Phantom & Scythe

Chapter One

“I paid seventy bucks for this rubbish!”

“Ma’am, could you please provide me with the product code of your purchase?” I rolled my eyes as Sydney, my call-center office buddy, settled into her seat. 

A long, frizzy ginger blonde curl bounced into my vision and my finger instinctively looped around it, hooking the strand back into one of many pins stuck into my hair. My hand barely moved away from my head when the rebellious curl ricochet back onto my face and I had to repeat the notion for what could be the hundredth time today. 

My hair was manageable more frequently than not, but in this humid weather you’d easily mistake me as a distant relative of a wild alpaca.  

“Ooh, one of those,” Sydney drawled, taking a long, purposeful sip from her steaming coffee.

I snorted into the receiver.

“Excuse me?” the woman on the phone paused mid-sentence. “I will have you—”

“Ma’am, on behalf of Paradise-Mart, I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.” I re-adjusted my head-set, shifting in my seat. “Could you please repeat your product code?”

She recited the code through gritted teeth. 

“Uh-huh,” I typed the code into the computer. “Just a moment, please.”

Another one of those stupid beads sets—third complaint today.

“Ma’am, could you please describe the problem you have with the set?”

“It’s plastic!” Her voice exploded in a shrill octave through the headpiece. “On the website it said marble. This junk is not marble!”

I sighed. “Ma’am, in the product description it states faux marble beads, made of plastic. It’s written right beneath the ‘Happy Beads’ title.”

“It does not—”

The woman fell silent. I bet she was reading it now, feeling like a total ass—exactly like the previous customers.

“Oh,” she said. “I am so sorry. I might have missed that part.”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s quite a common mistake.” I tried my chirpy voice, glancing toward my watch lying on top of my desk. Yes! I was so done for the day. 

“Well, I would like to—” 

Rudely, I disconnected the call and dropped the headpiece on top of my desk. 

“Thank goodness,” I murmured, leaning back into my seat and rubbed my forehead. 

“Happy Beads, right?” Sydney c****d a brow, smirking.

“Yup.”

“I would like to shove a few of them up the manufacturer’s ass and show them Happy Beads. Bloody hell, I’ve never seen people get so riled up by a product.”

I snorted a laugh. “If you ever do, please throw in Talking Lulu in there too.”

“Oh, you bet I will.” Sydney took another sip from her cup. “So, what are your plans for the weekend?”

“Same as always.” 

She pinned me with one of her dubious looks as her forefinger slowly traced the brim of the cup. “You’re going out? Have you thought about Curt’s offer?” Her eyes widened. “Don’t tell me you told him no. You did, didn’t you?”

I gave her one of my what-do-you-think smiles and got up from my stool. 

“Arden West,” she motioned toward me. “You’re a gorgeous twenty-two-year-old.”

“Twenty-three,” I corrected.

“Even worse!” Sydney flung her free arm into the air.  “Normal twenty-somethings go out, have fun, go to clubs, dance, get drunk and laid. Often. Not tucked in bed reading all weekend.” 

“I’m studying. Veterinary goals, remember? I’m not just reading, Syd. I don’t want to work as a call center agent for the rest of my life.”

“You won’t fail if you go out and have fun once in a while,” she pointed out. “Curt, for a good example, looks like a lot of fun.”

“Curt isn’t my type,” I cut short. Not that I could confirm what exactly was my type. It wasn’t as if I dated, ever, and wasn’t about to tell Sydney that. She’d fall into one of her speeches of how normal young people do certain things. Sydney was in her mid-forties and my only friend. That was only because she worked with me and I was always working or studying. It wasn’t a choice I had made; it was a necessity. 

After I had fled the orphanage at the age of eighteen back in Cooperstown, New York, and found a small flat above a beauty shop in whitefish, Montana, I had no other choice but to work my butt off. I had no family to give me a boost or a back to stand on, or a safe haven to crawl in if needed. 

If I didn’t bust my behind, I’d be another dirty, tattered-clothed living body wandering the streets, rummaging dumpsters for a living.  

I'd promised myself that it would never be me. I didn’t care if I had to swing around a pole half naked if I had to, or God forbid, the other things I would do, but that would never be me. 

Some might say I lack morals to think that way, but if you grew up with nearly nothing in a battered, old house your entire life, getting beaten up by the owners half the time for simply carrying the wrong expression on your face, you’d be desperate too.

After persistent searching, I was fortunate enough to receive a call from Paradise Mart, an online convenience store for a call center agent position. I’d been working here ever since. The pay wasn’t great, but it was enough to keep my worn-out bachelor flat roof over my head and basic meals to keep my belly full. 

When I received my raise at the beginning of this year, I immediately enrolled at an online college and tried to broaden my horizon. 

