Chapter 9: First Day
After managing an hours sleep, it’s my first official day at the daycare and the thing I can’t figure out, is why the locks are on the outside of the doors.
Big ones.
Industrial-looking metal bolts that belong in a prison, not a building decorated with hand-painted rainbows and tiny cubbies labelled with names like Milo and Junebug.
I stand in the hallway holding my coffee and staring at one for a solid ten seconds before deciding maybe I’m too sleep-deprived to process.
"Question," I call out as Jax breezes past carrying three juice boxes and what appears to be a raw chicken nugget in his mouth. "Why does the toddler room have maximum security containment locks?"
Jax glances at the door.
Then at me.
Then back at the door.
"Biting."
"That feels excessive."
"You haven’t met Mason yet."
Which tells me nothing.
My brain is still catching up that I actually came back here. I woke up this morning in a panic at dawn, convinced the last week had been some kind of erotic stress hallucination caused by unemployment and untreated trauma.
Then I rolled over, saw the matte black credit card sitting on my nightstand and remembered that the giant hot men are real.
And I work for them now.
The daycare itself is chaos disguised as order. It’s beautiful, obviously. Everything here is beautiful.
Warm wood floors, huge windows looking out into the forest, shelves lined with expensive toys that probably came from artisanal Scandinavian forests where the trees are sung to before harvesting. But beneath all the Pinterest perfection a weird undercurrent of tension hums through the place.
The kids are not normal.
Not in a ’gifted child bites classmates’ way.
In a genuinely feral way.
One little girl, Poe, hissed at me during story time.
Actually hissed., tiny teeth out and everything.
Jax, who also works here, acted like this was completely normal behavior.
"We don’t threaten Miss Frankie," he told her seriously while peeling a banana one-handed. "Remember what we talked about. No violence before lunch."
The child narrowed her eyes at me and slowly ate a crayon.
By noon, I’ve learned several important things.
One; nobody here uses normal terminology. Example, the kids are split into "dens" instead of classrooms.
Two; there’s an entire wing of the building I’m not allowed to enter.
And three; every single one of the guys keeps looking at me like they’re trying to solve a puzzle they want to fuck.
Corrian is the worst for it.
Every time I glance up, he’s there somewhere in the background watching me with a heavy stare that makes my stomach flip over itself like a dying fish.
Leo is easier to read.
Leo looks at me like he’s one inconvenience away from throwing me over his shoulder and carrying me into the woods.
Honestly, not ruling it out.
River barely appears at all. I catch glimpses of him through windows or standing silently at the edge of rooms like some haunted Victorian ghost with abs. Every time I notice him watching me, he disappears before I can say anything.
Which should not be hot.
Ezra spends most of the day in an office upstairs behind frosted glass, looking expensive and terrifying while speaking into a headset about shipments and things that definitely do not sound daycare-related.
Yeah this place is absolutely a front, I just don’t know for what yet.
The realisation settles deeper after lunch when I accidentally open the wrong storage closet looking for paper towels and find enough weapons to overthrow a small government.
I close the door slowly.
Pause.
Open it again.
Still guns.
"Cool cool cool," I whisper to myself. "Very normal preschool behavior."
I’ve experienced enough to just file that away and ignore it. If they wanted me dead, I’d be buried already.
Late afternoon the bite happens. I’m crouched near the art station helping a curly-haired boy named Milo glue googly eyes onto what I think is supposed to be a turtle, when something sharp sinks into my wrist.
"Jesus CHRIST!"
I jerk back so fast I fall on my ass.
Attached to my arm like a rabid raccoon is Mason. Tiny blond terror. Four years old. Freckles. Suspiciously intense eye contact.
And the jaw strength of a crocodile.
"Mason!" I yelp. "What the actual FUDGE?!"
He growls and it’s weirdly convincing for a kid wearing dinosaur socks.
The room freezes, every child goes silent. Jax appears out of nowhere so fast it’s genuinely unsettling.
"Mason," he says carefully.
The little boy’s nostrils flare, then he releases me with a snap of teeth and backs away slowly, eyes huge now like he’s only just realising what he did.
I stare at the blood welling from the bite mark on my wrist.
"What. Th...fudge."
Jax crouches beside me, hands wrapped gently around my arm. And for the first time since I met him, he doesn’t look playful.
He looks worried.
"Mase," he says softly without taking his eyes off me, "why did you bite Miss Frankie?"
The little boy swallows and points at me with shaky fingers.
"She smells like us."
Silence follows, a weird silence. Every instinct in my body starts screaming. Jax’s grip tightens fractionally around my wrist, then he smiles too quickly.
"Okay!" he says brightly. "Super weird thing to say, buddy! Let’s maybe never do it again!"
Something flickers behind his eyes though. Something almost panicked.
The rest of the afternoon feels strange, everyone knows something I don’t.
By the time the kids finally leave, I’m exhausted. Sticky with juice, glitter, and confusion. I head toward the back hallway looking for somewhere quiet to breathe for five damn minutes when a hand suddenly catches my wrist.
I gasp.
Corrian.
"You’re bleeding."
His voice is low enough to settle directly in my spine.
I glance down at the bite mark that still aches faintly.
"It’s fine," I say. "I’ve had worse from retail customers."
But he’s already guiding me down the hallway. There’s something different about him tonight. Tense. Controlled too tightly.
He leads me into a dark office, shuts the door softly behind us, and the second the lock clicks, the atmosphere changes.
Thick.
Hot.
My pulse stutters.
Corrian steps closer, eyes fixed on my wrist.
"Let me see."
"It’s literally a toddler bite, not a battlefield injury."
"Frankie."
The way he says my name should honestly come with parental guidance. I hold out my arm.
His fingers wrap around my wrist carefully, thumb brushing the pulse point once and my whole body reacts as if he’s just squeezed my clit.
His jaw tightens as slowly, deliberately, his eyes lift to mine.
"You need to be more careful around them."
My breath catches.
"Around the kids?"
His gaze drops briefly to my mouth.
"No," he says quietly. "Around us."
Before my brain can catch up, he leans down and kisses me.
There is nothing soft and sweet about it.
His hand tightens on my wrist while the other slides into my hair, tilting my head back as his mouth claims mine. All the restraint he’s held for days has finally snapped. Heat detonates through me, I make this embarrassing little sound into his mouth and his growl vibrates against my lips in response.
Oh my God.
OH MY GOD.
His tongue brushes mine and my knees buckle. Every thought disappears. There’s only him. Heat. Pressure. Need.
As quick as it started, he pulls away.
His breathing is rough now. Eyes darker than before.
"Go to your room, Frankie."
I blink at him, dazed.
"What?"
"Now." His voice cracks slightly around the edges. "Before I do something irresponsible."
And honestly? Too late for that.
