantly and innocently as possible. As if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

That crap wouldn’t work on me. I knew her almost better than she knew herself. I’d seen her try to charm friends and teachers and guardians for years with that exact same look. When she’d broken Theo and Maria’s ten p.m. curfew on her first date with Lisa, when she’d forgotten to do her homework and lied about spilling a drink over it, when she’d been trying to get her friend Jack to ask out his crush by needling him constantly about how much the girl obviously liked him.

“Care to share with the class, Monkey?” I asked as I raised an eyebrow.

“Nah, I’m good,” Carmen replied breezily. “Now, while you and Kegan were putting up with the Order of the Sticks-Up-Their-Asses, Kylah and I made some progress of our own.”

“You did?” I asked and grinned at Kylah. “What did you find?”

“Well, the precinct was a bust, because their records room requires an ID to even enter, which we don’t have,” my sister explained to Kegan and me.

“So, instead, Carmen and I just went to a local supernatural bar,” the blonde woman said with a shrug. “Chatted to people, asked for information.”

“You’d be surprised how forgiving people are with details when you genuinely want to help with a problem that’s been terrorizing their community,” my sister said in a bland tone. “They were all too happy to cough up information when we complained about how ineffectual the Order was being.”

“Ask a question, you get nothing, state an opinion, you’ll have answers galore,” I agreed with a nod.

“Exactly,” Kylah said with a smile.

I ducked down and kissed her again since I was impressed.

“So, Kylah and I made notes on everything the locals told us, and we managed to get a rough timeline of events,” my sister said.

“That sounds an awful lot like research,” I remarked with a grin that only got wider when Carmen glared at me.

“We’ve managed to narrow down the first attacks by this creature to about a year ago,” Kylah said, and they both led Kegan and I through to the room they shared with Asami. On the wall, they’d tacked up a huge expanse of newspaper clippings and what Carmen had been able to learn through a rudimentary internet search, which had unexpectedly included some police case files that were illegally leaked to the public about six months ago.

“One of the humans who got ‘mauled by a mountain lion,’” Kylah said with extremely dramatic air-quotes, “was the son of the dean of the nearby university, so his father was able to kick up enough of a fuss and circumvent enough bureaucracy, got ahold of the file, and published it online with a number for anonymous tips.”

“Which were of course flooded with total garbage, because the only people who actually know what is going on are not going to touch human authorities with a ten-foot barge pole,” Carmen added unnecessarily. “All of the ‘information’ was from people just trying to fuck with him.”

“Bit fucked up,” I remarked with a frown. “His son died.”

“His son was embroiled in three separate sexual assault lawsuits,” Carmen deadpanned. “Daddy decided to settle in all three cases. Somehow, those allegations didn’t even make the papers until after the murder file was leaked.”

“His dad was able to pay for a cover-up until he antagonized the cops,” I said with a nod. “But we have the case file, then?”

“I don’t know how useful it is, since the autopsy is ruled as an animal attack,” Kylah said with a frown. “I do wonder what the excuse would be if we were in a state that didn’t have cougars.”

“Bears, freak case of migration, anything that doesn’t make the coroner look like a crazy guy,” Carmen said as she waved her hand back and forth carelessly. “But the timeline is actually pretty useful. People talk about sighting weird aura or feeling an unusual magical signature on a pretty regular basis, about every six weeks.”

“However, this doesn’t line up with any species’ timeline we know of,” Kylah told Kegan and me. “Vampires need to feed at least once every two months, but it’s more common for them to act weekly. Werewolves can only change form on the full moon.”

“And the last attack was about five-and-a-half weeks ago,” my sister added. “So the next attack will probably be within the next few days.”

“It’s good we’ll have more overt signs to track,” I said carefully. “But I’m not too enthused about the idea of being on a hard deadline.”

“Agreed.” Kegan nodded. “We don’t want anybody else getting hurt, and we don’t have enough information yet to guarantee we’ll be able to save them in time.”

“And you’re absolutely sure it’s just one species?” I asked with a pointed look at Kylah.

“Frankly, I’m becoming more and more convinced that it’s just one creature,” the blonde woman answered, and her brow furrowed with displeasure. “I’m not the researcher, so I can’t make as educated a guess as Sami. Hopefully, she turns something up at the library.”

