Lord Rokkan’s Private Toy
Hollie Hutchins
Contents
1. All In A Day’s Work
2. Same Crap, Different Regime
3. Breaking Bread
4. From Cleaning to Cooking, Megan the Domestic
5. The Famous Zandle Zoodles
6. First Day Jitters
7. A Woman’s Work is Never Done
8. Rest and Satiation
9. No Big Deal
10. Reassigned
11. Fresh Eyes
12. Lying in Wait
13. Meeting the Parents
14. The Battle for District One
15. Personal Battles
16. Meeting the Parents, Part Two
17. Safe for Now
More By Hollie
Let’s Be Friends!
Copyright
Chapter One
All In A Day’s Work
It took everything in Megan’s power, and then some, to not look at her watch again. She’d already checked the damn thing three times that hour, and each time been disappointed by what it said. She put both her frustration and her back into her work, pushing down hard on the giant, moldy sponge she’d been given to scrub the floors of the communal bathrooms. Pinkish-gray soap seeped from the pores in the sponge and onto the grimy tile floor. She scrubbed at the burned orange stain, which was obviously not going to come out, and tried not to think too hard about what might have caused it.
“Megan,” a voice called from the doorway behind her. She looked over her shoulder at her younger brother, Ollie. “You almost done?”
She checked her watch, losing all her previous resolve, and saw that her shift had actually ended two minutes ago. “Yup!” She got to her feet and threw the sponge into the large metal bucket by the sink. “Let’s go.”
“How’s your morning been?” Ollie asked as the two of them walked down the main hallway of District One’s Central Housing Project, or, as it was more affectionately known to its locals, The Hotel. “Work up an appetite?” Ollie grinned at her, showing off his slightly crooked bottom teeth.
She shook her head. “I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have an appetite.” She squirted at her brother. “Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t feeling downright starving.”
“Same.”
They turned right, into the mess hall. A line at the stamp station had already formed, but luckily it wasn’t too long. They stepped in behind two strong, sweaty teenage boys. One of them snuck a peak over his shoulder and smiled at Megan.
“Hey there gorgeous, want to cut in line?”
His friend hit him on the shoulder. “Don’t let them cut! I’m hungry as hell.”
The kid ignored his buddy and kept his gaze on Megan. “What’s your name, baby?” Megan rolled her eyes. “Aw, c’mon, don’t be like that. I’m just trying to have a polite conversation with a pretty little piece. Why you have to be such a bitch, huh? Just tell me your name.”
Megan said nothing. Instead, Ollie answered for her. “None of your business, punk.” He stepped up as if ready to start something, even though the kid probably had a good thirty pounds on him. “She’s my sister, so why don’t you just back off.”
The teenager threw his hands up, feigning his surrender, and laughed. “Oh uh, Matt, did you hear the scrawny little runt. We better back off.”
His friend laughed. “Yeah, wouldn’t want to piss off noodle arms over here.” He reached out and tried to shake one of Ollie’s arms. With one quick movement, Ollie dodged the kid’s move, grabbed his arm, and jerked it behind his back. The kid cried out in pain, but Ollie didn’t let up.
“Henry!” said the kid, straining to look at his pal. “Help me!”
“I, uh.” Henry was frozen.
“Listen,” said Ollie. “I’m going to let you go, but only once you agree you’re not going to talk to my sister ever again. You’re not even going to look at her.”
“Fine, fine,” said Matt. “I promise!”
“I promise too,” said Henry. “Just let him go.”
Ollie did as he was asked. Matt brought his arm back around to the front and angrly rubbed his shoulder. They turned back towards the booth and didn’t bother either of the Zandle siblings again.
“You didn’t have to do that, you know,” Megan said softly. “I could have handled it.”
“I know you could’ve.” Ollie smirked. “I mean, you are the one who taught me that move. I just couldn’t stand how he was talking to you.”
Megan nodded. “I get it. I guess I’m just used to that kind of thing.”
“Which is exactly why I wanted to show them they shouldn’t mess with you,” said Ollie. “We all hear the stories about what happens to women around here. I couldn’t live with myself if anything like that ever happened to you.”
“It won’t,” said Megan, only half believing it herself. “It… just won’t.”
It was their turn to speak with the stampers. They fished their punch cards out of their pockets and placed them on the counter. The werewolves in charge of giving out the stamps today looked tired and grumpy. The one who took Megan’s frowned after reading its contents.
“Says here you’re on bathroom duty?” He let out a deep, grunty chuckle. “That sucks.” He stamped the card, which signified that Megan had completed her required four hours of work which awarded her a meal. “Did you wash your hands after you scrubbed the toilets?” He laughed again to himself. Megan ignored the comment and took her stamped card.
Lunch that day was wholly unappetizing, just as it had been the day before, and just as it would be the following day. Megan forced down a few spoonfuls of whatever was the mushy corn and mystery meat dish they’d served, and washed it down with massive, eager bites of stale bread.
Ollie ate a little slower, picking at the brown sludge and scrunching up his face.
