Black and Brown: Raven Assassins (Ravens #1)

Chapter Sixty-seven

Mirage

Mirage’s head spun while he struggled to come up with some food.

He cleared the dinner mess, having to wash the dishes by hand when he couldn’t figure out Grace’s dishwasher.

Now, he was staring into the refrigerator for some cold cuts or something. There was milk, but he hadn’t seen any cereal in the pantry.

He eyed the eggs sitting in their own compartment, but he’d never seen brown ones before. He assumed they were top-of-the-line since Grace had them.

Now, all he needed was some bologna to tear into pieces and add to some scrambled eggs.

Mirage usually made his eggs in the microwave, but today, he’d have to use Grace’s stove.

How hard could cracking eggs, dropping them in the pan, then stirring fast until there was no more runny shit be?

He didn’t find bologna, but he did find bacon.

Another kind of food he made in the microwave, but Mirage was sure he could flip the pieces until they were crispy and brown.

But so he didn’t fuck up like he had with the avocado—Mirage noticed Grace hadn’t put any on his plate, and when Mirage had bit into it, he’d almost chipped a tooth—he pulled up YouTube and searched how to make bacon and eggs for breakfast.

He wanted to make sure it was perfect to debunk Grace’s theory that Mirage couldn’t cook without a microwave.

Even if it was against a person’s diet, everyone loved to wake up to the smell of frying bacon.

Mirage went hunting for the kind of pan the cook used in the video. He tried not to grumble and curse too loud as he shoved and clanged multiple pots inside cabinets packed with too many different kinds of cooking shit.

He found a pretty good replica for the eggs but not the bacon. Mirage grabbed a flat pan with low edges, unlike in the video, but it was darn close.

He did as instructed and lined the bacon strips in the pan, then turned the fire up on the stove.

Mirage was starving, so he went with high heat, causing the flames to lick the sides of the pan.

All he needed to do was crack the eggs into a bowl, add salt, pepper, and a dash of milk, and whip it around some before he dumped it into the pan.

He was about to perform some real gourmet-style shit.

Tell me I can’t cook.

Mirage was grinning as he cracked the first two eggs with ease, but the third broke in a way that made small pieces of shell drop in the bowl. With only one egg left in the refrigerator, he did his best to scoop them out. Then the same fucking thing happened with the last one.

Dammit!

While he was fishing for shells, his bacon began going crazy.

He figured he’d better just get the eggs started and dumped the mixture in the pan.

The shells will probably soften while cooking…like soft-shelled crabs do.

All that was left was to add the salt and pepper.

Mirage stood in front of Grace’s spice rack, his blood pressure rising because something as simple as salt and pepper was camouflaged within rows of at least fifty small bottles of herbs and spices.

Oh, come the fuck on! And what the hell are bay leaves?

Giving up on salt and pepper, Mirage scrambled to find a long fork like the YouTuber used to flip the bacon, but once again, looking for anything useful in Grace’s kitchen was use less .

He opted for his dinner fork from last night that he’d just washed and attempted to flip over the first piece.

“Ow, ow, dammit!”

The grease was popping on his hands and forearms while he struggled to get them all turned over.

One side was crispy as fuck, but the other wasn’t.

Smoke was filling the kitchen. He glanced over and saw his eggs were getting pretty brown.

He used the same fork for the bacon and started stirring the eggs, but they didn’t move. They were cemented to the pan.

What the hell? I did everything right.

Then Mirage noticed the untouched butter beside the stove. He’d forgotten to put that in first.

He shrugged. Never too late.

He cut a decent-sized chunk and dropped it on top of the stiff eggs. Mirage tried like hell to loosen them up, but all he was doing was making some serious scratch marks in the bottom of the pan.

“Ow! Shit.”

Mirage rubbed his chest where the grease from the bacon hit him.

As a Raven, he could withstand a lot of pain, but apparently, not hot grease on his skin.

The kitchen was so smoky it was making his eyes burn.

The bacon was well-done—understatement—and since he couldn’t get close enough to get them out of the furious grease, he tried to move the pan to a different burner.

Big mistake.

He gripped the handle. It was too hot, and in the midst of shifting burners, his brain reacted, and he dropped the pan, causing grease to spatter everywhere, including into the flames from the range that was still turned high.

Oh fuck.

Fire rose almost to the ventilation hood.

Mirage darted to the kitchen sink and turned on the water, but he pulled the sprayer so hard he yanked it out of its compartment.

“Goddammit!”

He cupped his hands and tried to sling the water toward the stove, but the flames were getting higher and beginning to spread outward.

No, no, no. Not the counters.

He knew he was battling the smoke alarm, which he was surprised hadn’t gone off yet. The kitchen fire was almost too hot to get close to and shrouded with dense black smoke that had him hacking as if he had bronchitis.

Mirage ran to the bathroom to get some wet towels or something. He had to get this under control before Grace woke up.