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All There Is

Summary:

All her life, Sasha Mendez has been told when she kisses her true love, he'll die.
Living in a family of psychics has taught her to not take such predictions lightly.
When she meets the boy she's destined to kill, an oblivious nerd named Rhys from the local prep school, she's swept up into his world of magic and his quest for a mysterious Vault, along with his eclectic group of friends.

And he will die within the year.

Notes:

This was just a dumb idea that I ended up writing 2k for in like an hour. Weird.
Warning: I probably won't carry this fic to its full potential
This one goes out to Rhysha God thirty2flavors

Chapter Text

Sasha did not envy Fiona, nor did Fiona envy Sasha.

Sasha was too interested in making her own future to worry about how her sister—her whole family—dabbled in the destinies of others. Nor did she desire the ability to see ghosts everywhere: ghosts of the past, ghosts of the future, traces of what people would do.

Fiona didn’t want the power to augment the psychic abilities of others; it was better to be the one augmented, to see the wisps surrounding every person turn into solid possibilities as long as Sasha was by her side.

But Sasha did envy Fiona one thing: Fiona could fall in love.

Because the entire family of psychics living at 300 Fox Way had predicted the same thing: if Sasha were to kiss her true love, he would die.

Others would have scoffed at such a specific yet fairytale prediction. But not Sasha. She had seen firsthand the predictive powers of everyone who had delivered this dire prophecy. Indeed, they turned a profit on them.

So she spent many hours of her childhood wildly speculating how this prophecy would be fulfilled. Maybe she carried a horribly deadly and untreatable disease transmitted by kissing. Maybe it would be a jealous affair, an old flame emerging from the bushes to kill her true love at the moment of the kiss. Maybe it would be a coincidence, and her love would exit, pursued by bear.

By sixteen, Sasha had decided she would never fall in love.

But all that changed when her Janey’s half sister Aurelia came to their town of Hollow Point.

Sasha wasn’t sure why Aurelia was coming. Aurelia’s was not the world of backroom readings and hand painted signs. Aurelia had a show on at noon and many books on the supernatural. Her gift dealt in precision and numbers—the kind of thing that made for good theatrics but didn’t really get to the bottom of things. But, like the women of Fox Way, her predictions were always correct.

Sasha was the one who opened the door for Aurelia when she finally arrived, dragging an expensive-looking suitcase. She was a haughty-looking woman whose face looked impossibly old in the shadows of the mountains, but really couldn’t have been older than Sasha’s mother, which wasn’t old at all. She was as dark as her half-sister was fair, with a white streak running through her black hair. Sasha saw a hint of herself in the lines of her cheekbones, which was funny because they weren’t related by blood. Sasha saw none of herself in the impossible wave of cold that radiated off the woman. Before Sasha could even say anything, Aurelia interjected,

“You’re the daughter.”

Sasha nodded, and Aurelia continued,

“This is the year you’ll fall in love.”

=========

Fiona envied Sasha one thing, and that was the chance to go to the church on St. Mark’s Eve.

“I don’t see why you get to go and I can’t,” she had complained from her top bunk.

“I never even see anything,” Sasha reminded her. “I’m just there as a conduit.”

And indeed Sasha almost envied Fiona the chance to stay home. At least it wasn’t raining this year. But the stone was still cold and the old church was still rotting. Usually, she came with Janey, but this year she didn’t even have that. Instead, she sat on the stone wall alongside Aurelia, holding a pencil and pad of paper.

This was the corpse road, the path that the dead—or soon to be dead—walked every year on the 24th of April. The souls of the people that were to die in the next year appeared on this road at midnight—at least theoretically. The dead kept poor time, so here they were, at five minutes to eleven.

Aurelia said nothing as she sat, rigid and cold, on the stone wall. Until she started slightly, glancing over her shoulder.

“They’re here,” she said, and Sasha readied her pencil.

Aurelia leaned in as each spirit passed, asking for a name, and nodding as she repeated it for Sasha to write down. This was their routine every St. Mark’s Eve, except usually it was Janey beside her. If one of the future dead were clients, Janey would inform them. Allow them to get their affairs in order.

Sasha had sixteen years of not being privy to the supernatural under her belt, so it didn’t bother her how Aurelia could interact with the spirit world with ease. Sasha didn’t want to see ghosts.

And then she saw one.