Hopefully at some point, I’d be able to afford a car license and then a car. I’d get there, I promised myself. 

I thought about Curt. He was fairly good looking, but he had a personality of a rock. His aspirations were limited to boring dinner dates, getting married, finding a nice house with a white picket fence and then having babies. Lots of babies. I’d end up as the plump housewife, hands always stinking of bleach and carrying plates of home cooked meals after hubby. 

I craved more, needed more. Just like everything else, I had no idea what that would be, but I knew it wasn’t what Curt would want. 

“Then what is your type?” Sydney prodded, leaning back in her stool. I pushed in my stool under my desk, picked up my sweater and shrugged it on, thinking for a moment. Then, I said “Mysterious. Packed with personality. Exciting.”

“Makes your toes curl with lust?” Syd supplied. “Your skin hot and your panties…”

“Ah! Stop!” I threw my hands up, flushing. “That’s not where I was going.”

“Then what else? You—oh. Oh,” Sydney’s eyes widened as realization dawned on her. “You’ve never? My girl, what have you been doing all this time?”

“That, my dear Syd, is no one’s business.” 

After years of working together, this wasn’t the first time the subject had been brought up. I started to wonder if she was doing it on purpose, or just had a bad memory. I didn’t openly throw around my virginity status, one shouldn’t need to, it was personal, but Syd had a way of pulling that kind of info out of you. I didn’t need to ever answer her. My red, hot flaming face was always my dead giveaway. I’d never had anyone to discuss that kind of stuff with and had been taught that it was a taboo subject.

Syd was the type who believed the opposite and had me flaming red in my seat on numerous occasions as she went on full, fledged detail about what her current man did with her in bed.  

I picked up my handbag and threw it over my shoulder. “Bye, Syd,” I said as I hurried down the row of occupied desks. If I didn’t move fast, she’d catch up and I didn’t want to go in to detail of my non-existent s*x life. 

To add to my humiliation, Syd yelled after me “The first time is the best, honey! Try Delaney’s, there are quite a few hotties that wouldn’t mind giving it to you!”

As faces turned from their desks, I ducked my flaming face through the exit. Leave it to Syd not to be subtle.  

I was tense the whole bus ride home. It wasn’t until I stepped through the doorway of my bachelor’s flat that I eased up and released a heavy, relieved breath. My flat was dark for four in the afternoon, having only two, small windows located right above my bed, that was also the center of my living room. My kitchen and living room / bedroom were separated by a row of kitchen cabinets and a small bar fridge. The only other room inside my small, crammed flat was the bathroom that consisted of a shower and toilet. If I wanted to wash hands, I’d have to do so in the kitchen. The sink in my bathroom was broken. The ceramic base had been broken out by the previous owners and the landlord, a stubborn old fool, blandly refused to fix it. At some point, I wanted to buy a shower curtain because during winter there was nothing worse, or colder, than taking a shower in a drafty, open shower. Grateful it was midsummer and after a long, hot day at work nothing sounded more appealing than a good shower to work out the tense muscles in my back. I slipped out of my work clothes, took that desirable but short shower—because a higher water bill meant less food inside the fridge—and dressed in my pajamas. I dozed off on my comforter and got jostled awake by a loud clatter from somewhere below me. It was pitch dark around when my eyes flew open, except for a small splash of light that rested across my bed from a streetlight outside my window. I groaned, rubbing my forehead. I was starting to feel the beginning of a killer migraine and my stomach was rumbling. I forced myself up from the comforter, crossing the room toward my mini kitchen in the dark, patting through my drawers for a box of matches. When my hand found them, it dawned on me that I hadn’t stocked up on candles. I let out another disputable groan and let go of the matches. It was another necessity I  neglected to take care of and electricity went out in this building more frequently than not. Instead, I patted the comforter for my phone and headed for my fridge. After a quick look inside I slammed it shut, not wanting to acknowledge how low I was running on food. 

The little I did have required a stove to be cooked on and that said stove, needed electricity to function. I was hungry and getting grumpier by the second. I carefully toed my way to the other side of the dark room, trying to feel my way to my handbag. I had a few Delaney’s vouchers stuffed in there, courtesy of Sydney who practically lived in there. It was part of a freebie package she had given me a while back, along with packs of sauces and small, single shot bottles of different kinds of alcohol. She kept the alcohol, of course. The rest she forced on me. I’ve already used up the sauces and told myself I’d never go to Delaney’s. I eyed the expiration date. It was next week, how lucky, I thought dryly. Guess tonight I’ll be eating at Delaney’s bar & dine, the one place I’ve avoided since Sydney had told me about it. Hunger didn’t make me think rationally. I mean, how bad could it really be?