“Don’t worry about it, kid. I needed the time to catch up. I’m way behind with paperwork.” Musso settled back in at his desk.
“And you know I don’t care,” Zab said.
“Neither do I—if you care, that is,” Bibbi said, poking her head out of the back room.
Bibbi was turning out to be impossible to hate. If she could go work somewhere else, though, it would make not hating her so much easier. Every time she sat at my table, I had to force myself not to drag her outside.
“Thanks, Bibbi. I do care,” I said, and mostly meant it because I wasn’t a monster. It wasn’t her fault that Hawk had made her the big usurper.
I sank another couple inches into Belinda’s seat, wishing that there was a hole in the floor that would gobble me up.
“Is there anything I can do to get rid of it?” I asked.
“No,” Musso said.
Zab shook his head. Bibbi looked as clueless as me. Yeah, it was very hard to hate someone who knew less than I did.
Luckily, we’d fallen silent right before Hawk walked in the office. He probably knew everything already, but I couldn’t bear having this discussion in front of him.
Before I’d gotten back to Xest, I’d daydreamed of coming to this office, walking up to Hawk, and not having to say a word. Success would be written all over me. I’d reek of it. I’d be dressed in the best Xest fashions. I’d have a killer place near the square and I’d be all around rocking this existence. I’d have found my way here in spite of him.
The reality wasn’t quite as nice. I was slumped in a chair in his office, staring at my replacement across the way. I’d been recently fired, forced to live here again, and half my wardrobe was still hand-me-down clothes picked out by Belinda.
He’d even boot me now. Would he tell me to get my apartment back? Where would I go? Could I get another place with this cloud hanging over my head? I didn’t want to be here, but getting kicked to the curb twice, first from my job and then from my room? I wasn’t sure I was up to that either. Perhaps I should try to sneak upstairs out of sight for a while.
No. That would be hiding, and I didn’t do that anymore. Good thing I remembered before I snuck away.
Hawk crossed the room, not saying anything about the emptiness of the place. He picked up a pile of slips and flipped through them.
There was no way he’d missed the cloud when he walked in. There was even less chance he hadn’t been told about it. I could sit here and pretend there wasn’t an issue or hit it head-on. Considering “head-on” was my new motto, why change tactics now? Might as well go down in a ball of flames. No job, homeless, black cloud—bring it on.
“Well? Do you want me gone? Should I pack my bags or what? Speak now.”
Zab and Musso, who’d only been half paying attention to their work, were now fully invested in our conversation. Bibbi actually squeaked. The monkeys decided this was the time to kick back into theme music with a little duh, duh, duuuuhn in case we weren’t all aware of what was at stake. They apparently thought this was a game show.
Hawk’s stone face broke into a smile. Clearly, he hadn’t noticed the theme music graciously provided by the monkeys, because he thought we were in a comedy.
“Why? Because of the black cloud following you everywhere?”
The gleam in his eye and his soft laugh felt like a bucket of salt being poured over road rash. I was glad that my life going to shit brought him such amusement.
“You know what, forget it. I’ll go get my bag. I didn’t want to be here anyway.” Screw him and this place. He’d forced me back, and now he’d laugh as I left? He could go to hell, and now that I knew that place probably existed, I felt a little better about how things might end up.
I moved to the door.
“Tippi,” Zab said, getting half out of his chair.
“Stay out of it, Zab. Hawk will handle it,” Musso told him.
Hawk handled it by getting to the door first. Great, now he wasn’t even going to let me get my things?
I crossed my arms. “I have to get my bag.”
“For what? You’re not moving out.” His words might’ve sounded bossy, but I liked this Hawk better. At least the smile was gone and the gleam had been buffed out of existence.
I gave him a short nod, acknowledging his words. There would be no thank you or gratefulness forthcoming. I would not get suckered in by his false kindness, not again. No way. Not after he’d screwed me over so many times. He’d get back in my good graces, use me up, and then toss me aside in a heartbeat. You might as well write sucker on my forehead if I fell for it.
“It’s your building. Your choice if you want to lose customers,” I said, daring him to kick me out, because I must’ve been insane.
“I don’t care if people don’t come in. They’ll come back eventually—or not.” He stood there, putting on such a good act that Bibbi sighed. I wouldn’t fall for it.
I nodded again before I made my way to the other side of the room, where it was safer. The more distance from him, the better.
I sat at Belinda’s now-empty desk again, wishing I could feel happier about having a place to live and less preoccupied with dissecting why that was. If Hawk was at least upfront, it would be an easier pill to swallow than this horse pill of BS he was handing over. He should save the nice act for someone who was buying it, maybe for Bibbi. The way she was staring at him now, she’d buy any load of garbage he sold her.
He followed me over, stared at the desk I was sitting at, then pointed at it. “If you’re unemployed, you might as well fill the empty spot.”
Bibbi might be a little dippy from the looks of her, but she had filled the spot. Talk about just discarding people. The girl was sitting right there while he gave her job away. From the look on her face, she was as traumatized as she should be about it. Poor idiot.
“You hired someone, remember?” I asked, looking at Bibbi and then him. “There is no job available.”
