Time - Chapter 5
Turned out that Becky didn’t have the power to hire any new waitresses, though she did put in a good word to Celeste, the owner of the restaurant,
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.
In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.
Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.
But nobody can run from their destiny forever.
After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.
Bronard, Missouri.
Home.
She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.
Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.
But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?
Turned out that Becky didn’t have the power to hire any new waitresses, though she did put in a good word to Celeste, the owner of the restaurant, who ran me through my paces before agreeing to hire me.
“Lots of people just want a job here cuz they think it’ll be easy,” Celeste said during my interview. “When they realize it’s hard, harder than hell, they decide it’s not for them. That sound like you, Jude M—”
“Absolutely not,” I cut in before she could finish saying my new assumed identity. “I’ve worked waitressing jobs before, and I know just how hard they are. If people got paid based on how hard a job was, we’d all be making Bill Gate’s salary, is what I say.”
“Amen, sister.” I didn’t actually ever say that, but it seemed to appease Celeste. She looked me up and down for a long time, furrowing her brow. “Are you a size six?”
“Depends on the cut.”
“Bryan!” Celeste hollered. “Bring me a six.”
A tall man with a mustache came into the office carrying the same pink apron I’d seen Becky wear the previous night. I didn’t realize that the apron was sewn into the dress itself, making it all the more hideous.
“Here you go, my little waterfall,” he said, twitching his mustache as he gingerly handed it to Celeste. “Anything else?”
“Not right now, sweet thing.” Bryan left, and Celeste handed the dress-apron combo to me. “The customers like it. It cinches in all the right places.”
“You don’t have to convince me to wear a demeaning dress, ma’am. I have been in this game for a long time. Whatever brings in tips, right?”
“And keeps people coming back. The more you flirt, well…you know.”
Nobody wanted to say that the job was as much pretending to flirt with the customers as anything else. I didn’t have any reservations about that part of it. I’m sure there were some waitressing jobs where that wasn’t true, but truckers had simple pleasures. After being stuck in a truck for a dozen hours, having a lady be nice for a couple of minutes as they ate their food made them feel good, and that went a long way to getting a nice tip. We were all whores in some way. Maybe we didn’t have sex for money, but we sold our souls for it. The way I figured it, if you were going to prostitute yourself, it helped to understand the rules of the game and how to exploit them to your advantage. I didn’t have many things going for me, but I was always charming.
I was supposed to be on probation for the first couple of weeks, learning the ropes from Becky’s expert guidance, but I already knew the lingo and had excellent customer service skills. After three days, they took off the training wheels and let me work on my own. I found a motel up the road, close enough that I could walk, and worked as many hours as they would give me.
It always surprised me how quickly I acclimated to a new place. Within a week, my new life felt like normal. The town of Edgewater, Nevada, became my new home, and the customers soon became regulars. Becky and I became friends, or as close to it as I would let myself get to the idea.
I never let our friendship leave the diner. Once I stepped out into the parking lot, she didn’t exist, as far as I was concerned. On the clock, we were inseparable. It was amazing how you could work a hundred jobs not connecting to a single person, and then step into a place where you feel an instant bond like you were sisters, separated at birth. She told me about her life, her ex-husband, and her little girl, Veronica, a precocious six-year-old too smart for her own good.
Sometimes, Veronica would come into the diner after school and do her homework. She was dark-skinned with a puffy afro that her mother kept meticulously quaffed. She didn’t talk much, but one day I showed her how delicious dipping fries into milkshakes could be, and she fell in love with me. Every time she came into the diner, she begged her mother for fries and a shake, and Becky always relented. That girl had her mother wrapped around her finger.
I actually legitimately liked both of them, which was vexing for me, but it kept the guilt of my mother at bay. I decided to use Becky and Veronica’s happiness like a drug to anesthetize me to my failed relationship with my parents. I should have left, but I just…couldn’t get the courage to do so…not yet. Turned out I was just as big a hypocrite as anyone else.