“What’s your name?” Aurelia called out to him. He didn’t respond.

“I can see him,” Sasha whispered.

Aurelia looked shocked. Apparently, he was a spirit. Sasha wasn’t supposed to be able to see the spirits.

“Talk to him,” Aurelia hissed. “He’s not responding to me.”

As if in a trance, Sasha walked over to the lone figure. She felt a chill, presumably from all the ghosts passing through her, taking her energy for one last grateful manifestation. She was like a battery to spirits, she had been told.

As she approached, she recognized Hyperion yellow as the color of his tattered sweater. This was unusual. The students of Hyperion Academy were prim and proper, pressed and professional. They were the reason Sasha had come up with her two rules. One, stay away from boys, because they were trouble. And two, stay away from Hyperion boys, because they were bastards.

But this one was too helpless to hate. Putting aside the fact that he’d be dead within the year. His clothes were torn. His hair was limp and bedraggled, hanging in faded red-brown curls over his anguished face. He turned towards her, and she saw chiseled features marred by bruising over his left eye. In life, perhaps he was handsome. But whatever veil separated them blurred and drained his features. All that was left was a suggestion. A Hyperion boy that she could, for some reason, see.

He was shuffling forward, towards the door of the old church, and Sasha knew she had to stop him if she was going to get his name.

“Who are you?” she demanded, and he flinched imperceptibly. So not only could she see him, he could hear her. She stepped forward.

“Please,” she said, softly this time. Her fingers brushed the edge of his tattered yellow sweater, and a chill washed over her. Just him using his energy to manifest, she reminded herself. But it felt like dread.

“Will you tell me your name?”

He faced her, and his eyes were disconcertingly empty. Yet they stared right at her.

“Rhys,” he said. She could barely hear him, but not because he was whispering; it was like he was speaking from another room, someplace just beyond her reach.

“Is that all?” she asked.

“That’s all there is,” he replied in that same otherworldly tone. The chill that ran through her body was not spiritual. It was a completely normal chill. The kind of chill that comes from speaking to a boy doomed to die.

He gave a grunt and fell soundlessly to his knees, his hands splayed out against the earth. He was fading now. His time—all of the ghosts’s time—was running short.

“Aurelia!” Sasha called. Somehow, her half-aunt was by her side, clearly too intrigued to stay away. “Aurelia, he’s dying!”

“Not yet,” she responded. Her gaze was almost indifferent.

Rhys gave a last little cry, and then he was gone, gone to wherever time ghosts go to die for the last—first—time.

“Wh—why could I see him?” Sasha asked.

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on the ley line,” Aurelia told her. “Either he is your true love, or you are the one who kills him.” “It’s me,” said Rhys.

The hood of the offensively yellow Camaro affectionately dubbed the Loader was propped up, more as a call for help than as an actual attempt at fixing the problem. The actual attempt that Rhys was currently engaged in was calling his friend Yvette to come pick him up. He would have quite liked to lean moodily against the hood as he did so, but he was wearing a spotless yellow uniform and didn’t want to risk contact with the grease that undoubtably lurked in every crevice of the ancient car.

“You missed Leadership Practices,” Yvette said. “I thought you were dead in a ditch.”

Rhys glanced at his watch. It was almost eleven, but last night’s unseasonal chill still lingered in the air. Or perhaps that was the thrill of discovery.

“You know what,” he decided, “it’s almost lunch break. Just pick me up. I’m right by the I-93 exit. Bring burgers. And Vaughn,” he added. Vaughn, who could add together car parts as if they were the numbers that he manipulated so effortlessly, would surely know what to do.

“You’re paying me back for the burgers,” Yvette told him before hanging up.

Rhys stripped off his sweater and tossed it into the backseat of the Loader, where it joined a pile of detritus appropriate to such a car. He immediately had to move the sweater aside, as it had landed atop the pile of maps, notes, and electronic equipment he had accumulated during his time in Hollow Point. After a bit of rummaging, he found the digital recorder he had sat with for the entirety of the previous night, perched gingerly a bit of a ways from the ancient church.

Most people didn’t celebrate St. Mark’s Eve. But Rhys believed in its power. And he needed all the leads he could get for his quest.

And finally, he had something. He wasn’t quite sure what that something was, or what that something meant. But it was impossible. And that meant he was on the right track.

