The girl frowned. “What’s wrong with your hand? What’s that mark on it?”
My fingers curled into a fist, hiding the silverstone spider rune that had been branded into my palm. “Nothing. I just burned myself a while back.”
“Oh, okay. Well, I’m Coral,” she said. “What’s your name?”
I shrugged, instead of answering her. I knew better than to tell anyone that my name was Genevieve Snow. If the Fire elemental who’d murdered my family ever found out that I was still alive, she’d come and kill me too. I just knew she would.
Coral eyed me, taking in the long floppy shirt that covered the three mismatched T-shirts I had on underneath, the gray cargo pants I’d tied around my waist with string from a kid’s discarded kite, and the tattered too-big sneakers I’d swiped from a yard-sale table when no one was looking. The dirt and grime of living on the streets were smeared all over my face and hands, with even more matted in my dark brown hair. I hadn’t had a shower in more than a week, and I smelled even worse than I looked.
Still, Coral’s gaze took on an almost speculative look, as if she could see through the layers of grungy clothes and filth to the person I used to be. The nice, quiet girl with plenty of food and clothes and a family that loved her.
“You hungry?” she asked. “You want some food?”
She said the magic word, and a loud, demanding rumble erupted from my stomach, answering her question.
Coral laughed. “Come on, kid. Let’s get you a hot meal and get you cleaned up.”
She drew a key out of the pocket of her silver short-shorts, slid it into the crimson door, and opened it. Coral crooked her finger at me. I bit my lip, hesitating, knowing that it was dangerous going anywhere with a stranger, no matter how nice she seemed. But I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and I had absolutely nothing to eat, so I followed her inside, into the shadows, letting the door bang shut behind me . . .
I woke up with a gasp, the sound of that long-ago door slamming rousing me out of my dream. For once, I didn’t sit bolt upright or thrash around. Instead, I lay there on the couch, my head twisted at an awkward angle, staring at the rune drawings on the fireplace mantel. I sighed, and some of the tension left me, even if the memories didn’t.
They would never, ever do that.
I untwisted my neck and swung my feet over the side of the couch, sitting upright. I scrubbed my hands over my face, then stared down at the scars branded into my palms. A small circle surrounded by eight thin rays. My spider rune. The symbol for patience.
Something I had run out of a long time ago when it came to my memories. But ever since Fletcher had been murdered, they’d just kept coming and coming, reminding me of so many things in my past that I would rather forget. But the nightmares had been getting worse, the dreams more frequent, violent, and vivid, the closer it got to my birthday. They were so bad that I would sometimes have odd little daydreams about them, flashing back to whatever bad thing was buried in my subconscious at any given moment, even when I was wide awake. Like seeing Fletcher’s blood on the floor of the college yesterday.
Like I’d told Owen, this wasn’t my favorite time of year. Not by a long shot. But I’d get through it, the way I had everything else.
So I sighed again, turned off the TV, and went upstairs to bed, even if I knew that sleep would be a long, long time coming tonight.
10
The next morning, I got up, drove downtown, and opened up the Pork Pit right on schedule, as though it were just another day and nothing noteworthy at all had happened last night.
And Catalina did the same.
She showed up a few minutes before eleven to work her shift, just as she’d told me she would. She gave me a grim smile when she stepped inside the restaurant, before quickly lowering her eyes, pushing through the double doors, and heading into the back. Several minutes later, she reappeared, wearing a blue work apron over her jeans and long-sleeved white T-shirt. She stopped at the opposite end of the counter from me and started rolling silverware and straws into napkins.
It was the same thing she always did when she first started her shift, but her movements were slow and clumsy today, her fingers fumbling with the napkins like they were made out of butter, instead of paper. Her shoulders slumped forward, and her soft, subtle makeup couldn’t hide the tired slant of her mouth and the faint pallor that dulled her bronze skin. Looked like I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t gotten much sleep last night.
A fork slipped out of her hand and clattered to the floor, breaking the quiet. Catalina let out a soft curse, stooped to pick it up, and tossed it into one of the plastic gray tubs we used for dirty dishes. Normally, she would glance in my direction, smile, and make some joke, but instead, she concentrated on the silverware and napkins again, hunching over the counter so that her black hair hung over her face like a curtain, hiding her tense, exhausted features from my sight.
In between us, Sophia stood at the counter, mixing up some macaroni salad. The silverstone hearts dangling off the purple collar around the Goth dwarf’s neck tinkled together like wind chimes as she stirred the pasta, carrots, and other veggies together.
Sophia looked at Catalina, then at me, raising her black eyebrows in a silent question. I’d filled Sophia in on everything that had happened, so she knew why the waitress was strangely silent. I shrugged back. I wasn’t going to push Catalina to talk about what had happened to Troy. I knew better than anyone else that there were some things you simply couldn’t talk about, no matter how much they haunted your soul.
Instead, I hopped off my stool, strolled over to the front door, and flipped the sign hanging on it over to Open. A few minutes later, the first customer walked inside, and Sophia, Catalina, and I started cooking and serving, with a few more of the waitstaff coming in to help out.
The lunch rush came and went with no problems. Still, in between cooking, wiping down tables, and cashing out customers, I kept one eye on the front door, waiting for Benson to send some of his men to try to eliminate Catalina.
Troy’s murder was all over the news, with Bria being quoted as saying that the po-po were pursuing all available leads. She didn’t mention having a witness, but sooner or later, she would have to tell one of the higher-ups in the police department about Catalina. Then it would be open season on the waitress, as far as Benson was concerned. I was glad Catalina had shown up for her shift, even if she didn’t want to talk to me. At least while she was at the restaurant, I could protect her.