Written in Red (23 page)

“Cs759 is not, at present, on the roster.”

“That’s a shame. She has the finest skin. It’s like she begins to attune to a prophecy even before the cut. When will you put her back in the roster?”

“Soon. I anticipate that she will be available again very soon.”

CHAPTER 10

M
eg sat back on her heels and stared at the Wolf pup, who stared back at her. Sam seemed shy, which made sense since she was a stranger, but he also seemed interested in getting to know her. At least, he seemed that way while she refilled his food and water bowls. But when she reached into the cage with a couple of paper towels to pick up the poop in the back corner, he snapped at her—and kept snapping every time she tried to reach in farther than the bowls, which were in the front of the cage.

“Come on, Sam. You don’t want to smell poop all day, do you?”

The pup talked back at her. Since she didn’t speak Wolf, she had no idea what he said, but she had the impression he was embarrassed, and her noticing the poop only made things worse, but she didn’t know what to do about that. The
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weren’t human, didn’t think like humans even when they were in a human skin. She’d learned that much in the week she’d been working for them. But they did have feelings. She’d learned that too.

She glanced at the wall clock and sighed. If she didn’t get moving, she’d be late for work again.

She secured the cage door. “All right. You win, because I have to go to work. But this discussion isn’t over.”

He talked back, then lowered his head.

She’d bet a week’s pay—if she had a paycheck yet—that Simon didn’t take that kind of lip from a puppy. Of course, she didn’t think Simon Wolfgard took that kind of lip from anyone.

She got to her feet and studied the pup. Why was he in a cage? If she asked, would anyone tell her?

He wasn’t always in the cage. Sam had been outside the other night. Simon would rip her to pieces if she let Sam go outside and something happened to the pup. But there had to be
something
she could do that would keep them both safe so she could take him outside.

“I’ll see you when I get back from work.” No response to the words, but as she locked Simon’s front door, she heard Sam’s squeaky-door howl.

Telling herself she shouldn’t feel guilty about leaving Sam by himself—after all, Simon did it all the time—she hurried to the garage, unhooked the BOW from its power supply, and headed for work. She still tended to stomp on the power pedal when backing up. Remembering all those training images from movies—clips of cars speeding up a ramp backward and sailing over another vehicle—kept interfering with the reality of a flat exit. But she was feeling more confident about forward driving, especially now that the main roads in the Courtyard were down to pavement.

She turned the sign on the office door to
OPEN
one minute after nine o’clock. As she poked her head out the door to say good morning to the four Crows on the wall and the Hawk who had claimed the top of the wooden sculpture—and the best view inside the office—she noticed Elliot Wolfgard coming out of the consulate.

Good clothes. Power attitude. Most of the men who had come to the compound and looked at her skin with a greed that was almost sexual had good clothes and that attitude.

Giving him a brisk nod, she withdrew and went back to the sorting room, closing the Private door partway. Then she braced her hands on the table and closed her eyes.

It had been a week since her last cut. Fear of making a bad cut with an unfamiliar blade had sufficiently dulled the craving for the euphoria. Fear and remembering things Jean had told her.

“
They cut us so often for the money. I remember my ma saying that the more you cut, the more you want to cut. But Namid gave us the good feelings as a reward for cutting when folks need help.” Jean paused. “Of course, when cutting is the only thing that makes you feel good, most girls won’t fight when they’re put in the chair.”

Was this what withdrawal felt like? The Walking Names always said the girls
needed
the cutting. Truth or lie? Did she really need a cut or did she just want the euphoria? Since she could make her own choices about her body, did it matter?

Top side of the arms would be the safest place without a watcher. Or the legs, as long as she stayed away from the inner thighs.

Slipping her hand in her jeans’ pocket, Meg caressed the razor, her thumb running over the
cs759
engraved in the handle. A designation, not a name. And that
did
matter.

She heard the thump of boxes being set on the counter. Pulling her empty, trembling hand out of her pocket, she went out to take the first delivery.

Asia bought two takeout cups of hot chocolate at A Little Bite, then walked over to the Liaison’s Office.