His thoughts were interrupted by Yvette’s BMW sending up a small spray of gravel as it pulled up beside him. The beat of the song that went something-something-Mainframe thudded through the asphalt as Yvette stepped out of the driver's side. And from the other side came Vaughn, member three of their Hyperion foursome.

Vaughn gave him a look, and that look asked if he had found anything. And Rhys gave him a victorious smirk and tilt of the head. That meant he had.

“Hugo wants to meet us at Purple Dog,” Yvette announced as Vaughn moved to inspect the Loader. “With Ashley. His newest arm candy.”

Rhys folded his arms. Yvette’s brother was a smarmy ass, and impossible to deal with, but it was Rhys’s unspoken job to keep the siblings from fistfighting. Not an easy task. Rhys was in a good mood, though, and not even meeting Hugo could dampen his excitement. Especially when he remembered that, Hugo or no, that evening the four of them would all be clustered around a table, squeezed into the booth and feasting. Going over the evidence.

“Ask me if I found anything,” Rhys told Yvette. She sighed.

“Did you find anything?”

Rhys grinned and held up the recorder.

“Vaughn, get over here.”

Vaughn ditched his mechanical work and came over.

“So I stayed up by the old church last night,” Rhys recounted dramatically, “and I didn’t hear anything the whole night. But these recorders pick up things you can’t hear. Paranormal 101. I was listening to the recording on my way to school this morning. Silence. Until…” he pressed play.

Silence. And then, clear as day, words.

“Will you tell me your name?” a hushed female voice asked.

Rhys said, “Rhys.” But it wasn’t the Rhys standing by the sun-baked road. It was a faraway Rhys. A lost Rhys.

“Is that all?” the girl asked.

“That’s all there is,” Rhys said.

“That wasn’t me,” the Rhys not on the recording burst out enthusiastically. “I was totally silent.”

Yvette raised an eyebrow and pretended to not be impressed. Her skepticism was on display in every line of her face. She had taken quite a bit of care to cultivate such a face. But her faith was never in doubt; she followed Rhys in his quest without question.

“What does it mean, bro?” Vaughn asked.

“It means,” Rhys announced, “we move forward.”

He couldn’t contain his excitement. He had been stagnating in between clues for months now. But with this, things were finally happening. It felt like something was starting. Something beyond his control.

With a few clever turns of a wrench that Rhys could never hope to understand, Vaughn had the Loader working again. It sputtered to life as if saying thank you. Rhys supposed that if his car were to speak to anyone, it would be Vaughn.

Rhys got in his car, and Vaughn got into Yvette’s. Before driving away, they both had something for him. Yvette handed him a grease stained fast food bag. Half the fries were missing.

Vaughn handed him a piece of paper with a phone number written on it in his impossibly neat handwriting.

“It’s for a psychic’s practice,” Vaughn told him. Rhys raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in psychics; skepticism would be hypocritical. He just wasn’t sure if they were the real deal. Or how much they could tell him.

“This was the plan if you didn’t find anything,” Vaughn continued.

“And now?”

Vaughn shrugged.

“You’ve got something to ask them about.” He looked up at Rhys, a necessity thanks to Rhys’s middle school growth spurt. “We need to know who you were talking to.”

Chapter 2

Summary:

Sasha has a disagreeable day at her waitressing job.

Notes:

Finally added more to this—wrote almost 3k words in 45 minutes! And this one's a club banger of a chapter if i do say so myself, folks. Enjoy!

Update: went back and edited this chapter. Replaced Timothy with Angel for plot reasons

Chapter Text

300 Fox Way was not a house in the popular sense. A house, to Sasha, was a showcase on an evening program hosted by white men with slick smiles and coiffed hair. Agents walked the hallways of a house. Houses were barren and spotless, save for an appropriately attractive model showcased on a white bed.

300 Fox Way was a home, because it was so crowded. Necessity forced every room and piece of furniture into multiple roles, so the bookshelf held dishes and the phone room was also a sewing room was also were the cats lived. This made mornings a chaotic affair. The kitchen became a dance floor, with partners weaving and tangoing to make lunches and grab car keys. It was an ordeal to get out the door every morning. It was almost a competition, and one that Sasha had become very good at through sixteen years of practice.

Not this morning, though.

