“I’m simply trying to save you time. I know how busy the first day of the new Bach cycle is for you. So many new talents to distribute among your professors—it’d be a pity if I missed out on this batch.”
The dean smiled. It wasn’t a friendly expression. “How considerate of you. I see you found a student of interest to you. I brought another who fit your criteria. Before I agree to anything, I want to know what you’re up to.”
“I am working on refining my corporation. I am branching out my business to cover all caste sectors. I require students with a broad range of skills and experiences for the project. Of course, the college will be paid suitably for the use of the students’ time and effort.”
I had no idea what Kenneth was talking about. Then again, I limited my exposure to him as much as possible; I already knew too much about his operations in the Inner Harbor. Getting to know the man on a personal level was no different from inviting the devil to bed.
Obviously, I had missed out on something important—a mistake I wouldn’t make again, not with him.
How had he wormed his way into the college system? Why?
Was he really going to ruin my chances of finishing my Bach studies?
My eyes burned with the need to cry, but I straightened my back and lifted my chin. No matter what situation Kenneth threw me into, I’d claw my way out. I’d prove to him I wouldn’t be stopped.
I would break free of his chain. Once I finished my studies, I could move to any city in the world.
The dean stewed on Kenneth’s reply, sighed, and nodded. “It’ll cost you.”
“Doesn’t it always?” Kenneth replied, his tone wry.
“Why don’t you two go into the hall and introduce yourselves?” the dean suggested in a tone allowing no argument. “Mr. Smith and I have business to discuss. I will expect you both in my office tomorrow morning at ten. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
The young man simply rose from his chair, bent in a stiff bow, and stormed to the door. I hesitated before following after him.
He waited until I shut the door behind me, then his expression changed to loathing and disgust. Thrusting out his hand, he waited, glaring at me the entire time.
Handshakes sucked. If I didn’t, he’d think the wrong thing. Bracing for the burn, I clasped his hand. He squeezed hard enough my joints popped before he released me.
“Terry Moore. Don’t bother showing up. I don’t need some dock rat messing up my work.” Turning on a heel, he marched down the hall, leaving me to stare after him in stunned silence.
So much for finding my mark on my own. What the hell was Kenneth thinking? Surely Terry knew who Kenneth was—or did he? If he didn’t, why would Kenneth come scoping out my job? Could Kenneth have outsourced his work to one of his underlings? That wasn’t like him; he took extra special care with his elite clients. If an elite knew Kenneth sold, it was because Kenneth had dirt on them—and a lot of it.
What was so special about Terry Moore?
All I had were questions and not a single answer for any of them.
I sighed and stared at my reddening hand. At least my skin hadn’t blistered.
Tomorrow, I really would have to wear gloves. Were gloves in fashion among the elite?
It was a good thing Kenneth hadn’t loaned me a gun. If he had, there would have been bodies, and his would have been the first to hit the floor. So those waiting in the hall wouldn’t think too badly of me or assume I was a cold bitch, I forced a smile by fantasizing about dancing on Kenneth’s grave naked.
I’d definitely be the one who got away, and I’d make him regret it every last minute of his miserable life.
I had two things I wanted to do: eat and sleep.
The rest could wait for morning. If Kenneth wanted to interfere with my work and ruin my life, I needed to be ready for him. I dumped my tablet on my coffee table and headed for the kitchen, muttering curses the entire time.
I yanked open the refrigerator door and came face to face with a man wearing a suit rivaling Kenneth’s. With his dark hair slicked back, he looked the part of an elite, although there was something strange about his double-breasted suit; the dark material shimmered.
I blinked, and so did he.
Men, especially good looking elites, didn’t just step out of a refrigerator. I opened my mouth, closed it, and regarded the door I held open, puzzled on how to shut it with him in the way.
Did extreme hunger spawn hallucinations? I hadn’t had a hit of any hallucinogenic in years—and it had been over a year since my last episode.
I was over the drugs… wasn’t I?
