“You’ll what, Harvill? I’d like to see what you’ll do. I told you last time—if you ever came back into my shop, I would rip you in half.” He shook his head. “And don’t you dare bring her into this. This girl might not be the best employee anyone has ever had, but she was definitely nicer to you than I would have been, you ridiculous waste of space!”
Harvill reared back, as though the words caused him to physically ache. His hand went dramatically to his throat and his lips began to tremble. “I can’t believe you would say something like that to me after all we’ve been through.”
“All we’ve been through?” Mr. Snidestorm balked, the energy still crackling around him. “You tried to steal from me three times, and I’ve been a fool not to have you arrested. That’s the extent of our relationship!”
I looked between the two. The energy surrounding Harvill had lessened dramatically. It turned out that didn’t mean he was powering down, though. Looking him over, I saw that his hands were clasped together behind his back—hands that now glowed insanely with magical power.
My eyes went wide. This guy was about to attack Mr. Snidestorm with a serious assault.
Luckily, I had ‘borrowed’ the atern from his register yesterday and it was still buzzing around in my body.
Harvill flinched, and I was pretty sure I saw his hand move enough to be considered a threat.
“Watch out!” I yelled.
Seeing the dark image that turned out to be Karr flash through my mind’s eye, I panicked. Calling upon a thrust of magic, I threw my hands forward, causing a wave of energy to pour from my hands toward Harvill.
Mr. Snidestorm looked on in amazement as the energy shot toward the short man in a ripple of strong magic. Undoubtedly, he wondered where someone like me had come into ownership of this much atern. It would almost certainly lead to him checking his register and noticing what I had taken, but I was putting it to beneficial use. Surely that counted for something.
The look that churned on Mr. Snidestorm’s face told me a different story. As if that weren’t enough, the pained sound that escaped his lips as he watched the magic travel toward Harvill let me know I’d made a grave mistake.
It was too late, though. One could sooner set the sun than suck back in magic that had already been released. All I could do was watch as the power drove toward the short man.
Mr. Snidestorm jumped into action, leaping toward Harvill and colliding with him. With an oomph, he knocked him out of the way, slamming against the floor just in time to miss the magic I’d set forth.
The wave slammed into the back wall, immediately lighting it on fire.
Mr. Snidestorm jumped up, grabbing Harvill and me to pull us outside.
“What have you done?” he asked, his eyes wide on me.
“He was going to hurt you,” I answered. “There was a ball of energy at his back.”
“It’s to calm him!” Mr. Snidestorm answered. “He always has it, and there you go unleashing what I can only imagine to be magic stolen from my store!”
He turned, twisting his hands to put out the fire, but it was too late. The magic flames had already spread too far and too wide.
The place was gone, and I was responsible.
“I don’t think I need to tell you how fired you are, do I?” Mr. Snidestorm asked, turning back to me as the sirens wailed through the air.
Help was on the way, but I doubted it would come in time to save the store. It absolutely wouldn’t be there in time to save me.
Chapter 10
The landlord was beating on my door for the third time this morning. I shook my head as he screamed. I would have to go right past his office to get out of the building. My heart was racing, looking at this hovel I lived in and realizing I couldn’t even afford it anymore.
“I know you’re in there,” Mr. Renner said. His fist had to be hurting by now, seeing as how it hadn’t stopped moving in nearly five entire minutes. “You come out here right this minute, or I’ll call someone to have you removed!”
His words were harsh, but not unexpected. I had lost my job almost an entire month ago, and no one seemed to want to give me a second glance. I had gone on more interviews than I could count, spoken to more people than I cared to remember. It didn’t matter.
When I was playing fast and loose with my job before, I had little doubt that it would be the last one I’d be able to get. It didn’t matter to me then. It was as if I wanted to punish myself, as though I wanted to hurt. Maybe a piece of me felt guilty about living this life now that Arbor didn’t get to. It didn’t matter. There was an entire faction of differences between suffering in theory and suffering in reality.
If I couldn’t pay my rent, I would be homeless. It was as simple as that.
Looking at the blinking bar on my arm, I knew I didn’t have enough atern to cover another month. I didn’t have enough to cover another day. Still, I couldn’t let the landlord call someone to have me removed. Failure to pay rent wasn’t a crime, but stealing lodging was. I could be arrested. I could lose my freedom—which, sadly enough, was the only thing I had left.
With a sigh, I marched toward the door and opened it.
Mr. Renner stood before me, his face a sheen of fresh sweat and his eyes practically on fire as they locked with mine.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Renner. I didn’t hear you. I was in the shower,” I lied, plastering on a fake smile.
“You most certainly were not,” he spat back. “And do you know how I know that? Because I turned your water off this morning.” He tapped his foot against the floor. “Failure to pay.”
“I know I’m a little behind,” I said nervously, picking at my nails with my fingers. “If you’ll just give me a couple of days—”
“Then you’ll do what?” he asked. “Ask for another couple of days? Today makes you officially two payments behind. I have someone asking about this place, someone who can pay.” He nodded. “Now, the way I see it is you can either pay me what you owe me—in full, by the end of the day—or you can move your stuff out by tomorrow morning.”