This morning, the light that streamed through the leaves of the great tree outside Sasha’s window held the distinctive warmth of afternoon. The house held a peculiar quietness, clearly not used to an absence of chaos. It felt peaceful, but lonely.

Sasha stretched out her arms as she sat up in bed. Every one of her bones was filled with that weight that lingers even after exhaustion has been swept away by sleep. She checked her watch. She had been tired after the St. Mark’s Day vigil before, but never like this.

She bounded downstairs to find Janey and Aurelia drinking tea at the table. No one else was in the house. That almost never happened.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Sasha demanded. “It’s almost noon.”

“I did,” Janey replied. “Four times. You just went right back to sleep.”

Sasha huffed her way over to the refrigerator and grabbed some eggs, cheese, and bread. She hadn’t had anything but egg sandwiches for breakfast for years, and she wasn’t about to deviate now, even though the cheese was just old enough to be suspect.

“You got work today?” Janey asked.

“Yeah,” Sasha sighed. “Purple Dog Pizza. Usually I’m out at 8:00, but Kelsey asked me to cover her shift cuz she wants to see that superhero movie with her new boyfriend. I’ll be back by 8:45.”

“You could always say no,” said Aurelia. “You don’t have to cover for her.”

Sasha shrugged. “Well, maybe sometime I’ll need the favor returned.” She poured herself a glass of orange juice. “What’d you tell the school?”

“You’re sick. Vomiting all over the bloody floor,” Janey said. “Try to look peaky tomorrow.”

Sasha shrugged and started basting the egg.

“That boy who died—dies…is there any way to stop it?”

“‘Fraid not, love. We’ve tried. The vigil is just so we can give them time to get their affairs in order.”

“He wouldn’t listen, anyway,” Aurelia input. “He’s not a client.”

Sasha sighed. She’d been dealing with the deaths of the St. Mark’s vigil for years now without much existential dread, but this was different. Whoever Rhys was, she’d actually seen him, and that made him far more real than the names she’d been scribbling down on that yellow legal pad. It was hard to imagine herself falling in love with him, but the prophecy was clear: he was her true love. She would kiss him. And he would die. Because of her.

“Maybe it’ll give him closure, allow him to wrap things up,” Janey continued. “Or maybe you’ll ruin whatever time he has left.”

They were right. What was Sasha gonna do, anyway? Knock on the window of his souped-up BMW or Porsche or whatever and urge him to get life insurance? She was already considered a weirdo at her public high school, and while her reputation as eccentric didn’t bother her, “get laughed off of a private school parking lot” wasn’t on her bucket list.

“If you like,” Aurelia said, “I can try to see what killed him.”

Janey shot Aurelia a sharp look, but Aurelia was unfazed.

“Really? You can do that?” Sasha snatched a spatula from the jar full of utensils. “Uh, let me finish my breakfast.”

“It’s hardly breakfast,” Janey snickered, gesturing to the wall clock.

After Sasha had scarfed down her sandwich, Aurelia asked her to pour a bowl of wine.

“We’re out of wine,” Sasha replied. “Is cran-apple juice okay?”
“As long as it’s dark.”

Sasha set the bowl in front of Aurelia, who turned off the kitchen light.

“Pull me out if I start speaking in a voice that isn’t mine,” she said casually, as if offering guidance on how to fold clothes.

Sasha nodded with slight trepidation. She always made psychic echoes stronger. That made scrying, already risky, even more dangerous. Aurelia knew this, yet showed no fear as she gazed into the dark liquid.

Aurelia gazed into the bowl, unblinking. In about ten seconds, her eyes unfocused. They weren’t lazy or dreamy—it was as though she was looking down a very long tunnel.

They were silent for about a minute. Aurelia was completely still, then shook herself with a quick shiver. She blinked a few times, presumably from dry eyes.

“Well,” she declared, “that was most interesting.”

Sasha leaned forward.

“What?” She demanded. “What happened to him?”

“He disappeared.”

“Well, yes, I know he’s gonna die, but—“
Aurelia cut her off with a decisive hand motion. “No, I mean I tried to follow him to the point of his death, but before he died, he entered a place I could not see. That’s never happened before.”

“Did I mess it up?” Sasha asked.

Aurelia shook her head. “No. I’m afraid whatever killed him may be very dangerous. You should stay away from that boy.”

“Well, I’d love to,” Sasha huffed, “but according to ghost law I don’t have that option.”