I had dreamed up a lot of weird shit while on some form of drug or another, but well-dressed men coming out of my refrigerator was a first. Sighing, I considered my options. Screaming and finding some sort of weapon to bludgeon the invader with topped my brief list, but I was tired enough it seemed like too much effort.
He recovered first and said something in some fluid language. I wasn’t even sure if he was saying words or just making a string of really, really nice sounds. If it was a language, I wanted to learn it. It was sensual, soft, and soothing.
“I don’t have any idea what the hell you’re saying. Get the fuck out of my apartment,” I snapped, stepping aside and letting go of the door. He brought up his elbow to prevent it from closing on him. I pointed at the front door, which was all of ten strides away.
When he laughed, his eyes sparkled, and their color enthralled me. The blue was bright and intense, as vibrant as the dawn sky. I sucked in a breath and stared.
I’d never seen anyone with eyes anything like his.
I didn’t like older men; I wasn’t supposed to like men at all. All they did was make me miserable. He lifted his hand towards me, and I flinched away. Lines creased his forehead as he frowned.
“Pardon me, but might you be able to direct me to the city hall? I seem to have taken a wrong turn somewhere,” he stated, and his English was as sexual as the other language he had spoken.
I should have screamed profanities at him, but unable to string two thoughts together let alone get creative, I stammered the directions.
“Sorry to bother you, Miss…?”
“Alexa,” I blurted.
Before I could stop him, he grabbed my hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed the back of it. His mouth was soft, warm, and sent shivers crawling up and down my spine. My brain fired off warnings of imminent pain so strong my toes curled in anticipation of misery.
He let me go, shoved his left hand into his pocket, and smirked at me. “Do you have a last name, Miss Alexa?”
The polite way he spoke threw me off balance, and I mumbled my last name before asking, “Who are you?”
“Alexa Daegberht. That’s a nice name. I’m Rob. I like you, and I think I’ll make you my woman.”
My mouth dropped open. “You’ll what?” I shrieked. I drew a breath to curse at him, but in three long strides he was gone, waving a farewell before closing the door behind him.
I had to be suffering from hallucinations. There was no way a man had come out of my refrigerator, asked for directions to City Hall, and then declared I was his woman. It was too absurd to be reality.
Maybe Kenneth had slipped a hallucinogen into his cigar, a subtly devious one with a long set-in time. Maybe I hadn’t even made it away from the couch, collapsing in exhaustion from my long day without breakfast or lunch. After the day I had, screwed up dreams seemed appropriate. Maybe I really was asleep.
My macaroni and cheese chose that moment to flop out of my refrigerator onto the floor. It hit the worn vinyl tiles with a splat. Instead of scattering like it should have, it bounced and jiggled, leaving neon-orange smears in its wake.
“Mommy!” my macaroni and cheese squeaked.
There was only one thing for a sensible girl like me to do. I fainted.
Chapter Three
The ceiling was covered in neon-orange smears. I blinked, but the stains r
emained. I groaned and blearily checked the rest of the kitchen. Cheese coated the floor, the cabinets and counters, and even the refrigerator I so loathed. The culprit of the culinary catastrophe bounced around my head.
“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”
My macaroni and cheese was talking to me, and like a child on a sugar high, it darted to and fro in its excitement.
Like my kitchen, I was caked in neon-orange cheese. The back of my head throbbed, a painful reminder I had fainted upon my first introduction to my dinner’s animation. Food didn’t talk, yet mine was singing in a squeaky, high-pitched voice.
“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”
Lurching upright, I stared at the disaster my new apartment had become. The macaroni and cheese had limited its destruction to the kitchen. Since when had hallucinations been so considerate to keep their messes easy to clean? The thought amused me for several minutes while I watched my dinner continue to flop around.
For a conglomeration of noodles and powder, it was pretty versatile. It bounced off the floor, splatted into the cabinets, and launched itself up onto the wall to ping-pong between the fridge and the cupboards. It even splattered against the ceiling a couple of times.
