For a moment, it almost feels like I’ve woken up on a pile of bodies, but old Kacey Summers is never that lucky, and it’s just a blood-stained mattress instead. It’s been soiled with filth and sweat, and the lazily spinning ceiling fan above me doesn’t help with the latter in the slightest. I blink awake, feeling every single cut, stab, bite and bruise and break and burn in my eighteen years of glorious life come at me all at once, nearly making me call it quits right then and there. But I persist against the agony and force myself to search the room I’m in, looking for someone I can tell that’s just been in here, judging by the smell of roses in the air. Or maybe that’s just the glass vase of flowers.

  Nobody’s ever done that for me before, I think, dragging myself upright. I wait a moment, giving my brain a second to catch up with the rest of my body, which is sluggish and lazy and everything hurts. Bandages circle my forearms and my right shoulder, making it nearly impossible to get out of the thin sheets without puking with pure exhaustion, but eventually, I win this battle and get my feet to touch the warm carpet underneath the bed. I search the room properly, finding nothing but white stone walls and a Spanish-style window slightly ajar, letting in beams of bright yellow sunlight. The sound of cars and motorbikes, talk and chatter and general noise fills the room as my mind comes into focus. Where am I? It takes a sec for my legs to work properly, and I’ve got to push against the walls and the drapes, a rickety desk with books and a computer on it, to finally get myself closer to the window.

  This isn’t New Salem.

  The first thing that leaps at me is the sunlight. I’ve never seen skies so…clear. I thought skies like this just don’t exist anymore ever since the war, or if you’re one of those rich people who can afford to pay MageCo every month to clear up the smog above their house. But this is pure. The wind is warm and smells of salt that comes right off the sparkling waters that stretch into the distance beyond the street running outside the window. For a moment, I can’t bring myself to leave. I want to stay here forever. Wind this clean just doesn’t exist if you can’t afford it, so you either wear a mask or get used to inhaling diesel and tire smoke, cigarettes and rotting dead bodies dumped in the recycling bin. I shut my eyes and let my hair get tousled by the wind, resting on the window sill and taking in as much air as I can before some guy yells at me for wasting oxygen and being greedy, but this time, nobody does.

  It’s just a shame there’s someone getting mugged on the street by a guy with a gun. Iron to the temple for all of their stuff. Empty your pockets and kick off your shoes and move, goddammit, before I make a brain slushie.

  That’s really not my problem, so I turn around and head to the door, even when I hear a gunshot bark and the thud of a body hitting the pavement. Now that’s what I’m used to. It beats seeing it with a shitty view. I can live with a homicide or two even if it means I get to stare at the waves and the palm trees and bask in buttery sunlight.

  Gods know I deserve it, after getting iced by someone who stole all of my shit.

  I hobble toward the door and turn the handle, finding it locked. That’s weird. I search the desk beside me and find a paperclip binding together pieces of paper. I’ve got to thank my older brother for teaching me how to get out of the house without mom ever finding out, and this isn’t a magi-lock, so it’s simple enough to click open after a few jiggles. I peep through the gap, still crouched, and check out the hallway beyond. A plush scarlet carpet goes down either side of the corridor, fit with depressions of people’s feet and smelling fresh and clean. Walls lined with pictures and bedrooms with doors open ajar, enough to show rooms in various states of disarray, all bathed in the same overwhelming golden sunlight that’s dousing the entire place with color and life and gummy, full warmth.

  Very slowly, I make my way down the corridor on my toes, mouth slightly agape, distracted.

  But it’s purely bad luck when I reach the stairs and find someone at the foot of them. I’d gotten wrapped up in searching the rooms around the hallway that I hadn’t heard the first creak of wood underneath her foot. We stop. We stare at one another. She’s got a tray of food in her hands, two burgers, two burritos, a glass of lemonade and a half-eaten sausage covered in mayo on her plate. Short silver hair, a wild mess sitting just above her shoulders. She’s hot, I think, catching a glimpse of the tattoos on her neck, the piercing in her eyebrow, and her intense gray eyes. But she’s also strong. Good set of shoulders. Biceps strong enough to tell me that she’s probably got a good back.