My heart sank. This was it. There was no way I was going to be able to come up with that much atern by tonight. I had never had that much at one time in my entire life. It was a lost cause. Just like with the job, I was going to soon find out I was at the end of my options in terms of places to stay.
I would be homeless—another orphan who couldn’t keep it together.
“Mr. Renner, I’m looking for a job,” I said, surprised at the moisture that had pooled behind my eyes. “I’ve been looking for a job for a very long time now.”
“I know that,” he said. For the first time, I heard what I thought was compassion in his tone. “Don’t you think I know that? Do you think I want to do this to you—to turn some girl out onto the streets? I’ve got a daughter. I’m not heartless. But I’ve got bills to pay. I’ve got things I have to do… people I must feed. I can’t let what I want to do get in the way of what I need to do.” He ran a hand through his hair and turned away from me. “Now, I’m sorry. You might not believe me, but it’s the truth. Pay tonight, or you’ve got to go.”
I watched as my landlord and last chance at a roof over my head walked back down the hall.
I could have tried to stop him; I could have yelled or cried or done something to appeal to that heart he was talking about. But I knew better.
I had seen that resolve in people before. He wasn’t going to change his mind, no matter what I did. All I would accomplish in pushing forward would be to make us both feel worse.
So I closed my door as well as my eyes, unsure about how to proceed.
The day was humming along just right. The sun was halfway through the sky. In a few hours, it would reach the horizon and then turn around, starting its trek back to the other end.
It was then, when the sun changed direction, that my day would be over. I’d have the night, of course. Even Mr. Renner wouldn’t throw me out with our entire faction asleep. After that, though, wi
thout any atern to pay my bill, I’d be on my own.
People passed me by: families I’d never have, friends who were gone from me forever. All of it, the entire faction, was a world I couldn’t touch anymore.
And now I would suffer for the rest of my life. Now I would be without anything, and I had no idea how to fix it. And as angry as I was with life, and with Karr, the truth was that it was my fault. My fault for not sucking it up and handling things better. But admitting that wouldn’t help me now.
The dark idea of stealing atern had crossed my mind more than once. It might have bought me some time. Even might have saved me. But it would also change me. It would make me a person Arbor wouldn’t recognize. The idea of that broke my heart more than anything, and it scared me more than I cared to admit. Hunger didn’t do it. Homelessness didn’t do it. Not even death did it. But the idea of letting her down, of going back on the life we’d promised to live together, was more than I could handle.
So, as I watched the families with their perfect lives and full atern bands pass me by, I stayed my hand and my heart. I knew I needed atern, and I knew I needed a job.
But I also knew that, more than anything, I needed to see Arbor again.
Unlike the Sphere, the Holding Room was a faction-run facility that was open to all residents. It always seemed strange to me that the dead bodies of the people in the faction would just sit in plain view of anyone who cared to come and look until they were buried in one ceremony on the faction’s annual Resting Day.
I distinctly remembered Arbor being particularly uneasy about this. She thought the idea of strangers gawking at her dead body was more than a little horrid. And now, that was exactly what was happening to her. I couldn’t stop it. I had tried, pleading my case to the workers at the Holding Room and even asking them to bring my wishes for my friend to the elders. But, of course, they ignored me. Arbor would remain here until she could be buried, regardless of how much it hurt me.
That truth was what kept me from going to see her since her body was placed in the room. Today, though, I felt differently. I needed to see her. In some ways, I thought maybe she needed me, too. Strangers were going to pass her by. I couldn’t do anything about that. But if I was there, then at least my friend would have one familiar face to look upon her.
I swallowed hard and walked into the Holding Room. It was more crowded than I would have imagined. What was the market for this sort of thing, anyway? Who would find this soothing or entertaining? Certainly, these people hadn’t all lost someone they loved as well. Everyone here couldn’t have a family member or friend sitting behind this glass.
Or maybe they did.
I kept walking, not breaking stride.
Like myself, Arbor was an orphan. That mean no last name. It meant that, like in life, she would be placed after the others. Even in death, we came in last.
I breathed heavily, careful not to look at the bodies of those with names, those with people who loved them.
I could end up here, I thought as I continued through the corridor. And there will be no one familiar to come look upon my body if I do.
I couldn’t think of another orphan who had died since the last Resting Day, which meant Arbor would be all alone, lying in a dark and empty room.
Steeling myself, I opened the last door, moving into the Orphaned Room. The breath caught in my throat though as I took in the surroundings.
Glass lay everywhere, shattered in pieces on the floor. The customary robe used to lay across the body had been discarded to the floor. And, with a horrific start, I realized that Arbor’s body was nowhere to be found.
She was gone. Just… gone.
Chapter 11
Someone had taken my friend.
I wiped fresh tears from my face as I stood, pacing around the office of the head manager of the Holding Room.
Arbor and I were orphans, so we were never used to much. Secondhand clothes, secondhand books, secondhand lives. Never in a thousand turns would I have thought that indignity would follow either of us into the grave.