I stared at the casserole-shaped splotches on the white paint, grateful it was all some sort of hallucination.
Macaroni and cheese didn’t dance, it didn’t bounce, and it certainly didn’t talk. Since my dinner was absolutely incapable of doing those things, I wouldn’t have to clean up after it. I hurt too much for it to be a dream, which left the side effect of some drug.
When the hallucinations eased, I was going to find Kenneth and kill him. How had he dosed me? Had it been his stupid cigar? Probably—he hadn’t touched me at the college. Drug-induced hallucinations sucked, and this episode would cause me nothing but problems. Macaroni and cheese simply couldn’t talk nor jump, let alone pretend it was a parkour expert high on a speed trip.
There was also no way in hell I was its mommy, no matter how fond it seemed of the word.
The macaroni and cheese plopped to the floor beside me. “Mommy?”
“You’re not real,” I informed my dinner, wondering how long the hallucinations would last. If Kenneth’s goal was to get me expelled from Bach studies, he was going about it the right way. I groaned and hid my face in my hands. How was I going to make it through a day of classes when I couldn’t trust anything I saw or heard?
My grave didn’t go to China or heaven. It led straight to the depths of hell.
“Mommy?” My macaroni and cheese was whining.
“No,” I replied.
“Mommy!”
“I said no. You’re not real.”
The front door of my apartment opened, and my other hallucination walked in. Rob was wearing the same suit, and I marveled at my brain’s ability to remain consistent while under the influence. He was smiling, his expression as smug as I remembered.
“That’s going to be interesting to clean up,” he said, closing the door behind him. “Why are you on the floor, Miss Daegberht?”
Rob watched the antics of my animated dinner and shook his head. I scowled. Why did a figment of my imagination have to reinforce the existence of animated macaroni and cheese and be so damned good looking in the process? I was torturing myself and, I knew it. In all honesty, it made sense; if a random stranger created by a mixture of hallucinogens and my brain was going to wander in and out of my apartment, of course I’d make him good looking—and old enough to be reliable, but young enough to still be interesting.
I wondered if I could get away with kissing him just to find out what it was like. Could a hallucination trigger my skin sensitivity?
I stared at the back of my hand. Was his kissing me another hallucination? I was free of redness, itching, rashes, hives, blisters, welts, or any one of the other common manifestations of my allergy.
Rob turned his attention to me, waiting for an answer.
I flushed. No matter what I said, I’d sound like an idiot, so I replied, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
It still seemed like a good idea. Until the drugs wore off, someone could lead me to the top of a skyscraper and tell me to walk off and I’d think it was a good idea. I probably wouldn’t even realize I was about to plunge to my death.
“You’re covered in cheese. I thought you should know.”
“Hallucinations should be seen not heard,” I complained, grumbling curses under my breath. Hallucination or not, there was no need to be rude to my guest—invader, really. “Did you get lost trying to find City Hall?”
“I’ve finished my business there. Thank you for the directions, Miss Daegberht. You were very helpful. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other things I must attend to. Do have a good morning, and take care of yourself. Remember, you belong to me now.” He strode across my kitchen to my refrigerator and stepped inside. He even shut the door behind him.
“What an asshole,” I muttered. It was a good thing he was gone. My imagination was pissing me off. Were all good-looking guys jerks? Was that really how I thought of men?
I sighed. Then I blinked as his words replayed in my memory.
Morning?
I jumped to my feet, staggered, and fell against the counter, smearing the wet fake cheese all over the place. My kitchen lurched around me, and I shook my head to clear it of vertigo. I recovered far faster than I had any right to, considering how drugged I had to be to create a hot, older man and sentient macaroni and cheese.
I swayed on my way to the living room, snatching up my tablet with my orange-coated hands.
The device informed me it was a little after nine in the morning. I stared down at myself, registering the coating of neon-orange product all over me and my clothes. Maybe it was a hallucination, but I couldn’t leave feeling so filthy.