  And her first words to me are: “How the hell did you get out of your room?”

  “I’ll do you one better,” I say, “and ask you who the hell you are.”

  I hear more voices coming from outside. Laughter and chatter and things that I’m not used to, because I must be dreaming right now, right? I’m pretty sure that I never subscribed to the Happy Heaven Package from Lady Death’s catalogue. Just never had the dough for that kind of stuff. But if that’s even more food I’m hearing getting made on a grill outside, my nose twitching at the strong scents lingering in the humid air, then sign me the fuck up.

  Because it won’t be long until I’ve got to get out of here and hunt a bitch down.

  You don’t put Kacey Summers on ice and walk off with all of her shit.

  The universe just doesn’t work like that, hun.

  The chick in front of me sighs and walks up the stairs, pausing on the landing. “Whatever. If you want your own plate, don’t start salivating over mine. Grab someone else’s before it gets finished. Everyone’s got an appetite.” I watch her food intensely as she eyes me. Shorter than me, but stronger, probably. Runes on her shoulders stop shy of her forearms. Some more on her back, too, shown off by the black vest she’s wearing. She heads to the room opposite mine and kicks the door shut behind her. Seconds later, rock music starts blaring, muffled by the door.

  Dick.

  I head down the stairs, stopping in the foyer. The living room is lit up with multiple windows and flower pots sitting on every surface you can guess. An old gaming station sits under the tv, controllers still on the table. I hear more voices coming from out back, and that’s where I tentatively go after checking the kitchen for a knife or two and finding nothing but a used fork in the sink, which is gonna have to do. Better safe than sorry. The sounds of Spanish music and a crackling barbecue lead me toward the back door, where I finger aside the blinds hanging on the door and check out the backyard. Nothing crazy. Strings of light looped around a tree, all off. A tall woman with black hair in a white vest mans the grill. She’s got an empty holster on her chest, as well as an empty scabbard on her back. My eyes narrow as she laughs at something another woman says, shorter, sure, but glowing all the same with life. Soft brown skin. Deep brown hair threaded with grey hair. She’s busy at a wooden table underneath the tree, helping serve out meat to a bunch of other people—four other girls, one younger kid—all chowing down.

  I can see empty holsters and a metal baseball bat littered with stickers leaning against the tree. Just out of reach, but not too far away. Where the hell am I? A dog barks for some meat. The tall, muscular dark-haired woman tosses a strip of steak into the air. The dog, some kind of golden retriever, leaps and snaps it up in one large bite.

  Something’s wrong here, because this just feels too…perfect. That’s probably human meat, or hell, maybe it’s even the expensive Elf kind, the type that ages in wooden drums for a couple of years. I knuckle away saliva on the corner of my mouth and swallow. My stomach growls with hunger. I should get out of here. Mama always said nothing comes for free. Hell, I had to give Aster a funeral in one of those rent-a-coffin things. You know the ones you get to use for an hour or two, depending on how much you paid before they cremate the body or dump it in some shallow hole in the ground, because holy hell, dying is expensive. Remind me to get some insurance later.

  Because I’m probably going to die from diabetes, being around an environment so sickly sweet.

  The woman with the black hair turns her head, looking straight at me. I swear and let the blinds close, my heart racing, thumping against my chest like I’ve just been caught trying to steal something. Time to head out.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  A gust of wind through the house later, and she’s standing right there in front of me, grinning.

  I startle and step back, spine against the door. I glance through the gap in the blinds.

  Not a clone. She’s here in front of me, the real deal, and she’s a lot taller, a lot bigger, than she looked from afar. She’s got faint freckles on her cheeks slowly aging out. A smile worth thousands (trust me, I sold teeth last year when things got a little tight), and old battle scars and runes litter her arms in odd places. She’s got white overalls tied around her waist, filthy and smeared with what smells like engine grease and oil. She offers me her hand.

