A Fox's Family by Brandon Varnell Page B

with
Davin Monstrang.”
    “…”
    “Very
well. I’ll let your people take care of her. Who do you plan on
sending?”
    “…”
    “None
of my business? Right. Okay. You know, that untrusting nature of
yours will eventually be your downfall if you’re not too
careful.”
    “…”
    “There’s
no need to get upset. I was simply stating a fact. People don’t
like it when they feel like you don’t trust them. It makes us
wonder if the reason for your lack of trust is because you plan on
double-crossing us at some point in the near future. Besides, wasn’t
it your inability to trust others that caused your wife to leave you?
Oh, wait. It wasn’t lack of trust that made her leave, but
because you experimented on her unborn child, wasn’t it? My
bad.”
    “…”
    “You’d
be surprised by the things a person can learn if they ask around
enough. It’s not like what happened between you two is a
closely guarded secret. I’m pretty sure everybody knows about
that incident and just refuses to speak about it.”
    “…”
    Justin
examined his nails. They’d need to be clipped soon. He’d
have his mom do it tomorrow after school or something.
    “Yes.
Yes. I know. You’ve given me that same speech several times
already. There’s no need to give it again.”
    “…”
    “Fine.
Out.”
    Justin
sighed as he hung up the phone.
    “‘Stay
out of the way,’
he
says. ‘You’ll only cause problems in the future,’
he
says. Does he really think I’m so incompetent that I would
allow myself to get caught by some hentai-watching floozy?”
    Looking
up, Justin admired the astral beauty of the phantasmagoric night sky,
his mind tracing intricate shapes using the stars as waypoints.
    “I
guess there’s nothing to it.”
    Pushing
off the pillar, Justin shoved his hands into his pockets and began
walking home, his mouth twisting into an unpleasant facsimile of a
smile.
    “I
wonder who the Commander plans on sending after Heather? Whoever they
are, I hope they’re strong. I could really use some
entertainment right about now.”
    ***
    Kevin
didn’t know when he had gone to sleep, nor did he know how long
he had slept for. It couldn’t have been that long though,
because when he woke up to use the restroom, the clock told him it
was 1:45 am.
    Lilian
stirred as Kevin tried to extricate himself from her grip, an
exceedingly troublesome task. Lovely eyelashes fluttered open,
revealing irises that glittered like precious gemstones. The
twin-tailed kitsune blinked the sleep out of her eyes as he sat up.
    “Kevin?”
    “Go
back to sleep, Lilian, I’ll be right back. I just need to use
the restroom.”
    “M’kay…”
    Lilian
complied and went back to sleep. Smiling as he looked at her, Kevin,
in a rare moment of courage and initiative, leaned down and kissed
Lilian on her right cheek. The emerald-eyed vixen smiled in her
sleep, settling deeper into their large pillow.
    Kevin
left the bedroom and was soon draining the dragon. Upon revealing the
tension in his bladder, he entered the hallway and was about to head
back to bed, when a noise caught his attention.
    Halting
in his tracks, he strained his ears, listening for…
there
it was again! What was that? It sounded like something was…
shaking?
No, it sounded like crashing.
    Looking
around for a second, Kevin noticed that Kotohime was not in the hall.
She also wasn’t in the living room when he arrived. He frowned,
but figured she must be out doing
something.
He didn’t know what she might have been at this time of night,
and truthfully, he didn’t want to know.
    The
sounds grew louder, and Kevin determined that they were definitely
from something crashing into something else, though he couldn’t
determine what. They came from outside his apartment and were getting
closer.
    Kevin
approached the door slowly, cautiously, like a real life ninja and
not those shōnen ninja who wouldn’t know stealth if it hit
them in the face. Having already dealt with several life