Spewing curses, I ran for the bathroom, shedding drying cheese as I went.
One of the perks of being a merit-based student was my apartment’s location. The front door of the building was directly across the street from the side entrance to the college. I could go to and from classes with little risk of encountering anyone, so long as I dodged the unending stream of cars heading deeper downtown.
I had exactly two minutes to make it from one side of the campus to the other if I wanted to be on time and prove to Terry Moore and Kenneth Smith I wasn’t to be taken lightly—and that I was capable of overcoming anything the drugs threw at me, including the miniature three-headed giraffe crossing the street with me.
“Good morning,” I mumbled in the off chance it was a real person.
“Top of the morning to you, Miss,” it chorused, dipping all three of its heads. Two were wearing top hats between their horns. The third wore a tiara.
My imagination had a fixation on the British, apparently. Rob hadn’t seemed like quite as dapper a fellow, but I recognized the similarities—except for his belief I was his property.
I wondered what that said about me.
Breaking into a sprint as soon as I navigated through traffic, I beelined for the main administrative building. I made it without running into anyone, which surprised me. Mind-altering drugs had a tendency to erase reality and replace it entirely.
Melting walls, ghostly figures, and noises only I could hear had been a way of life before I had gotten clean. The realism of my hallucinations without the numbing high of the narcotics accompanying them disconcerted me.
I made it to the steps of the administrative building with thirty seconds to spare. A menagerie clustered on the steps. A cat taller than me stood on its hind legs, talking to Canadian geese with human faces. I wasn’t sure what language they were speaking, but it wasn’t English. To my disappointment, it wasn’t nearly as sensual as the language Rob had used.
I dodged them, earning a couple of glares from the other strange critters my brain had conjured.
A werewolf with pink wings crouched by the doubled doors, watching me with yellow eyes. Wisps of smoke coiled from its nose. I wig
gled through the crowd, determined to make it to the dean’s office without betraying the fact I was on some sort of drug.
I made it two steps into the building before I bumped into the dean.
He was still a human, although his eyes had turned a vivid purple. Red rimmed his pupils, and he stared down his nose at me before checking his watch. “Right on time. Good. Go to my office and wait there.”
I bobbed my head, shuffled by him, and strode down the hallway.
Halfway to the dean’s office, a panda with a feathered crest and vestigial wings attempted to climb the wall, pawing at a potted bamboo dangling from the ceiling. Since my hallucinations seemed linked with real people, I figured it was safe enough to greet the panda—and its potted friend. I said, “Good luck with that.”
The panda huffed and flipped its middle finger at me.
Since I was on a roll, I stared up at the bamboo plant and added, “Let’s hang around sometime.”
“Sure,” the plant chirped.
Maybe I could be taught how to cling to the ceiling like that; it seemed like a useful skill in my line of work. If Kenneth had his way, it’d be my only line of work. The thought soured my mood, and clenching my teeth, I marched down the hall.
Terry Moore was waiting by the dean’s office. Like the dean, he still looked human, although his eyes burned; flames roiled in place of his irises. Heat radiated from him, and I halted a discreet distance away.
Maybe the heat or the changes to his eyes weren’t real, but I’d perceive the pain. I’d learned that lesson long ago. If I started screaming because of non-existent burns, everyone would know something was up.
Once the hallucinations subsided, I was going to sit down and have a long talk with Kenneth about how his stunt negatively affected my ability to do his dirty work. If what I was on was anything like the other drugs I’d taken before I’d gotten my head out of my ass, I’d be seeing things for months—maybe years.
“I told you not to come,” he snapped.
His breath smelled of smoke. I shivered, resisting the urge to pinch my nose closed. “What can I say? I’d like to finish my Bach studies. Suck it up, pretty boy. Maybe you’ll learn something.”
The Dawn of Dae (Dae Portals Book 1) Page 3
