Page 70 of Problematic

“Do we understand each other?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, sir.”

“Good boy.”

He flinched like I’d kicked him.

I released him.

He stumbled back onto the street, pale, shaking, and smelling faintly of fear and spilled espresso. I followed at a distance because trust required verification, and I trusted very few people, especially men in cheap suits who yelled at baristas before seven in the morning. I tuned back in to the coffee shop audio.

The bell chimed.

Liv looked up from wiping the counter. The man approached with his hands visible, which was smart of him. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice cracking. “I was rude. You didn’t deserve that.”

Liv blinked.

Her gaze flicked around him, then to the street beyond the window.

I leaned against the brick across from the shop, hidden in the shadows.

Her eyes narrowed.

The man put a folded fifty in the tip jar.

Liv stared at it.

“That’s . . . a lot,” she said.

“It’s appropriate,” he said too quickly, then turned and walked out.

Which, technically, yes.

Liv watched him go. Then she looked at the tip jar. Then at the door. Then she whispered, “What the fuck.”

I smiled.

Vale called again. I ignored him.

New hobby unlocked.

The second one happened at eight twelve.

A woman in a white coat and expensive earrings complained her oat milk latte had too much foam, then too little foam, then said Liv must not understand “higher-end orders,” which was a fascinating sentence considering we were discussing steamed oat water in a paper cup.

Liv remade it twice.

The woman did not tip.

She left with her third latte and an expression that suggested the entire world had failed to appreciate her.

I waited until she reached the corner. Shadows curled around the base of the streetlight. She stopped walking.

Her body went stiff. I let my nightmares do the work, filling her mind with all the things I could do to her.

I stepped from the alley beside her. “You forgot something,” I said, easing up on the nightmare.

She swallowed. “Excuse me?”