Even if it had been my job first, I wouldn’t kick her out, no matter how I’d fantasized about it.
He didn’t look at Tippi. “She’s a sorter. I’m talking about being a broker.”
Bibbi sagged in relief.
I was too stunned to do anything. From what I’d heard, being a broker here was about as good a job as you could land. You made all the wheeling and dealings happen. Every person in Xest treated the brokers with a certain deference because they could make or break your livelihood. They handed out the best jobs for the most money. It was a dream job.
That he would have control of. That he could take away on a whim. It would be handing him over another part of my life to control so he could screw me, as he had in the past. I would be a masochist to even consider it. It was a nice thought for all of one minute.
“I’m not interested in working for you. I’ll find a position of a more permanent nature on my own,” I said, crossing my arms and staring him dead in the eye, using all my past grievances to shore up my refusal.
There was a flicker in his eyes, a split second where they shifted away before hardening and meeting my gaze again. “Who said it couldn’t be permanent?”
Had to give him credit: he never gave up, ever. If he wanted something, he kept at it. Too bad he hadn’t wanted me to stay in Xest.
“The fact that you’re the one offering it says it all.”
“Mull it over a bit and get back to me,” he said, as if I hadn’t already said no several times.
He walked into the back room without waiting for another no.
Zab got up and walked over to me. “Are you crazy? Do you know how many people want this position? We make a ton of coin. You’d be set. Everyone would be nice to you. Even the people sneering at you now would probably back off, because everyone wants to work with us.”
I glanced at the door, making sure Hawk had stayed in the back room.
“What’s the point? So he can take it away whenever he wants? I get comfortable and then he screws me over again, and I
hate myself for taking anything from him? No. I can’t do it. I won’t work for him.” I was crossing my arms again and shaking my head.
“Then you do it for a couple weeks, maybe a month, and quit on your terms, but it’ll give you a cushion. Not to mention, if people see you working here, they won’t be afraid to hire you if you leave.”
Everything he said made sense. It added up neatly in a little row with no errors, except for the rage inside me that Hawk would have that much control over my life. His stamp of approval could make or break me every day.
“I won’t give him that kind of control over me again. Not after what happened. I can’t do it. It’s bad enough I’m back living here. He doesn’t get to control my entire life.”
“Not even if it’s the smart thing to do and you know it?” Zab took a seat on the desk beside me and said, barely above a whisper, “You can’t go to immigration with no job.”
Shit. I’d been so mad and flustered that I’d forgotten about that little issue hanging over my head. And by little, I meant gigantic. And by hanging over my head, I meant like a guillotine with a worn rope. I didn’t want to do it, but was I stupid enough to say no? I might be.
“What if I take it and then he fires me right before? Maybe he was doing this on purpose to screw me?” That would be much more likely than this nice-guy act. Hawk had said himself that he wasn’t a nice guy.
Musso cleared his throat and walked over. “Here’s what you need to do. We all know this job is your best solution right now. I also understand. He burned you. So you need to get a little insurance. Have Zab negotiate a contract where Hawk can’t fire you for a set period of time and make him swear to it so he can’t renege.”
The monkeys kicked back in, but this time talking like they were sportscasters.
“What do you think she’ll do? Will she take the play?” Speak No Evil said in a hushed voice of a commentator with a microphone.
Where had they gotten a pink, glittery microphone? There was probably some little kid out there somewhere crying over a lost karaoke machine.
“It’s hard to say. She’s been down this road before. Maybe she’ll fake to the left and then scramble at the last minute,” Hear No Evil said.
“One thing to be said for sure, she’ll come out fighting. She’s a tough player,” See No Evil said.
I looked over. “Not the time for this. Learn to read your crowd.
“Duly noted,” Hear No Evil said. “We were trying a new possible avenue. You know, something we’ve been discussing behind the scenes for entertainment value, since we’re working on tips—”
“Shut. Up.”
“Got it.” Hear No Evil turned off the microphone before saying to the other two, “I don’t think this is playing well to the crowd.”
I focused back on Musso, ignoring the monkeys who seemed intent on narrating my life story.
“He couldn’t break the contract?” I asked.
“Contracts here aren’t like the ones in Rest. You swear to something and you’re going to hold up to that, whether you want to or not. You’ll have some control back, and that’s really the problem, isn’t it, kid? You want some ownership of your life?”
I bit my lip, thinking it over. Initially, it didn’t seem like that was the issue, but the idea of security did wipe away some feelings of anger about the situation. Maybe it was the issue.
“Well? What do you think? Would that work for you?” Zab asked.
You could nearly smell the excitement pouring off him. Even if I’d wanted to play hard to get, one look at the joy in his eyes and it was tough to say no. Bottom line was that I wanted this too. This place still felt like home to me, even if I didn’t want it to. Knowing I had a secure job on the day I went to immigration? That would save me in so many ways.
“Yeah, okay, if there’s a solid contract in place, it could work. If he agrees to that, I can too.”
I’d barely finished speaking before Zab ran into the other room.
“You’re being smart.” Musso gave me the nod, the one he reserved for these types of moments.
“He still has to agree.”