If it had, though—if one of us had to suffer the way Arbor was suffering now—why couldn’t it have been me? Why couldn’t I have been the one Karr threw out that window? Then she would be alive right now. She would be living her life. And she would probably be doing a better job of it than me.
My heart was pounding and my chest was heavy with the sort of dread I never thought I’d experience. Somehow, this was worse than Arbor’s death—this idea that someone could take her away from me again—this knowledge that, even in death, she wasn’t safe. While her death had filled me with unimaginable despair, the disappearance of her body was deeply perturbing in a way that made my skin crawl.
“Well?” I asked, spreading my hands as I faced the head manager again. “Is this some kind of sick joke?”
I’d almost prefer if it was, as pissed as I would be.
“I assure you, this isn’t my idea of humor,” the manager said, his voice droll and unaffected. “An oversight was made. Of that, there is no doubt.”
“An oversight?” I slammed my fists against the table. “You’re not serious right now, are you? Because, from where I’m standing, this doesn’t look like an oversight. It looks like an unmitigated disaster!”
He pulled a handkerchief from his front pocket and wiped down the spots on his desk where my hands had just come to rest. “Do calm yourself, madam. This might be a troubling turn of events for you, but let’s not let things get out of hand. I mean, it’s not like any more harm can come to your friend. After all, she’s already dead.”
A surge of the rawest anger I had ever experienced poured through me, threatening to take hold of my body and use it to strangle this bastard to death where he sat.
I took a deep breath, deciding instead to lay my feelings about his opinion out as calmly and constructively as possible. “Let me tell you what’s going to happen here. You are going to go back over your tapes, or whatever it is you people use to ensure no harm comes to these bodies, and you are going to find out who took my friend. After that, you are going to find her and bring her back to this awful establishment. Then, you’re going to get down on your hands and knees and beg forgiveness for this ‘troubling turn of events,’ as you put it.”
The manager stood, looking directly at me with as little emotion as possible in his eyes. “Madam, are you under the impression you frighten me? Because, if so, please allow me to dissuade you of that notion. I know what your friend was, and I know what you are.” His face twisted distastefully. “A nameless orphan in a sea of nameless orphans.”
I put my hands on his desk and raised my eyebrows, daring him to continue. And he obliged.
“Our surveillance system stops short of the room where your friend was being held, so, while I assure you a report will be made to address what happened here today, it will be because we’ll need to hold someone responsible for the damage to our facility. If and when the party responsible for that is found—should he have your friend’s body—we’d be more than happy to hold it here, as is custom. You’re very welcome to give us a call at some point in the future to check up on that, providing you can afford phone service.”
I glanced at my atern, where his gaze had also fallen, and quickly removed my hands.
Again, he wiped the desk where they’d been, then leaned forward, bringing his face closer to mind and lowering his voice. “There’s a card in the front room with all of our contact information, but be warned, this isn’t a free service. Your friend is due storage here until Resting Day. If she’s found after that, there will be a fee to hold her.” His eyebrows darted upward. “Judging from the nature of your atern band, I doubt you could afford even the slightest convenience fee.”
“I’ll have your fee,” I said, my voice nearly a growl.
He shrugged. “Sure you will. What would I know? After all, I’ve only been doing this most of my life. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think you’ve exhausted my good will. It’s time for
you to get your nameless ass out of my sight and off this faction-held property before I have you carted off to a cell so cold and dark you’ll wish you had joined your friend in oblivion.”
Anger and disbelief shot through me as quickly as air. “You—you…”
The rest of the words wouldn’t come. I didn’t even know what they were. I was too angry to think straight.
He knew there was nothing I could do, and he was right. I was an orphan, with no reliable source of atern and no one to help me.
In fact, the only person I even really knew who was left in this world was locked in a—
“Karr,” I muttered.
Of course. This couldn’t be a coincidence. He’d come back. He’d killed her and apologized. Now she was gone.
I had to make sense of this, and that meant going to the source.
“No, madam,” the manager said, pushing me out the doorway. “I very much doubt you could afford a car, either.”
I almost couldn’t believe I’d managed to come here. As I walked back and forth in front of the Sphere, my mind quickly filled with reasons not to do this.
It wasn’t like before. Karr had been sentenced to death a few weeks ago—a fact I’d tried very hard to banish from my thoughts. Because that had happened, he was now free to receive visitors.
Seeing him hadn’t been something I wanted to do. The idea of walking in and gazing upon the man I used to love—the man who’d murdered my best friend—so close to death himself was something akin to pouring salt into an open wound.
Still, for Arbor, for her dignity and the sake of her memory, I needed to do this. I had to speak to Karr and find out what he knew.
Even if it killed me.
Taking a deep breath, I walked to the door of the Sphere. The guards, the same ones who I’d duped to see Karr in the first place, stood to greet me. Though, ‘greet’ probably wasn’t the right word for it.
Harvest: Faction 1: (The Isa Fae Collection) Page 6