“Just eat it,” said Megan. “We can’t afford not to.”
Ollie gave her a look, but took the advice. He was halfway through with his meal when their parents sat down at the table with their own trays.
“Hello,” Megan’s dad said, with a cheery expression. “How’s the gruel today?”
“Terrible,” Ollie mumbled. “Disgusting.”
Cal put an arm around his son. “That’s no way to look at it. Remember what I always tell you?”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Ollie. “Just close your eyes and pretend it’s my favorite food in the world. Only that doesn’t work. What.” He closed his eyes and muttered, “I am eating fried chicken, I am eating fried chicken.” He took a bite of the mush and grimaced. “Bleh.” He opened his eyes. “Still terrible.”
“Well.” Cal smiled at his wife. “It was worth a shot.”
Iris laughed. “You say that every time.” She reached out and rubbed Megan’s back. “How was everyone’s morning?”
“Exhausting,” said Megan. “But who’s complaining?”
“Not me!” said Cal.
“You never complain,” said Megan.
It was true. Her father had an amazing capacity to be positive no matter how dire the family’s situation became. When the war started, he was the one who insisted everything would be just fine and that the humans would surely win. When they lost, it was him who tried to find the silver lining of living in a world ruled by paranormals. And now that they were here, working their fingers to the bone, barely scraping by, he was there, telling everyone to keep their chins up and to imagine better food.
Megan didn’t know what she would do without them, what any of the Zandles would do without him.
A giant human-formed werewolf slammed a fist on their table, interrupting their happy family mome
nt. “Hurry up!” he yelled. “There are others waiting for a table.”
“Sheesh,” said Ollie after the wolf was out of earshot. “Can we not get five minutes to ourselves.”
“We better get going,” said Megan. She stood and picked up her tray. “I want to finish my next shift as soon as possible so I can clock out for the day and go home.” She looked at her parents. “Are you eating here or at home?”
Her mother frowned. “Do we have anything at home?”
Megan shrugged. “I could maybe whip something up.”
Iris smiled. “Sounds good. See you then.”
“See you, love you.”
Ollie followed her out of the mess hall, right on her heels. When they reached the fork in the hallway where they would be headed in different directions, Ollie stopped in his tracks. “I don’t want to go back.”
“What do you mean?” asked Megan.
“I don’t want to go for my second shift. I don’t want to go to another shift ever again.” His hands were balled into tight fists and his eyebrows were arched down. “Let’s go, get out of here. Let’s grab mom and dad, and leave.”
“We can’t,” said Megan. She lowered her voice and guided Ollie towards the wall, so as to let traffic flow through the hallway. “It’s not the right time.”
“You always say that,” said Ollie. “When is it ever going to be the right time?”
“I don’t know,” said Megan. “But the right time will come, I promise.” He slumped his shoulders. He was only sixteen, she had to remember that. She’d possessed a similar fire and desire to run when she was his age. Now that she’d aged a bit, and learned a lot, Megan realized timing was everything. If they didn’t plan their escape from District One perfectly it would surely end in disaster. “Please, Ollie. Just go finish your second shift. If you don’t stamp in soon, it will raise suspicions. We can talk more about this tonight, okay?”
The corners of his mouth turned down. He was clearly very upset, but he eventually agreed. “Fine. But this conversation isn’t over.”
He turned around the corner and disappeared into the crowd. Megan watched him leave and found herself hoping he would forget about the conversation before he got back home tonight.
Not likely. The kid’s like an elephant.
A tall, broad shouldered woman partially ran into Megan, snapping her back to her harsh, dirty reality. “Watch it,” said the woman.
“You watch it,” Megan called after the woman, who didn’t turn around or acknowledge the retort in any way.
Megan sighed heavily and looked down at her stained and tattered sandals. “I need a fucking nap.”
* * *
She got her wish. She was the first to arrive home that evening. She’d finished cleaning all the bathrooms in The Hotel before her four hours were up, and went immediately to the stamp station. The stamper didn’t take Megan’s word for it and insisted on checking the bathrooms herself. They were clean as a whistle. After her inspection, the wolf begrudgingly stamped Megan’s card and let her go home a few minutes early.
The Zandle family lived in The Hotel, in one of the “suites” on the top level. It consisted of one bedroom, one tiny, sad excuse for a living room, a kitchenette, and a bathroom. They were lucky though, a lot of families lived in studio style rooms, and some didn’t even have their own bathrooms, they had to use the communal ones on the first floor.
Iris was right, there wasn’t much food. Megan had anticipated as much. When she said she would whip something up, what she had actually meant was that she would call on a certain friend of hers to manifest something a little more edible than the garbage they served in the mess hall.
Lou was a mage that Megan had known since the two of them were in diapers. The girls’ parents had met a few years after the war, when both Iris and Lou’s mom, Yenny, went into labor and ended up sharing a hospital room. Back then, District One was in the middle of a power struggle, and the werewolves hadn’t quite taken over. A lot of the social systems from before the war were still in place, and medical care was still a thing. The two couples got to talking while they waited for a doctor and discovered that they actually lived in the same, low-income neighborhood.
