You Are Mine Little Sister (by Syra Tucker) novel Chapter 173

"What is it, girl? Let it out before it rots." Marovelle tapped the table.

I chewed my lip, eyes doing laps around the room. "Well... I've decided to get a job."

Rosaline gasped, her hands flying over her mouth just before she screamed "Holy Shit!"

Marovelle thumped her arm without looking. "I've told you to stop cursing, you uncultured thing."

"Marv! Can you ignore my vocabulary and focus on the miracle? Our girl wants to start living!"

Marovelle pulled a chair beside me and took my hand. "Are you serious, Rali?"

I nodded shyly, my cheeks warming.

"Well, this is the best news I've heard all year! Where do you want to work? Would you like the restaurant?"

I lowered my head, my whole mood sliding a notch. I'd actually like to work there as I'd get to assist and repay her in some way, but the restaurant was usually filled with too many people of mixed genders. I wasn't ready to breathe the same air as that many men, not yet.

"I... I think I'd prefer somewhere calmer. I'm sorry."

"Yup. Saw that one coming," Rosaline tsked, like she'd just won a private bet with herself.

Marovelle cut her a look that could iron a shirt, then turned back to me with the soft eyes she saved for three things: babies, soup, and me. "It's perfectly fine, honey. We'll look around and make sure we get something that suits you. You'll do just fine, I know. This is a great start."

"Please, I'm starving. Can we eat?" Rosaline flopped into a chair.

An hour later the house was still noisy; but the good kind of noisy.

For the first time since I could remember, I felt at home. Felt this peace like I had a family. Every night, I go to bed, praying nothing happens to this peace. To this new family I'd found, because I wouldn't know what to do then if I lost them too.

VOID

I was nowhere near a saint, and God help me, I never filled out the application. Which is why I could look at the line of bodies kneeling on that linoleum and feel nothing but the itch to be done with it.

I counted. All eleven of them. Eleven staff of the Timberline Train Station. We still had more coming, and the sky knew I'd kill everyone, including the manager if I had to get down to that.

Katya, Eric, and Miles stood off to my right, their arms folded. The captives whimpered louder when I drew the gun, that low dog-whine people make when they've run out of prayers.

I thumbed a cigarette between my lips, scraped my fingers through my hair, and took a drag. Then I tipped my chin. Katya moved down the row, holding up the phone with Rali's photo filling the screen, making each of them stare.

I pulled the cigarette from my lips. "The girl in the picture, she used your train station sometime last month. I've done my research over the month, I've got evidence. I just don't know when exactly she did and why the hell I'm not finding her in the log book. But I know one of you saw her. One of you knows what happened off the record. Now, I'm only going to ask this once."

Another drag, another gray ribbon exhaled into the air.

"Which one of you saw her? And where did she go?"

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