“He will.” Musso laughed as he walked back to his desk.
Bibbi was giving me nervous smiles from across the room, holding up crossed fingers.
“Thanks,” I said, feeling like I didn’t want to kill her quite as much as she sat at my table. I mean, if I had this desk, it would be greedy to not let her have the table.
Musso was back to working as if everything would work out as planned.
“Tippi,” Hawk called from the back room. He sounded like himself, so it was hard to judge the reception to the contract. Musso nodded as I walked in back, as if encouraging me not to be stupid.
The monkeys marked my steps with drumbeats before trying to fall into step behind me.
I put up a hand to stop them. “You’re not coming, and I don’t need a theme song for every act of my life. If you don’t cut it out, I’m going to step on your instruments, and you’ll have to go find another kid to make cry.”
They made faces and whispered horrible things. But I walked away in silence.
Zab was glancing back and forth between Hawk and me as I walked in the back.
He rubbed his palms on his hips as he said, “Hawk’s got a couple questions, but he’s not averse to a contract.”
“I can take it from here, Zab,” Hawk said, nodding and tilting his head toward the door.
Zab glanced my way, and I nodded as well. If things went badly, I’d rather have no witnesses if I went ballistic. Plus, I didn’t need any help. I’d been around the block a few times with Hawk. I could hold my own, mostly.
“If you two think you’ve got this…” Zab took a very slow step toward the door, waiting for a cry of help before taking another.
“Thanks, Zab. We can handle it,” I said.
“I believe you.” It took another full minute before he finally made his way out of the room.
Then there were two. I turned toward Hawk with my best poker face. Negotiation time was upon us, and I couldn’t afford to lose this one.
“What were your questions?”
His eyes flickered from my face to my arm and then back. “Where did you get that bruise?”
Shit. I’d pushed my sleeves up without realizing it. Figured he’d notice. If Hawk were a normal person, I’d be able to tell him I was practicing defense with Bautere. Hawk was anything but normal. He’d have a gazillion questions, and then he’d have a list of what I was doing wrong and what I needed to do. So instead of being honest, telling him I was training to be a kickass witch, I’d let him think I was an idiot.
“I banged into the door when the lights were out.”
He leaned his hip on the shelf, crossing his arms. “That’s an odd shape for a door.”
I leaned on the back of the couch. “I stumbled into the dresser afterward. Was that your question?”
“Not quite. I’ve never lied to you, but my word isn’t good enough for you to take the job?”
He had me there, and I wasn’t sure I could say the same. Wow. Even that was a lie. I knew I couldn’t say the same. I’d lied to him more than once. The only difference was that in our previous relationship, he hadn’t had to lie. He’d called all the shots. I’d been powerless and wouldn’t willingly walk into that situation again.
“I’m not saying you have, but I want guarantees. I know how fickle you can be.”
“Fickle?” He nodded a couple times, and the little vein on his neck bulged for a second or two.
It warmed my cold heart for some reason.
“Yes, I’d say fickle is the right term.”
“Fine. If you’d like a contract, that can be arranged. It might be better for both of us, since your agreements have a tendency to be flexible in nature. You like to renegotiate on a whim. This way, we both know where we stand.”
“She was going to die in that factory.” Of course he’d bring up my trying to free Rabbit. I should�
��ve expected it after I’d called him fickle.
“I understand what you were doing, but then again, I can be fickle, so an iron-clad contract is definitely for the best.” He crossed his arms before he continued, “I swear that I won’t fire you…” He kept talking, and the next words were incoherent until he stopped, looked at me, and said, “Now you accept,” in an over-enunciated, arrogant manner.
“What were those weird words in the middle?”
“You wanted a contract. I gave you one. If you were practicing with me still, you’d know exactly what I said.”
“Translate it.” I had a feeling that his mumbled words were the equivalent of the small print in a written contract.
“It means you get what you want. You can stay here as long as you choose. If you don’t want to accept it, then don’t.” His complete indifference as to whether I accepted felt like a little horde of bees attacking my ego.
“Answer me one question first: did you have something to do with the black cloud?”
“If I did, I’d tell you. No one even knows where they come from or how they form. You can go through every spell book in Xest and not find a reliable spell for one.”
I believed him. He would admit it. He had no shame. He’d screw you over ten times to Tuesday and then put it on a bulletin board for the world to see.
“Are you satisfied? Because I do have other things to do today besides begging you to take one of the best jobs in Xest.” He walked away from me after a split-second wait to make himself a tea, putting it in a cup that I knew he liked to take with him. He was leaving. That would be it. I was sure these contracts didn’t dangle in the air forever. There had to be some expiration, and I had immigration looming. If this backfired somehow, I’d figure it out after I got the three hags off my back.
“I accept.”
I felt a swoosh of air around the room.
He turned to me. “It’s done. Zab and Musso will show you the ropes.”
My blood was pumping so hard that I could barely hear past the buzzing in my ears. This wasn’t exactly what I’d planned, but it was a good job, in a place I loved, even if the words burned on the tongue. I had some security now.
The Nowhere Witch (Tales of Xest Book 2) Page 13