And the rest was fate; the two families started doing everything together and Megan and Lou became best friends.
When they were fourteen, Lou started showing signs of having powers. She didn’t tell anyone except Megan, whom she made swear to secrecy. Megan kept the secret, but unfortunately, Lou wasn’t able to. Yenny caught her practicing a levitation spell the day before Lou’s sixteenth birthday and the next day, instead of having a party, they packed up all of Lou’s stuff and sent her away.
They feared everything supernatural, and they had a reason to. Supernaturals had wreaked havoc on the Earth, destroyed everything humans held dear, and were responsible for nearly extinguishing the race entirely. When Yenny found out her daughter was a mage, Lou ceased to be her daughter anymore. She became a monster.
Since then, Lou and Megan met periodically in secret, which had gotten a lot easier since Lou learned how to teleport. Lou was living in District Three, which was run by mages, and she had been working tirelessly to improve the treatment of humans there. Whenever she could, she would teleport to Megan, usually bearing gifts. Every once in awhile, when Lou was too busy to visit, she’d simply send a parcel. Megan would come home to find a lump underneath her pillow, which was where Lou knew to transport her goodies so that Megan’s family wouldn’t see.
It wasn’t that she was hiding the gifts so as to avoid sharing, she just wasn’t sure how her family would react to the news that she’d been in contact with Lou, the powerful, dangerous mage, all these years.
In order to contact her, Megan used a friendship bracelet Lou brought back for her from a family vacation just before her parents found out about Lou’s true nature. Megan would hold it in her palm, squeezing tightly, close her eyes and say a little prayer. Technically, it was a spell, but Megan wasn’t producing any magic. Lou had enchanted the bracelet so that the chant would send her a message telling her to teleport to Megan, if she was available, which, she always made sure she was.
Megan knew she didn’t have much time tonight, so she grabbed the bracelet immediately upon arriving home and made the call. Less than a minute later, Lou appeared out of thin air in the kitchen.
“Hiya!” said Lou. “What’cha need?”
“Why do you always assume I need something?” asked Megan. “Maybe I just missed you is all.”
“That’s sweet, but I know you.” Lou stuck her hip out and rested her hand on it. “You always need something.”
Megan looked down at her twiddling thumbs and danced around the subject. “I hate doing this, you know I hate doing this… Promise me you’ll let me know if I ever become a burden or ask for too much.”
“I promise.” Lou smiled. “But you’ll never become a burden, because you’re my best friend. And you’ll never ask for too much because, well because you’re you.”
“I just need a little something to make for dinner tonight,” said Megan. “Nothing fancy or hard to conjure… we’ve all just had a really hard week. Ollie is one shift away from losing his mind and leaving. I can’t say I don’t know where he’s coming from.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lou. “I wish there was more I could do here. I’ve put in multiple requests to get transferred to District One, but the werewolves hate my kind. They want nothing to do with mages.”
“How’s everything in District One?”
“Better actually. We’ve made some really great progress in human relations. I finally managed to get enough people to vote yes on a proposal to build a new living facility for the larger families. You tell Ollie that if he ever really decides to leave, he should try to get here.”
Megan shrugged. “I’ll tell him, alright, but he has his heart set on being a part of one of the vagrant groups. He’s sick of the districts.”
“I understand that,” sa
id Lou. “After what he’s been through. What you’ve all been through.”
The girls were quiet for a few moments.
“So,” Lou broke the silence. “About dinner. I’m pretty sure I can snag you some cheese and fruit from the staff kitchen here. Does that work?”
“That would be amazing,” said Megan. “We haven’t had fresh fruit in who knows how long. And we’ve got some leftover bread that I can melt the cheese on.” Megan’s stomach started growling, as if on cue. “Thank you so much, Lou.”
“No problem.” She went in for a hug. “I’ll probably just send it over instead of bringing it. The other mages I think are starting to get suspicious of how much energy I’m burning through. These little trips really train the magic out of me.”
Megan nodded. “That’s fine. I appreciate you coming, especially since it tires you out so much. Just send it to the fridge if you can.”
“Will do. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
And with that, Lou was gone.
* * *
After dinner, the Zandle clan was feeling very satisfied and sleepy. They gathered together in the living room area, which also served as both Ollie and Megan’s bedroom, and each found a seat. Megan and Ollie were on the pull out couch, Iris was on the loveseat, and Cal took a spot on the floor.
“Dad, do you want my seat?” Megan offered.
“No, no.” He waved her off. “I’m fine on the floor. It forces me to sit up straighter, which is better for my back.”
“If you say so.”
“Mmm, mm!” Iris was licking her fingers after popping the last grape into her mouth. “That dinner was delicious. Megan, where did you find fresh fruit and cheese that hadn’t gone bad?”
Lord Rokkan’s Private Toy Page 1