“She will,” I said with confidence.

“There’s just the question of whether she does before the next attack,” Carmen said, and she looked over at the papers with a frown. “Do we want to try and catch this thing ourselves? If someone could get seriously hurt, or even killed, we should be moving to attack, shouldn’t we?”

“I don’t know if we have the resources to mount an effective attack on this thing,” Kegan told her and cocked his head to look at where she was looking, at one of the pages from the police file that had been leaked online. “We only have one official case file.”

“We can try again once you pickpocket some cop,” my sister said with a grin and elbowed him encouragingly.

“Better yet, one of the people who actually work in the records room,” I added, and I folded my arms as I, too, grinned at Kegan. “But I don’t think we should try to attack or capture this thing. We don’t have enough information, and we definitely don’t have enough people or weapons. We’re too in the dark, and if we get caught off guard, we’re fucked.”

I was used to risking my life by now, but when it came to the lives of my sister, my friends, my team, I was a lot more careful. If we charged in, guns blazing, and someone got hurt, I knew I would never forgive myself.

“You said the aura looked weird,” Kylah said with a nod. “I think this is a job that should be approached with caution, even if we’re on a tight deadline.”

By the way her mouth twisted, I could tell Carmen was uneasy at the idea of someone getting hurt because of us wanting to be careful, so I reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

“We’re not leaving this alone,” I promised her firmly. “We’re just being careful. We won’t just stand back and let people get hurt, but if we only go in with half the information, we’re the ones who will get hurt.”

“And no one else will be left to try and stop this thing,” Kegan added.

I nodded to him in agreement, and Carmen managed a small, rueful smile.

“Alright, I see your guys’ point,” she eventually said with a sigh, and she patted my hand. “We’re playing it smart.”

“And you’re one of the smartest people I know,” I said to her, and she grinned.

“Only when it comes to an internal combustion engine,” she snorted, but I could tell she was pleased.

“So, if we’re not going to make an offensive move on this thing tonight, what d’you want to do?” Kegan then asked me. “Shall I steal another student ID so we can give Asami some backup?”

“Let’s see what she comes up with tonight, first,” I said. “You’re still technically on R-and-R, dude, you shouldn’t even have been out hunting the revenants.”

“I feel fine,” the blond man said as he frowned at me in a slightly petulant way. “There’s not any damage left, physically anyway.”

“No, but we don’t want to put strain on you, or Sami,” Kylah said.

We all knew that while the Japanese woman knew some basic healing magic, it was only basic, and a severe injury would be too complex and too exhausting for her to try to heal. None of us wanted to put any more stress on Asami than necessary, which was just another item on the long list of Reasons To Not Be Stupid.

“It’s psychosomatic,” Kegan said in a stern tone as he looked at his sister. “I got hurt on a field mission, it’s going to flare up more when I’m stressed about field missions. I have it under control.”

“I’m serious, Kegan,” I said as I matched his tone. “We don’t want anyone to get hurt, and we don’t have the capacity to fix serious injuries if someone does.”

“Then I need to practice,” the blond man said like it was obvious. “I need experience in the field. I’ve been training for years, I have the skills, just like Kylah. All we need is the opportunity to put what we learn into practice.”

“Our foster mother used to always tell us that the first year after you pass your test is when you actually learn how to drive,” Carmen said. “So, if you guys leaving the Order is passing the test, this year is you actually learning to drive.”

“At least we know how to operate the car,” Kylah said with amusement, and with a grin, Carmen flipped the blonde woman off.

“My point is, I don’t want anyone on our team taking on more than they can handle,” Kylah said. “That goes for Sami with her healing magic, and you, Kegan, because you’re still recovering.”

“Okay, so we take tonight off,” my sister then suggested with a shrug. “Strictly non-combat activities, and we wait to see what Asami turns up at the library.”

“You know, I wouldn’t mind a break,” Kylah admitted in a sheepish voice, and she twisted a blonde curl around her finger again as she bit her lip. “It’s been kind of non-stop ever since… well. Ever since Kegan and I met the two of you.”

“It really has,” I said, because the realization only dawned on me as Kylah said it. But man, I was actually exhausted. I’d barely had a chance to sit down and think in the past three weeks, and no chances at all in the past two.

