Fledgling
Page 24
Chapter Twenty Three
Aiden’s visit that night had been short. Bags under his eyes revealed how hard he was working, but he still put on a smile. He promised to be back the next night and gave her a quick hug before slipping out the window again. The sun rose, rays of light, hitting her mentor’s back. Austin jumped when someone rapped on the door.
It was a small girl, but the child informed Austin that she wasn’t there for story time. Apparently, after hearing about her little fit, each child’s parent had decided that story time was a bad influence. Jess followed after the girl, wearing a black pea coat. Austin nearly pushed her into the kitchen and ran up the steps, going to find Kai.
She walked around the long bookshelf and peered behind it, where she could see Kai closing another cardboard box, this one tied with twine. He slid it onto the top shelf as soon as he saw her approach.
“Jess is here,” she said, “And since there aren’t any customers-“
“Don’t remind me,” he grimaced. Business had been slow today, and she knew that made Kai nervous.
She continued, “I was wondering if I could take a break and brew some tea for her?”
“Take breaks whenever you want,” he waved her off, and Austin noticed a silver ring on his pinky finger. She was almost positive that it hadn’t been there before, “You’ve been surprisingly helpful, so it won’t hurt anything for you to relax a bit.”
“Thanks,” she nodded, forgetting about the ring as she smiled, “I’ll make enough for you, too.”
“Thank you, Austin,” he pulled out a book from the shelf –the one he had bought yesterday- and started to read, silently dismissing her. She stomped down the stairs to see her friend, who was waiting in the newly cleaned kitchen.
Jess was just taking off her coat, draping it over the chair, when Austin came in. She smiled, “Hi.”
“Hello,” Austin plugged in the abandoned coffee maker, which had been sitting at the back of the counter, and started brewing a pot of coffee. At the same time, she made some of Kai’s tea. The strong scents of the two drinks filled the small kitchen, mixing together until neither girl could differentiate one from the other.
“This is different from where I work,” Jess laughed quietly, stating the obvious, “It’s just so homey here.”
“Maybe because it is a home,” Austin shrugged, “Kai and I live here full time.”
The kitchen, stocked with things that only she and Kai used, was proof of that. The door was closed and a sign hung over it, prohibiting any customer from wandering in. Once in awhile, Kai told her that one would open the door, looking for the bathroom. That was also off limits to customers.
“Where do you sleep? There’s nowhere big enough for a room. Or a bed,” she added. Austin noticed that she had worn long sleeves again today.
“I sleep in the reading room,” she shrugged. She watched as Jess reached out to grab her cup, and her sleeves rolled up as she did.. Tattoos swirled around her friend’s wrist. They were familiar patterns.
“I just realized- uh, I just realized that I have to go,” Jess said, her framed eyes wide open.
“Calm down,” Austin sat back down, placing her hands in front of her in a nonthreatening position, “I’m not going to judge you for having tattoos.”
“Even so, I think I should go,” Jess said, and Austin’s heart plummeted. Before she could get the wrong impression, Jess replied, “See you later.”
It was only when Jess shut the door to the shop and started running down the street that Austin remembered where she had seen those tattoos before.
On Dustin. The chaos energy manifested itself in different ways; very rarely it showed in a person’s eyes, turning them purple, but most of the time it was marked by tattoos. Swirls, words, and symbols collided together in a mix on random parts of chaos’ skin. That’s why Jess’s tattoos had been so familiar.
“Kai,” she ran up the stairs, her eyes as wide as Jess’s had been. Her friend had been so scared when Austin saw the tattoos, and now she knew why.
“Yes?” he looked up from the stack of papers her was stapling together.
She opened her mouth to speak, but the words she had been prepared to say escaped her. How could she do it? How could she sentence someone to torture and death?
“Nothing,” she swallowed, “It’s nothing.”