Dark Angel (Sequel to White Raven)

Chapter One: A Safe Job

After a soothing ten minutes under a spray of hot water, Ary stepped out of the shower and went over to the mirror, pulling her wet hair up into a messy bun so she could survey the damage left by her smack down with the dumpster. There was an obvious bruise forming at the base of her neck, but it would be easy enough to hide if she kept her hair down.

She gingerly ran her fingers over it, instantly flinching at the sudden contact. There was a good sized bump there already and it hurt like a bitch, but she didn't think it was anything life threatening. She hadn't been dizzy after hitting her head, just extremely pissed off that a dumpster in a dirty alleyway had almost taken her down.

While Rave was busy with getting his night club going, she had decided to also find herself a job. The only thing she was really qualified to do was work at a fast food joint, and that definitely wasn't going to happen, so she decided to get back into the P.I. business.

So far it had been just a couple simple jobs here and there, like taking pictures of cheating spouses or following someone's teenage kid around. It wasn't anything dangerous, which is exactly how she wanted it.

Now she had to worry about hiding her injury from Rave. After the whole Michael/Christian ordeal he was pretty wary of her going out and getting into more trouble. After what happened tonight she couldn't really blame him.

She quickly dried her hair and ran a brush through it a few times before she went out into the bedroom and started sifting through the laundry basket for clean clothes to wear. She had mastered the fine art of using the washer and dryer, but she was still lacking when it came to folding and putting her clothes away.

The last time she had gone to a club was on her birthday, more than three months ago. That was also the first time that she and Rave had had sex. Thinking about it brought a warm blush to her cheeks. She had thought about slutting it up a bit, as Layla loved to refer to it as, but she didn't feel like drawing any unwanted attention to herself tonight.

She settled for a pair of jean shorts that went to about mid-thigh and a dark blue, v-neck t-shirt that was actually in her size. It wasn't anything flashy, but it would still be enough to get a reaction from the drunken men that were clubbing it up downstairs.

"Hey, you almost missed the grand opening!" Luke greeted her as she walked down the back staircase to the storeroom of the club.

"You're out of the hospital for a week and your first thought is to go clubbing?" she asked, giving her cousin a curious look.

"I wanted to see how you were doing," Luke replied, glaring at her. "No one had seen you around in weeks and I was worried about you."

"You mean, you were worried that Rave might have killed me off and then disposed of me in a river somewhere," she corrected him.

The blush creeping onto his cheeks told her that she was right about her assumption. It should have made her feel better that at least one person in her family was worried about her well-being, but after everything that had happened at the beginning of the summer, she hoped that Luke would trust her more.

"Might I remind you that you're the one that almost got us both killed," she pointed out, putting her hands on her hips and giving him a stern look.

"I said I was sorry! How many times do I have to say it before you'll forgive me?" he demanded, giving her a desperate look.

"I'll forgive you when you start trusting me to make my own decisions! Contrary to what everyone in our family thinks, I do know what I'm doing!" she snapped at him.

This was the same conversation that she'd had thousands of times, with various members of her family. The only difference now is that she could give Luke solid proof for why she was actually a pretty responsible person and not a drug addict that was with an abusive boyfriend.