Page 3 of Hellhound AU

Milo looked toward the cabin. “Did you see anyone come out?” he asked.

“Uhh… no?”

Right then my cell phone went off again, the sound of “Bad Reputation” by Joan Jett filling the clearing.

He stared at me while I studiously ignored the ringing phone. “You going to get that?” he asked.

I just shook my head.

“Okay, then. Call someone if the woods catch on fire.” And with that, Milo took his suitcase, turned around, and headed back into the woods.

I listened to him crash through the undergrowth until it was a faint whisper. I wasn’t sure when I made the decision to follow him, but my feet seemed to have a mind of their own.

I was just looking out for the human, after all.

2

Author’s Note:

Sorry this chapter took forever. I ended up coughing and sneezing, and I figured I had the flu, which is totally ridiculous because IassumedI couldn’t get sick, since my boyfriend doesn’t get sick. So after two days of misery, I finally went to the doctor, and I found out I wasn’t actually sick. I, apparently, am allergic to the flowers that Dex had gottenme. He promised to only bring me home severed body parts as gifts in the future, since that’s more our love language anyway.

MILO

It wasn’t like Ireallywanted to burn down the cabin. So what did it matter that the hot guy in the woods had apparently gotten to it before I did?

I snorted. “I don’t know anything about a cabin,” I muttered to myself, because that’s what the guy had said. “I don’t have a cell phone.” I snorted again, because he hadn’t even silenced it.

It wasn’t like I wanted to kill people. The first time had actually been more of an accident than a purposeful killing, not that the asshole didn’t deserve it. Then when Beatrice had asked me to take care of another guy who was hurting her granddaughter, I’d had a hard time saying no. And so I found myself serving as an assassin (among other things) for a group of folks at a retirement home.

Old people didn’t take any shit, and they didn’t like anyone fucking with their family or friends. Plus, they were really sweet when you did favors for them. And I got a lot of homebaked cookies.

My suitcase got stuck on a root, and I only managed to not trip by grabbing onto a hanging branch. The thing was fuckingheavy. Who knew flammable materials and everything you’d need to burn down a cabin would weigh so much?

I went over and tried to unstick the fucker. “Smooth 360-degree mobility, my ass,” I muttered, finally managing to get it up and over the roots.

I really hoped the guy in the woods had burned the cabin down while the creepy fuckers who lived there were still in it. They were nutjobs, and there was a good possibility that they’d been kidnapping people.

Not that I would go killing people based on a “good possibility.” I was happy to be a fix-it guy for my crew, but I had to have limits. So I’d set up a camera in the woods facing the cabin. Pretty easy to do. I hadn’t seen anyone get kidnapped.

What I saw was truly horrible, though. They were killing animals. Those people deserved to fucking suffer. I mean, yeah, killing people was bad and all, but some people kind of deserved to die. But animals? Fuck, no. Not on my watch.

I made it to my car and dragged the suitcase up and into the trunk. I thought I heard something in the woods, but when I looked around, there was no one there.

“Fucking cults,” I muttered, then I got in the car and headed off to report back on the events of the afternoon.

“Did you kill them?” Ethel asked the minute she opened the door.

I rolled my eyes, and she moved back so I could walk in. I was reminded of Aunt Anabelle when I walked in the room (because calling it an apartment would be too generous); Ethel had basically adopted me when I was young along with Aunt Anabelle, so it was a comfort to be there with her.

Luckily, thanks to her pranks, she also hadn’t gotten a new roommate after Aunt Anabelle was gone.

The knock on her door before I’d even gotten seated reminded me that retirement homes were filled with busybodies, and I was sure the crew would descend on me any minute now. Sure enough, within fifteen minutes a collection of old people was sitting around, eating cookies, and chatting.

“Milo, honey, do you think you could look at the drain in my shower? You know how long the maintenance crew takes to fix things,” Beatrice asked.

“Sure. No problem,” I said, pulling out my phone. I deleted “Cabin cleaning” and put “Beatrice shower drain” on my to-do list. “Anyone else?”

Of course, almost everyone had some odd job or another for me to handle, but luckily there didn’t seem to be any murders on the list today. I got it all written down, and then George said, “So…”