  “No point sneaking around,” she says, hand still stretched. “You owe me that much after I saved you.”

  I don’t shake her hand, because I’ve still got the fork in one and a fist in the other. “Where am I?”

  “San Fraccuros,” she says with a shrug, putting her hand back on her popped him. “Heard of it?”

  “Kinda, yeah,” I mutter. That’s not too far away from New Salem. Three, maybe four hour train ride.

  “Great!” she says. “So you also know that it’s bad manners not to come eat when offered here.”

  “You didn’t offer me anything,” I say. “Hell, I don’t even know you.”

  She smacks the side of her head. “Where are my manners? Name’s Victoria. Vicky Wilde, for short. And I was hoping you’d wake up soon and join us for some lunch before we all head out this evening for some work.” Vicky puts her hand on my back and steers me outside, and I’m not weak by any metric, but it feels like I’ve got an Orc shoving me along. I never agreed to coming with you guys for anything! “Meet the rest of the crew. I’ll grab you a plate and stack it full. You need to get some more meat on those bones before you head out for the night.”

  We stop at the wooden picnic table, where she’s got her hand on my shoulder, stopping me from even turning around and going anywhere. The four girls keep eating but stop talking, looking at me with either some interest or not a single care whatsoever. The little girl is the one closest to me, standing on the bench with meat still in her mouth. Tongues of red hair spill out from underneath her backward baseball cap. An older girl beside her, short black hair, kind of looks like Vicky, just a lot younger, with somehow an even larger grin and working gloves tucked into a toolbelt hanging off her waist. She’s got a gear tattoo on her right shoulder, but that’s about it for her.

  The other two girls are hot and cold, like they’re playing a secret game of good cop, bad cop. One of them, with nothing but a plate of barbecued vegetables in front of her, smiles at me. The other girl, deep brown skin, long and thin breads, keeps eating like I’m not even there. Her eyes are fine, almost like slits. Blue eyes, dark brows, and I can tell someone who uses a sword just from their shoulders alone. Exactly the type. Except her meat is more interesting than anything I’ve got to offer which, fair, it does smell delicious, and I’m starting to get kinda hungry.

  The woman from before is at the other end of the table, not food in front of her, but standing to serve. There’s something about her that rubs me the wrong way. Like I’ve seen her face somewhere before but can’t really remember where. She must have one of those faces then, but all the smiling and lingering joy is bugging me out.

  Vicky nudges me, still smiling. I clear my throat. “Hey, I guess? Name’s Kacey. Kacey Summers.” The woman putting meat on a plate drops a slice of turkey on the grass. Her dog takes its chance and snaps it off the ground before he can be told otherwise, escaping behind the tree to eat in private. Vicky raises an eyebrow at her, but the other woman isn’t looking at her—straight back to putting food on the plate, but this time with her eyes on me a lot more than before. “I’m not from around, and I think I’ve either been bought by Vicky, or I’m really lost.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first stranger to find themselves here when they’re lost,” the soft-skinned woman says, handing me the plate. “Lucia, and this is my home. At least, it is when Victoria isn’t around to take it over.”

  “I’ve always said you’re liable for a cut of at least some of the profits, Lu,” Vicky says. “I can pay.”

  She waves her hand through the air, and for a moment, all I can smell is honey, like the cluster of bees in that tree have all just remembered what they should be doing. Druid. Everyone’s eyes here are glowing softly, but hers are the most luminous. An amber-brown, like aged honey, and wherever she walks, her bare feet sink into the soil and the grass, as if all the Earth wants to do is gobble her up. No wonder the grass around here is so fresh. The entire neighborhood is a dustbowl in comparison. “I get by just fine selling wine and herbs. If I ever need cash, I’ll go to a bank and wink at the manager, just like I used to when I was your age, and everything turned out just fine.”

  “Whatever you said, Lu,” Vicky mutters. “Just sayin’ that you are getting up there.”

