Chapter 34 Kali #2
Yet his eccentricity mixed with affection had a certain…appeal. One I dreamed about some nights. Couldn’t get out of my head in the mornings. Impatiently waited for it to pop up.
“We had a deal.” I grabbed my coffee from the table to have something in my itching hands. It didn’t help. It wasn’t the cup they called for, but I barked at them to shove it.
I finished the last bit of the drink so good I could bathe in it, and my sadness must’ve been visible because Gedeon picked up my empty cup and rose from his seat. “I’ll make you another,” he said as he turned on the silver kettle sitting on the counter.
“Talk,” I told Zion, imbuing my command with the authority Gedeon often exercised. It was worth a try.
He clasped the legs of my chair and twisted me toward him, grimacing from how his stitches probably stretched out. The screech of wood scraping on the white with gray veins tiles earned us one of the disapproving looks from Gedeon’s arsenal, and I hid my stupid giggle in a pretend cough.
“When I was a kid, I wanted a pet, like my sister.” Zion’s voice took a quiet note, but he quickly rid himself off of it.
“She was obsessed with birds and begged for one. One day, my parents conceded. They brought home a small, rusted cage with the tiniest bird inside. My sister was two years younger than me, so I helped her take care of it. Mostly she wanted to release it out of its cage and follow it exploring our rooms. Something about it hopping around and fluttering its wings made her happy. But every time, after a few hours of freedom, it returned to its cage. We’d never had to chase it; it always came back itself.
You acted similarly in the forest. Always fled back to Ilasall. ”
“So I’m your pet bird?” Birds chirped and sang, were feathery and soft, the opposite of rough, unpolished, and bad-mouthed. They were beasts soaring the wild skies, not captives locked in cages. And survived on picking up worms, not making bargains. Transactions didn’t exist in their short lives.
“Kind of.” He snatched the new cup of coffee Gedeon had extended toward me. “Want a sip?”
“Oh, for gods’ sake.” I pushed away from the table. I’d call him deranged, but a thank you was not the reaction I’d be going for. “I’m going to work.”
Gedeon halted, mid-sitting down. “You are going to work?”
“That’s what I said.” I snatched my cup from Zion, spilling half the coffee in the process, downed what had remained, and shoved the porcelain back into his now wet hands.
“Here. I have nothing to do and it’s been driving me crazy.
I talked to Jayla, and she said a spot had opened up at Vice. I took it.”
“I’ll come with you.” Rising from his seat too fast, Zion winced.
“No, you won’t. I don’t need you ripping your stitches open. I’ll be perfectly safe there.”
“He is coming with you,” Gedeon said. I opened my mouth to object, but he shook his head.
“I won’t hear it. The soldier carried orders to eliminate you, and I will not have you walking around without protection when you have no knowledge about how to fight a trained soldier.
Zion can take care of himself. He has done it with his bones broken.
I have to finish sorting out the mess that broke out last night in the training rings, so he will go with you.
Or you are missing your first day at work and coming with me. Choose.”
“You’re a control freak, you know.”
Zion snorted. “Oh, he knows. It’s his most treasured quality.”
Gedeon arched an eyebrow. “What will it be?”
I counted to three to calm my flaring nostrils. “Fine. He can follow me around like a guard dog.”
“See? We can agree on things.” Gedeon left a kiss on my forehead, one from his other unending arsenal, and chuckled as I rubbed the spot. As if he was aware each time he did that, I floated for the split second his lips lingered on me.
“We can agree I need to kick your ass,” I mumbled.
“Tell me a day and time, and I’ll help,” Zion drawled, as we moved toward the kitchen’s exit.
“What if I make it up to you?” Gedeon asked.
I slowed down to ensure Zion’s stitches didn’t tear from walking too fast. “How?”
“If you manage today with him, I will make you more coffee later tonight.”
Now that was a promise.
“Deal,” I said to him, and warned Zion, “Don’t do anything stupid, or I’ll add you to the list of people whose asses need to be kicked.”
Which was probably more like an encouragement to him.
“Basically, you write down what they want together with their table number and bring it to the bar to pass the order to the kitchen. Drinks are brought out first, and you can pick them up from this tray. The kitchen will put the food here, so watch out for it.” Jayla pointed to different matte black trays placed in the corner of the rounded bar.
The raggedness of the wood below it contrasted with the mottled but smooth top that shone from how many sleeves had polished it over the years.
“You bring everything to the table as it’s being made, and at the end, present them with the bill.