She’d spent an evening at Lakeside University, hanging around the girls who liked taking a walk on the wild side. She had hoped to glean some ideas for getting that kind of interest from the Others, but after an hour, she realized there were boys out there claiming to be what they weren’t, and the girls who thought they had romped with a Wolf or a vampire had never seen a real one.

That gave her an idea for a way to get in by a side door, so to speak, but it still meant becoming pals with Meg. She was bound to learn something of interest by hanging around the Liaison’s Office, and she’d also be able to scope out any possibilities working at the consulate.

And there had been that interesting phone call from her backers, who had heard from their contact in the mayor’s office. Apparently, Meg had been a naughty girl, and White Van was looking for a thief, not a runaway spouse. So keeping tabs on Meg could be profitable all by itself.

A deliveryman held the door for her. Asia flashed him a smile, but she didn’t bother to flirt because Meg was at the counter, looking baffled, and that made her curious.

“Problem?” she asked, setting the cups of hot chocolate on the counter.

“This store sent me eight catalogs,” Meg said. “Why would a store send me eight of the same thing?”

“So you could distribute them?”

“For what?”

Just where did you come from that you don’t know about ordering from catalogs?

“Haven’t you noticed the ads in the
Lakeside News
? There are only so many newspapers that can be printed each day, and they’re allowed to have only so many pages. When a store is running a special or a sale, they list the page number of the catalog where you can find the description. Even when there isn’t a sale, lots of people check catalogs before going to a store and using up gasoline for the trip.”

Meg’s face went from baffled to excited. “This is good! Or it could be if the Others understand how to use catalogs. I can send one to each complex and can keep one for reference.”

“There you go.” Asia nudged the hot chocolate closer to Meg.

“What happens to the old catalogs?”

“They get collected and returned to the stores. A store’s paper allowance is based on the amount of paper it’s returning for recycling. The fewer catalogs the store returns, the fewer new catalogs it’s allowed to print. When the spring catalog comes out, it will be an even trade—you’ll get as many new catalogs as you hand in.”

“I’ll make a note of that so I can get the old ones back. Thanks, Asia.”

“Glad to help.” Asia hesitated, then decided the timing was good. “Say, Meg. Have you seen Simon around lately? Taking even a couple of classes at the university is expensive, and I’m still looking for some other work to help pay the bills. I wanted to see if he could use someone for one or two evenings a week at HGR. Preferably evenings when he’s not on duty. He makes me nervous, so I act like a dummy around him, but I am a good worker. I really am.”

Meg hesitated. “I don’t think Simon will be in the store for a few days, but you could talk to Vlad. He’s polite.”

Asia didn’t have to fake a shudder. “No, thank you. I like my neck just the way it is.” Seeing Meg’s blank look, she added, “You do know what he is, don’t you?”

“Oh. Yes. I haven’t had a lot of contact with him, but he’s been courteous. He’s certainly not as grumpy as the Wolves I’ve met.”

Good to know,
Asia thought. Maybe that meant the vampires considered the Liaison off-limits for dinner. She would be willing to have sex with a
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, but she wanted some assurance that she would survive the experience. Maybe her mistake had been to target Simon. Maybe Vlad would have been a better choice for a lover. Donating a
little
blood for some useful pillow talk would be a fair exchange.

She gave Meg the “woman down on her luck but still has some pride” look she’d practiced in the mirror last night. And she didn’t look at the hot chocolate she shouldn’t have bought if she was broke—especially when places charged extra for disposable takeout cups.

Meg fiddled with the pens on the counter. Finally she said, “I can ask Vlad if they hire extra help on occasion.”

“Appreciate it.” Asia took a deep breath and put just the right note of false cheer in her voice. “Time for me to get going.”

“Thanks for the hot chocolate.”

With a careless wave, Asia left the office and hurried back to her car. It sounded like a little thing, but Simon being away from the Courtyard so soon after that incident out west was a solid nugget of information—especially when the newspapers and television news still didn’t know what happened in Jerzy. Simon’s absence was a good indication that the Others were somehow involved, and informing her backers was money in the bank for her.

And Simon being away gave her time to find out more about Meg and the man in the white van.

