When the Crows Come
an excerpt

Riley couldn't believe it, any of it. He couldn't believe Laurel had killed a Beisiona Assassin without so much as a hiccup, or that there was a girl sitting in the living room, alive, who, when he had first seen her, was lying on the ground, her back and side open from a Protant-made dagger and gushing blood. He couldn't even believe that there was a cat, a real breathing cat, in his kitchen, sitting next to him. Alison had brought him in, set him in the kitchen, said, "Riley, this is Demos. Demos, this is Riley." And left to go find fresh clothes for the girl.
He had placed a small amount of raspberry and Kusn wine in a little dish on the table for the cat, who sniffed it and daintily lapped it up. Riley leaned his head in his hands, pressed his palms into his eyeballs. Life was more interesting than he generally liked, wished it hadn't changed.
He sighed, glanced at the cat through his fingers. Demos had licked the plate clean and was sitting just two feet away from Riley, facing him, the tip of his tail slowly moving back and forth. His whiskers were long and his eyes large and sharp. He meowed. Riley had never heard the sound before, startled a bit as it touched his ears, starred at the strange animal. He couldn't figure out what he wanted, wasn't familiar with feline body language or calls. He preferred to stick with his birds who he had a certain understanding with, shared a certain knowledge.
Riley couldn’t get the sight of Laurel knife-fighting with a trained assassin, out of his head. The way she won by stabbing him through the throat, the sight of inside the girl's body when she looked more like a butchered deer than a girl. There was blood everywhere. He remembered running with her to the house while Laurel did something with the body. She knew how to use her knifes. Riley felt that he should have been much more frightened when they had met last, as she had a knife to his throat, but thought that if she really wanted to kill him, she could do it from any angle, any time. He shivered. Laurel had been living with him and Alison for only a short while, and yet he had trusted her completely. She could have killed either of them whenever she wanted, taken the birds and the little money, left Bohan, never be caught. He downed more wine and poured more for the cat, thinking that Laurel probably wouldn't do that. After all, assassins don't kill their friends… he hoped.