If they leave anything behind, those are the tips, and we share them at the end of the night,” Jayla instructed, showing me around Vice and detailing which tables were mine and which were managed by others.
The place was strange during daylight, utterly devoid of people besides the three workers I’d yet to meet shelving bottles of drinks I couldn’t recognize from the green, brown, or clear bottles.
No beats of music coaxed your heartbeats to follow their rhythm, the sound level turned down, the screech of wooden crates being lugged across the squeaky-clean floor overpowering the playing songs.
A puddle of water under one of the dark wood bar stools glinted in the light. Someone must’ve missed it.
Before I could point it out, Jayla resumed.
“Once you nail this, we’ll move you behind the bar and see if you like it there.
Most of us rotate between the bar and the floor on different days, so if you like both, we’ll get you scheduled like that.
Any questions?” She popped her hip out and flicked the long braid the color of fire to fall along her spine.
Tying my hair into a bun, I asked, “What about the shows?” I wasn’t sure I was ready to go on stage and spank someone or get them off like that duo had done to Zion. Or do whatever else I hadn’t seen yet.
“Don’t worry about them. We have none tonight, so just focus on getting comfortable on the floor first.” A short woman with eyes the lightest shade of green possible, reminiscent of a tree leaf being brought into the sunlight and becoming half-transparent, extended her hand out to me. “I’m Tarri, by the way.”
“Kali,” I said as we shook hands. Her irises were a soothing shade, and I ticked her on my list of people to trust.
There was something about the color of a person’s eyes and how they crinkled as they looked at you for the first time. Like a sign stating their intentions. And hers gave the impression of sincerity, a wow she’d speak the truth.
“I know. Everyone here knows who you are.”
“Ahm…I’m not sure how to respond to that.” I hadn’t introduced myself to anyone here. Nor met them before, as far as my knowledge carried me.
She pointed her thumb over her shoulder. “How often do you think Zion sulks in a corner of closed Vice in the middle of a day and tracks the newcomer’s every step, scrutinizing everyone who passes by her?”
Oh. That.
He had made himself comfortable with his feet propped up on a chair and now was picking his nails with his knife.
“Not like I had a choice,” I grumbled.
Okay, I did. But both of them involved spending the day with one of them, and I refused to follow Gedeon with nothing better to do, like the kitten he’d had as a child.
“I bet you tried to get out of it, but the other one told you to suck it up, from what I’ve heard about him.
Now come on, I’ll show you how to make the most popular drinks in case we get flooded in the evening, so you don’t have to wait at the bar.
Or Jayla will put you on lugging boxes duty.
” Tarri playfully nudged Jayla with her hip, and her blonde hair cut right along her pointed jawline swayed.
“Why did I think it was a good idea to get you working here?” Jayla rapidly tapped a pen with bite marks on its end on her notepad. “He’ll scare away half our customers when they start flirting with her.”
“Because it’s fun and she needs something to do,” Tarri said, then hooked our elbows and pulled me behind the bar.
Two hours later, sweat beads had formed along my hairline.
I blew upward to get the unruly strands from sticking to my nose and mouth as Tarri listed the ingredients for the number-whatever cocktail.
She’d recited countless recipes off the top of her head while I’d struggled to retain the first five.
So when Jayla emerged on the other side of the bar and announced we were opening in ten minutes, relief flooded me.
I slipped away to use the bathroom and splattered my face with cold water to shock my refusing-to-work-anymore brain. Taking a few deep breaths to ready myself, I raised my head to come to terms with my reflection in the mirror.
My eyes shone in emerald. A darker shade of green, like the wristbands in the city. I let my hair out of the bun and ruffled it up, the wall of it as black as Ilasall’s wristbands.
The green and the black—the confines of my cage leeching my life force.
No.
I braced my hands on the sink.
I wasn’t in the city anymore.
I was not.
A rattle of knuckles hitting the door jarred me.
“Ready?” Jayla yelled, and I silently thanked her for giving me privacy by not entering the bathroom.
Because the answer was no.
Blinking in beat with the loud music vibrating through the soles of my sneakers, I pushed away from the sink, my steps following the sway of music. With the best fake smile I could muster plastered on my face, I opened the door. “Yes. Let’s do it.”
I spun between the tables, did my best not to mess up the orders, and somehow managed to make a few cocktails Ryn, the bartender for the night, approved.
I laughed at the jokes groups of our customers made, mostly at the expense of Zion sulking in the corner, and flirted with willing tables not far from him.
Him watching me without a break, the beer bottle on his table untouched, told me he was about to murder everyone, including me.
It was the most fun night I’d ever had.