Misery Happens by Tracey Martin Page A

imposingly built a guy as Gi, particularly once they knew he was a satyr. But as I’d discussed with Lucen last night, these were not normal times. Angry, frightened people clawed at my bodyguard, tearing off his hat and threatening to expose more of his sun-phobic skin to the afternoon light.
    I love humanity, I reminded myself. I used to want to be a part of it, and I want to save these people.
    Well, maybe not these people in particular.
    Somewhere in the crowd, these people in particular were starting a new chant. I couldn’t make out most of the words, but “kill” definitely caught my attention. Peachy. I did not like the sound of that. If this was the appetizer stage of the apocalypse, I wanted to be drunk off my ass by the time the main course was unleashed.
    Alas, drinking my way to the end of the world wasn’t an option for me. Just as it wasn’t supposed to be an option for me to go around punching all the hate-spewing, frightened people who were adding to my stress levels. I was supposed to be playing nice in the hope that it would prevent further violence, but the louder the chanting got, the less inclined I was to hold my fists. The next person who touched me was becoming my stand-in for the apocalypse and getting decked with the full power of my frustration.
    “Almost there,” Gi said as I tripped over a fallen police barricade.
    I had to take his word on that since I was too short to see above the crowd. Our march through this melee felt like it was taking forever. For every step I got closer to the building, I was shoved two backward.
    The police had been keeping people off the building’s massive steps. I was counting on them remaining clear, but I was also beginning to think that was unrealistically optimistic.
    “Jess!” Somewhere straight ahead, a familiar voice called out my name. My heart beat faster as I strained to see who it was. When I opened my mouth to yell back, one of the demonstrators whacked me in the back with her sign.
    That was it. I was done. Enough with this woman and the sour orange taste of her fear, enough with the reek of two hundred sweaty bodies, and enough with playing nice.
    I spun around and snatched the woman’s sign. Cardboard tore in my hands. But instead of trying to hold on, the woman unexpectedly let go of her end, and I stumbled backward into Gi. His body braced me as I swore and fought for balance.
    Strangely, the woman who just a moment ago had tried to beat me with a stick ignored me when I glared at her, and she was no longer the only one. People were pointing up, toward Gryphon headquarters. Craning, my neck, I searched for whatever had distracted them, and was shocked to see the sky turning blue. Not blue as in the color the sky was supposed to be, but blue as in someone was spraying down the crowd with sweet-scented blue gas. Dragon shit on toast. Wasn’t this getting better and better?
    Fearing the worst, I put one hand over my mouth and used my stolen sign as a bludgeon, swinging it wildly to clear a path toward the building. Only belatedly did I realize I probably should have been running in the opposite direction if the cops were gassing people.
    “Jess!” The same familiar male voice yelled my name, and a tan hand reached out to me.
    “Andre?”
    Agent Andre Pagan helped me up the first couple granite stairs in front of the stately building. Gi was right behind me, and I lowered the sign as the crowd settled back behind us.
    “Hang on,” Andre said. He picked up a small canister by his feet, aimed the hose on the end of it toward the crowded sidewalk, and doused the air in more of the blue gas.
    Blinking, I glanced around and discovered two other Gryphons with similar contraptions doing the same thing. None of them wore gas masks, and I slowly lowered my hand from my mouth. Whatever they were spraying didn’t seem to have an effect on me either, other than making my nose burn with the powerful scent of gardenias.
    “You okay?” Gi asked. His