  Lucia smacks her arm with the back of her hand. “Watch your mouth. You might’ve gotten taller, but you’re still the same pain that you’ve always been.” She stops in front of me and smiles. “It’s a pleasure to have you, Kacey. Feel at home for however long you like. The room you woke in is yours until you feel you’ve outgrown it.”

  Awesome. Free rent and free food? Yeah, sure, like I believe that. “Why was it locked, though?”

  “That’s to stop this little menace from getting in and disturbing you whilst you healed up,” the girl with the work belt says, jerking her thumb at the little redhead. “Guessin’ you found the key underneath the doormat?”

  I shrug one shoulder. “Found a paperclip on the table with a bunch of papers.”

  Workbelt laughs, even if she’s got food in her mouth. “I like ‘er. She’s a quick thinker.”

  “Or she’s not capable of looking for a logical way out of something so simple,” Braids mutters.

  “Oh, just ease up for one day,” the girl beside her says, gently pushing her shoulder. She looks at me and says, “You’re pretty lucky, though, since we were about to put a magi-lock on the door instead. Runt is a lot smarter than she looks. She broke into your room five times in thirty minutes with nothing except that bent fork of yours.”

  “I just wanted to see what Vicky brought!” the redhead protests. “We don’t get new people that much.”

  “We shouldn’t be getting new people at all,” Braids says, and when she looks at me, it’s almost like me just standing here is offensive to her eyeballs. I’m about to ask her if we’ve got some kinda problem, because talking like that back in New Salem gets you a beating, a mugging, and then a stomping if you’re lucky enough to get your lights shut out before they start dragging your body into an alleyway so the cops don’t yell at them to knock it off.

  I’ve heard stories about San Fraccuros, but not much. Easy-going gangster paradise. Freeloaders and money makers, all boozing up on the same palm tree-lined strip of clubs and bars, strip clubs and casinos. The only reason I never cared much about this place is because the police care a lot more here than they do in New Salem about hunting people down and Monster rights laws and blah, blah, blah. The Mage Bureau actually do their job here, too, which sucks when you’re trying to get away with boiling a Gorgon alive to use the fats just underneath its skin to easily tug its flesh right off its body, all in under an hour. And no, I don’t want to explain what I was doing with several pounds of Gorgon flesh in my backpack a few months ago. Times got tough and decisions got tougher.

  “Astrid, come on,” Purple Hair says, looking at the girl beside her. “We spoke about this.”

  “Besides,” Victoria says, pushing on my shoulder so I sit at the empty space on the table. “Kacey here is going to be joining us tonight whether you like it or not, so you better cozy up, because she’s your Second Sword.”

  “What?” Astrid says, dropping her cutlery.

  “Yeah, what?” I repeat, taking a chunk out of the honey-glazed meat and…wow, suddenly I might actually go on whatever job these guys are planning on doing if it means I get to keep eating this stuff. “Pass the hot sauce.”

  Runt slides it across the table, and I dash it all over my plate. This stuff rocks.

  I guess food tastes better when your pockets don’t hurt after buying it.

  “You didn’t tell me anything about this,” Astrid says.

  “And I don’t have to, last time I checked,” Victoria replies.

  “What happened to being a ‘team’?” she asks, voice growing hotter. “About listening to one another.”

  “I’m not gonna argue with you about this, so you’re gonna eat up and take a nap and get ready for later.” It sounds pretty final from my standpoint, and Astrid probably feels the same way. She stands and leaves, ignoring the others when they call after her. She doesn’t slam the patio door shut. Nice and gentle, but the air is a little more frigid, and this meat is tasting a lot better, especially when I grab Astrid’s half-eaten plate and dump her food onto mine. If she’s not gonna finish it, then I might as well do her a favor. But everyone else has seemingly had enough.

  “You guys should prep for tonight,” Victoria says. “I’ll give Kacey a run down of our op later.”

  “And more food if you’ve got it. I’ve not eaten in days.”

  “That, too,” she says, smiling.