“Tonight off it is, then,” Kegan said, but I could tell he was a little frustrated the decision had been partly based on the fact he was still recovering from an injury. “As long as you lot don’t force me to take it any easier than you all do.”

“Fully egalitarian, you have my word.” I smirked, and the blond man smiled dryly at me.

“In that case, I’m going to a bar,” Carmen announced, and she stood up from the bed and grabbed Kegan’s hand. “And you’re coming with me.”

“I am?” he asked, though he didn’t look remotely bothered by the idea.

“Absolutely,” Carmen replied with a decisive nod. “You haven’t been able to drink for weeks because you got shanked. You have some catching up to do, and I’m gonna help you do it.”

“Well, that’s that, then!” Kylah said, and she let out another tinkling laugh. “You two have fun!”

“We’ll hit up that supernatural bar,” Carmen told her. “See if we can get any more information from the locals. If not, I’ll drink blondie here under the table.”

Kegan very pointedly looked Carmen up and down and gave a small scoff. He was about an inch taller than me, albeit slenderer, and my sister was a half-foot shorter than me. She wasn’t short by any stretch of the imagination, but she was still a lot smaller than Kegan.

I, however, knew better, and when Kegan scoffed, I grinned.

“First mistake,” I warned him with a laugh.

“He’s right,” Carmen agreed in a faux-serious tone. “There are two things no one can beat me at: car repairs, and drinking.”

“In that case, we’ll know to pick the pair of you up from the hospital after Kegan has his stomach pumped,” Kylah giggled. “You guys have fun.”

“Back atcha.” Carmen grinned, and when she shot me a very unsubtle wink, I glared at her.

It was true, though, that in the past two weeks, Kylah and I had no time alone together. It hadn’t made sense for her, Kegan, and Asami to blow all their money living in a hotel when Carmen and I had a perfectly decent apartment, so the five of us squeezed into the two-bedroom, with Asami sharing Carmen’s room and the Campbells sleeping in my room, since I’d refused to let a guy recovering from a stab wound sleep on a couch.

As a result, when Carmen and Kegan pulled the motel room door shut behind them, and left me and Kylah alone together for the first time in two weeks, I wasted no time in leaning forward and kissing her deeply.

She smiled against my mouth and curled her hands into the lapels of my jacket to pull me closer.

“Getting right to it, are we?” she teased softly.

“Are you complaining?” I asked as I pulled away from her lips to mouth kisses down her neck. I was looking for that little spot that would make her give a soft whimper and tremble in my arms, and I grinned into her skin when I found it..

“Absolutely not,” she answered in a breathy voice, and her arms slid up over my shoulders, around my neck, to hold me close. “I just-- I thought you would want to go talk to locals, too?”

I hummed against her neck like I was pretending to actually consider this, and my hands slid slowly up and down her back as I kept kissing along her throat.

“Nah,” I said after a few seconds. “I trust Kegan. And Monkey. They’ll handle it just fine. And he said he needed the chance to practice, right?”

“He did,” Kylah murmured as she tipped her head back a little to give me better access, and one of her hands reached up to tangle in the hair at the base of my skull and pushed my mouth closer to her neck.

I rolled my hips into hers to let her feel just how much I’d missed her like this, just how much I wanted her like this, and she gave a small, gasping moan as she tried and only half-succeeded to choke it back.

And fuck, had I missed her.

Top priority for our group now was a place where we could live without being crammed on top of one another. Carmen and I had a bit of money from our parents, but not enough to buy an apartment in LA. But maybe, now that we’d teamed up with three magically-gifted badasses, that could change, and Kylah and I could have a room to ourselves more frequently than once every two weeks.

“Do that again,” Kylah muttered, and her other hand gripped desperately at my shoulder as she pressed herself against me. “God, Leo, I…”

“What?” I asked in a vaguely teasing tone as I kissed my way back to her mouth and crashed her lips against mine. “What do you want?”

“You,” she breathed back as she held my face in her hands, and my lips brushed against hers as she spoke. “Want you.”

“You have me,” I swore to her as I walked her back toward the bed, and my hands were palming at her hips and ass and pulling her close against my crotch.

I wanted her so bad it was almost physically painful.