I grew very protective over them in short order, partially because the kid was nearly impossible not to love, but also because Becky had terrible taste in men—or specifically, one man—Rick.
“You seen Becky?” He came in the restaurant at all hours, asking the same question, bothering her at work, and, more than once, nearly getting her fired. This particular day he looked worse than usual. His pale skin was moist with sweat, and the bags under his eyes were more pronounced.
“She hasn’t come in yet, today, Rick,” I replied as I slid behind the counter to place an order. “Stack of Vermont, frog sticks, fry two, let the sun shine, and a 50/50.” When I turned back around, Rick was still there. Usually, he rushed out as quickly as he came in, but today, he wasn’t leaving. “Why are you still here?”
“I have to find her, Jude.” It had been almost a month, and the new name still didn’t sit right with me. “Now.”
“Maybe she left you.” I pressed my hands into the counter. “I’ve been pushing her pretty hard to dump your ass.”
“She would never do that.” He shook his head fervently. “I protect her.”
My eyes narrowed. “That’s what all abusers say.”
“I’m NOT—!” He cleared his throat as all eyes in the diner turned to him. “I’m not abusing her.” He reached into his shirt and squeezed a necklace under it. “I protect her. We protect each other.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“Listen to me!” He screamed, slapping the counter loudly. The movement jostled his clothing and set the necklace free. My eyes went wide. It was a black opal, just like the type my mother gave fairies to protect them from something terrible coming to find them. “We have to stay together.”
“Where did you get that?” I asked, pointing to the necklace.
He suddenly realized the necklace was out and stuffed it back into his shirt. “Nothing. Nowhere. Don’t—please. She talks to you. Have you—”
Behind him, the glass door swung open, and four men, bulky, tall, hulking even, entered, each uglier and meaner than the last.
“It’s over,” the man in front said, the folds of his neck creasing his bald head. “Give us the girl.”
Rick knocked his hands together and shot fire from the tips of his fingers toward the men, who walked forward as if the fire was a harmless breeze. The other people in the diner weren’t so calm and began to rush from their booths toward the other door.
“You’re a fae,” I said.
“Don’t be crazy,” Rick replied. “You’re talking foolish.”
One of the men, this one with a demon tattooed on his cheek, swung at Rick. He ducked it and knocked the tattooed man in the face before kicking him backward, crashing through the glass door. The other three advanced, and I did something stupid. Something I hadn’t done since I was a child.
“Frigus tempestas!” I shouted, and ice shot from the tips of my fingernails, coating the men in a thick layer of ice. I slid over the counter and grabbed Rick by the hand. “Come on!”
“You’re a fae, too?”
“DUH!” I screamed. “I try not to use my powers in public, though, and now I gotta leave another town because I did. Thanks a lot, Rick!”
We slammed through the front door. “This isn’t my fault!”
“Well, it’s definitely not mine! So, if not mine and not yours, whose fault is it? And don’t you dare say Becky or Veronica.” I looked around the parking lot. “Where’s your car?”
He pointed to a piece of crap brown Buick Century from the 80s, big as a boat and twice as slow. We rushed toward it and got in. Rick peeled away just as the men smashed through their ice prisons and ran outside.
They fired at us on our way onto the street. I ducked the bullets, but then the horn blared as the car began to turn toward the sidewalk. I spun around to see Rick lying on the steering wheel, his head bleeding from a bullet wound.
“Shit.” I reached over and pulled the driver’s seat door open before kicking Rick out onto the road. It was an inauspicious end for a man I had completely misjudged, but the shooters were rushing forward, and I didn’t have time to be delicate.
I slid over into the driver’s seat and kicked my foot onto the gas, the door flapping open as I gunned it. I yanked it shut as the bullets fired into the car, barely missing me. I tore off down the street and couldn’t help but laugh through my fear. The fickle finger of fate was a fucker.
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.