Lift You Up (Rivers Brothers 1)

Swiping a long, dark strand of wet hair out of my face, I felt my lips curl up in a smile at seeing half a dozen animals getting their exercise on in their wheels.

It was a sad day when rodents were more dedicated to their physical fitness than I was, I decided as I made my way into the break room, dipping into the refrigerator to grab the pre-cut lettuce I had stored in a plastic container.

Then again, I maintained my figure by never having time to take a break for breakfast or lunch, surviving on coffee and a couple of bites of granola bars I kept stashed under the register.

"It's your lucky day, babies," I told them as I found a bag of grapes I had missed earlier, taking it out with the lettuce to place in bowls.

Hamsters, mice, rats, gerbils, and chinchillas had very little reaction to new fresh food, save for running over and chowing down and - in the hamsters' case - stuffing giant bits into their cheeks for later. But the guinea pigs, oh, those fun little devils wheeped and squealed at seeing me. Well, I mean, they were probably happier about the food, but a girl would take whatever she could get.

"Hey buddy," I said, rubbing the cow-licked back of one of the tricolored Abyssinians - always a favorite of the little kids who loved the swirls. "I will be back in a few hours, okay? Hold down the fort for..."

My words fell away at a low, but undeniable sound coming from the back room.

Harry and I were the only ones with keys.

And I knew I had locked up after walking around to make sure the store was empty. It was a rote routine I had been doing since my after-school shifts when I was seventeen. It wasn't like I could have carelessly forgotten to lock the back door.

My heart hammered in my chest, pulse points syncing up in unison at the side of my throat, wrists.

No.

There was no need to panic.

I'd been through this before.

Sometimes, some of the animals staying with us for boarding were sharper than we had given them credit for, broke out of their cages, had a smorgasbord feasting on all the dry pet food stored in the back.

We had two cats, a handful of hamsters and guinea pigs, and three birds boarding with us.

The cats or the ruby macaw could have definitely been at the root of the noises, being big enough to get into all kinds of trouble.

Hell, the cats could have broken free and started trying to get into the bird cages.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, I set down the plastic container on top of the chinchilla cage, and made my way down past the row of reptiles, suppressing a shiver at the tarantula standing at the front of her enclosure with her freaky, unnecessary eight eyes.

Sure, I had been changing cages for those creatures from hell for well over a decade. But that didn't mean I liked it. Or got used to it. Or didn't think their butt ropes and belly spiked engage-able weapons weren't creepy as hell.

"Quit looking at me, Satan Spawn," I told her as I moved past to the much less freaky baby iguanas who would one day need a tank almost as big as my bathroom at home.

Finding my key again, I pressed it into the keyhole for the back storage room where we boarded any animal you had that needed a place to stay for up to a month at a time, in a makeshift room Howie had made out of plexiglass sheets and cinder blocks.

Whereas the front of the building had numerous low light sources, the storage and boarding area was black to the point of night blindness.

Not wanting to upset them if they were, in fact, all in their cages and sleeping, I reached for my phone, hitting the side button to give me just enough light to make my way toward their boarding area, running it along the face of a Persian, a tabby, a bunch of small - but accounted for - rodents, a sun conure, a parakeet, and finally, a scarlet macaw.

Hm.

No one had jailbroken themselves.

Stray birds, possibly. That happened from time to time. When we got a delivery, having to leave the back doors open for an extended period of time, sometimes a stray bird - or even whole families - got inside. They could get startled, fly in the dark, hit something.

A niggling voice in the back of my head was whispering as I turned back out of the boarding room that I was being stupid, that I was coming up with more and more idiotic sources of the noise when every damn scary movie I had ever seen in my life had proven that any noise that could be an intruder, well, was.