Kylah let herself fall backward onto the bed, and she pulled me along with her with one hand in my hair and the other around my shoulders while scratching lightly at my back. I knelt over her and pressed frantic kisses to her neck and collar before I grew frustrated by her neckline and reached for her hips to rip her shirt off over her head.

Her hands went to my shoulders and tugged meaningfully at the jacket I was still wearing, and I scrambled to shrug it off my shoulders before I let Kylah pull at the hem of my t-shirt and remove that, too.

Our kiss broke only for a moment as I pulled the shirt over my head and threw it carelessly aside, but I leaned back down to devour her mouth with my own as if I hadn’t seen her in years. I put a hand behind her knee to hike her leg up around my hips and pressed against her again, and even through my jeans and hers I knew she could feel how hard I was for her, because she let out a low moan.

“Off,” she panted. “Jeans off, now.”

“Fuck yes,” I groaned and kissed her again. Her hands scrabbled to unbuckle my belt and undo my fly, and even that slight relief of pressure was enough to make me moan a little into her mouth.

It was graceless and awkward as I kicked off my jeans while trying not to break our kiss, but I did manage it, and Kylah shuffled further up the bed as I undid the button of her fly and tugged her pants down by the belt loops. I kissed my way down her stomach as I went, and by the time her jeans were falling off her ankles and to the floor, I was mouthing kisses over her abdomen, and her hand was scratching the base of my skull in a silent plea.

I nuzzled her stomach with a grin before I crawled my way back up to her and let my hand slide under the cotton of her panties to brush lightly over her clit.

“Fuck, you’re so wet,” I murmured as I kissed her.

“Want you so bad,” Kylah whined and wrapped her legs tight around my hips. “Please, Leo, don’t-- don’t make me wait, fuck.”

When she was begging me like that, who was I to refuse?

I slid one finger inside her and grinned as she shuddered and moaned, and her head rolled back against the pillows. I slowly pumped in and out a few times before adding a second, until she began to claw at my shoulders.

“Please,” she panted into my ear, and before I could answer or tease or do as she asked, she shoved me hard in the shoulders so I flipped onto my back. The next thing I knew, Kylah was straddling me and grinding her hips down against mine so hard I couldn’t stop the low moan that ripped itself from my throat.

The blonde woman then leaned down to kiss me, hard and desperate, and when she pulled away she whispered, “Take off your boxers.”

I was only too happy to comply, and I shuffled them off as she reached behind her back to remove her bra. I sat up to kiss her sternum and each of my hands squeezed at her breasts, which distracted her from taking off her panties as she arched her back and clung to me. She seemed to remember her original goal after a while and pushed me down onto my back so she could shimmy them off, and I took one of her nipples into my mouth and rolled the other between my fingers.

“Shit,” she groaned and pressed herself closer to me. “Shit…”

I grinned as I pulled away from her chest and tipped my head up to kiss her mouth again, but my smile turned into a shaking gasp when Kylah reached down between us to grab hold of me and stroke me a few times.

“Oh, fuck…” I breathed against her mouth.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I answered quickly. “Yeah, fuck yeah. Please.”

With that, she sank down onto me, and we each let out a moan. Kylah’s hands dug into my shoulders and mine into her hips. It took every fiber of my self-control not to thrust up into her, but I let her take the pace as she adjusted, and soon she was moving on top of me. Her breath punched from her chest with every stroke, and her burning emerald eyes were staring into mine while her mouth dropped open in a perfect little ‘o.’

“Oh, god,” she groaned as she rolled her hips into mine and forced me deep. “Right there, fuck, fuck, right there.”

After two weeks of barely more than a couple of kisses, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hold out for very long. Kylah was too hot, too tight, too perfect, so I wrapped one hand around her back and pulled her down over me, and my other went between us to rub at her clit.

“Shit!” Kylah let out a high-pitched squeal, and her fingers dug hard into my shoulders. “Fuck, Leo!”

“You close?” I asked her and bit her lower lip gently.

She hissed into my mouth and pushed herself ever closer to me, with hips still rolling into mine.

“Yeah,” she breathed. “Yeah, I-- god.”