Days and months and years of training images and sounds. Snips and clips and photographs of the beautiful and the terrifying. Movies and documentaries and carefully edited bits from the news. During all those lessons, the Walking Names never told the girls which images were make-believe and which ones were real.
Real
was a word with little meaning beyond the cells and the physical things done to girls who were no longer useful enough to be “pampered”—things that gave the rest of them “the full experience” for the visions required by particular clients.

And there were the other images, the ones that swam under the surface of memory and rose without warning or context. The ones that came from prophecies. They looked different, felt different. Sometimes felt too alive, were experienced too much. But they were veiled by the euphoria, and the Walking Names didn’t know the girls never forgot anything that was seen or heard during the visions. No, nothing was really forgotten, but those rememories, as Jean called them, couldn’t be deliberately recalled like the training images.

Meg shook her head, pushed those thoughts away, and went back to sorting mail. Thinking about the compound wouldn’t do anything but give her bad dreams tonight. She needed to remember something that would help her deal with Sam.
Had
she seen anything in all those binders filled with images that would be helpful now?

“Meg?”

She heard the voice a moment before Merri Lee poked her head in from the back room.

“Would you like to split a pizza with Heather and me?” Merri Lee asked. “Hot Crust is in the plaza a few blocks from here, and today is one of the days a Courtyard bus takes
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for a shopping trip. Henry said he would pick up the pizza for us as long as I ordered a couple of party-size pizzas for the Green Complex.”

Meg frowned. “Doesn’t Hot Crust make deliveries?”

“They used to, but there was an . . . incident . . . and they won’t come to the Courtyard anymore.” Merri Lee brightened. “But maybe they’ll start delivering again now that you’re the Liaison.”

Meg searched her memory for images of different kinds of pizza. Images of people eating pizza. She had been given a piece once in order to know taste, texture, and smell.

“I don’t like the little salty fish,” she said. She wasn’t sure that was true, but she hadn’t liked the look of them.

“Neither do we,” Merri Lee said. “We usually get half with pepperoni and mushrooms and half with sweet peppers. Is that good for you?”

“That’s fine. But I don’t have any money.”

“This one is on us—a welcome to the Courtyard. The last Liaison made Heather and me uneasy, so we are really glad you’re here. And speaking of money.” Merri Lee handed an envelope to Meg. “Your first pay envelope. It covers the three days you worked last week.”

Meg opened the envelope and stared at the bills in various denominations.

“I know,” Merri Lee said. “Most companies write paychecks. In the Courtyard, you get cash, and it’s up to you to set enough aside to pay your income taxes, because they don’t bother with anything like that either. You can open an account at the Market Square bank so you could write checks for expenses outside the Courtyard. Or there’s a bank in the plaza that the Business Association uses when they write checks for outside vendors.”

“I don’t think this is the right amount,” Meg said, riffling through the bills. “It’s too much for the hours I worked last week.”

“That’s the other thing about working for the Others. You will never get less than what they agreed to pay you, but sometimes they give you more without explanation. We figure it’s their way of saying ‘Good job—don’t quit’ without actually having to say it. They don’t do it every week, but Lorne says if you don’t get a bumped-up pay at least once in a month, you should take it as a warning that you’re doing something the Business Association doesn’t like.” Merri Lee headed for the back door, saying over her shoulder, “They’re predicting more snow tonight. I hope it misses the city. If it piles up any more, we’ll have to climb snowbanks and go into our houses through second-story windows.”

Training image. Snow and barren, vertical rock. Men clinging to the rock, tied together with ropes.

Ropes. Safety lines. Buddies.

Meg hurried to the back room, catching Merri Lee on the doorstep. “When does the bus leave for the plaza?” she asked, feeling her skin almost buzz in response to her excitement.

“Eleven thirty. It returns from the plaza at one thirty.”

“Thanks.”

As soon as Merri Lee left, Meg went back to the sorting room and pulled out the Lakeside phone book. Ropes wouldn’t work, but . . . Yes! The plaza had a pet store. She should be able to find something there that would be comfortable for Sam and keep them together.