“Come on,” I encouraged, and I sped up my hand a little, just enough to make her start to shudder in my grasp. “Wanna-- wanna see you. Wanna feel you cum for me.”

“Yes,” she agreed desperately, and I felt her begin to spasm around me, so I had to grit my teeth to hold on just a little longer. “Yes, yes, yes-- oh!”

Kylah pushed her hips into mine as she came with a cry, and a moment later I followed her over the edge and came so hard my vision went white. We undulated against each other as I filled her up, and I felt the blonde’s teeth dig into my shoulder as she spasmed on top of me.

By the time I returned to earth, Kylah had too, and she stared at me, panting hard, with her hands braced on my chest. I managed a slow, lazy smile and leaned up to give her a slow, lazy kiss.

“Fuck…” she breathed against my mouth as she kissed me back. “That was… intense… Feels like you poured a gallon of sperm into me.”

“Maybe we should always leave it two weeks, then,” I teased, and she swatted me.

“Don’t even think about it,” she warned. She eased off me carefully and shifted so she was lying on the bed beside me, and I turned onto my side to pull her into my arms and nuzzle the crook of her shoulder.

“We need a shower,” I told her. “Care to join me?”

“That sounds nice.” She smiled and kissed me. “But let’s use the one in your room. Ours is a bit weird.”

I grabbed my towel and followed Kylah into my and Kegan’s room. After the intensity of the sex, I was content to hold her in my arms under the hot water and pepper soft kisses over her cheeks and shoulders, and we both found we were so tired from the non-stop action of the past fortnight that we couldn’t even be bothered to get dressed or even return to the girls’ room, so we crawled naked into my bed with still-damp hair.

“We definitely need to get a place with more than two bedrooms,” Kylah said as she absently ran her hand up and down my sternum.

“Carmen said the same, don’t worry,” I yawned. “I think we could all use a little more privacy than what our current situation gets us.”

“I haven’t shared a room with my brother since before we came to the Sanctuary,” Kylah told me, and I tipped my head to look down at her.

“You remember?” I asked her, and my eyebrows raised. “Your life before you came to the Sanctuary?”

“A little.” She shrugged. “Not a huge amount. But I remember our father didn’t have a very large house, so Kegan and I shared a room.”

“Do you… like those memories?” I asked her carefully.

“I don’t have any particularly good or bad ones,” she said. “Just neutral stuff. Sharing a room with Kegan. Playing at the beach one summer. I don’t know. Kegan remembers more than I do.”

“I get the sense he doesn’t like your father much,” I admitted.

“He doesn’t,” Kylah said with a nod. “I’m a little more neutral, but I think that’s mainly because I don’t really remember him. You can’t hate someone you don’t know.”

“He’s not worth it,” I said. “Your hate, or Kegan’s. You guys have your own family without him.”

Kylah tipped her head up to smile at me, and she leaned forward to peck my lips.

“You’re right,” she said and nuzzled my shoulder. “We do.”

The peace of this moment was shattered a second later when Carmen burst into the room, opened her mouth to announce something, noticed Kylah and I were naked in bed, and interrupted herself before she’d even started speaking to let out a horrified yell.

“Leo!” she shouted and clapped her hands over my eyes. “God! What the fuck, dude?”

“What do you mean what the fuck?” I demanded. “It’s my room, Monkey!”

“It’s also my room,” Kegan said from the doorway, and while he grimaced at the sight of his twin sister in bed with a guy, he didn’t totally freak out like my twin sister had.

“I thought you guys were at a bar,” Kylah said as she pulled the blankets up to her chin. “What happened?”

“I’m not talking to either of you when I know you’re both naked under there,” Carmen said, still with her hand over her eyes. “Put on some clothes, then we’ll explain.”

“You know, we’re naked under clothes, too,” I told her, and with her free hand she flipped me off.

“Just get dressed, Pip!” she said, and she stopped flipping me off to grasp around behind her for Kegan. She shoved him toward the door that adjoined our group’s two rooms and then began groping for the doorknob to shut it behind her. “We have information about the creature attacks!”

“You do?” I asked, and all thoughts of embarrassing my sister vanished. “What?”

Carmen finally located the doorknob and began to pull the door shut, but before it closed entirely, Kegan called out from the girls’ bedroom.

“There’s going to be one tonight.”