Aurelia gave her a pensive look. “You’re very sensible, aren’t you.”

Sasha gave a derisive noise and crossed her arms. She didn’t have much of a choice. Not like the Hyperion students—they didn’t need to be sensible. They had enough money in their bank accounts to make any error downright trivial.

Anyway, one thing was for sure: if fate really wanted her to get tangled up with this Hyperion boy, it would have to drag her to him kicking and screaming. She may be from a magical family, but she was still sensible.

“Well,” Sasha sighed, “if I’m off all day, I may as well head over to the quilting society and see if they need any odd jobs done. Probably won’t be back until my Purple Dog shift is over.”

She grabbed her bike lock and made for the door.

“Sasha,” Janey called after her, “I don’t have to tell you not to kiss anyone, right?”

———

Hugo had explicitly asked Rhys when Yvette wouldn’t be able to come to Purple Dog Pizza. Rhys had lied to him at Yvette’s request, so when Hugo and Ashley showed up to the Dome and knocked crisply on the door, Vaughn opened it with some trepidation.

Hugo was, simply put, an asshole. There was no better, more poetic way to put it. Everyone hated him, but until Yvette turned 18, he controlled all her finances, so they tolerated him for the time being.

As the two of them entered, Hugo had eyes only for Yvette. They stared daggers at each other, like electricity in the air. The hair on Vaughn’s arms rose.

He watched Ashley’s delicate fingers type a teasing little rhythm along Hugo’s arm before she walked away from him to gaze, open-mouthed, at the interior of the Dome. Vaughn was very good at watching without being noticed. Only Angel ever seemed to catch him at it.

“Yvette,” Hugo said cordially. “I thought you had tennis.”

“Thought wrong,” Yvette replied. Vaughn read tension in every line of her body.

Ashley was still gazing around the Dome, and Vaughn let himself feel a little swell of pride at the place. It was an old greenhouse used as a research facility in time gone by, consigned to dust and decay by the time Rhys came across it. Now, it was quite the accommodation for four high schoolers. Rhys had decided that it was far more practical to possess a property than rent one from Hyperion. The ceiling was soaring, and while most of the glass was grimed up, it still let in plenty of light to illuminate the main space.

While they all lived here, it was really an extension of Rhys. Not that the other three minded; Rhys’s soul laid bare in the clutter was quite a beautiful and interesting thing. A printout of satellite photos of Hollow Point spread itself across the linoleum floor, marked in highlighter and pushpins. Rhys’s desk was a mess of paper, of coffee cups and old, pretentious-looking fountain pens that he never used. He had journals galore, but all the real work resided in an iPad in a yellow protective case that Rhys called the Data Slicer. The data in question came from the piles of books, not the show-off stacks of an academic, but the slouching and crazed piles of a scholar obsessed. And he’d marked a great upside-down V in a circle in purple spray paint on one of the walls.

Rhys’s bed, in contrast, was a futon mattress just lying on the floor. It seemed intimate, an expression of nakedness, and Vaughn was suddenly embarrassed to have Ashley see it.

“What is all this stuff?” Ashley asked in wonderment at Rhys’s mess.

Rhys jumped on the chance to explain his passion to someone. Or maybe he just wanted to ignore the tension between Yvette and Hugo.

“How much do you know about dead Welsh kings and their treasure?”

Ashley shook her head. “Not much.”

“Well, all of this is research on a king named Owen Glendower—that’s the English name, at least.”

And Rhys went into his sermon. A sermon it was, indeed—Glendower and his Vault had become Rhys’s religion. He told Ashley about the Welsh archeological artifacts found in Virginia and research suggesting Glendower had died in America. He explained the digs and the dirt, the scholars and the books.

He left out the rest, of course.

He left out the talks of ley lines. He didn’t tell her about the nights spent canvassing Hollow Point with an EMF reader and a night-vision camera, the occult texts lying in a pile under some dirty sweaters. He didn’t tell her about the legend that whoever found the Vault would be granted a favor by Glendower, and that when unearthed, Glendower would rise again.

Their belief, their hunt, was not one they shared.

As he was telling Ashley about sediment layers—she was surprisingly interested—a door creaked open, and the last member of their foursome peered out before entering the main space with some trepidation.

Angel didn’t like conflict, so Vaughn wasn’t surprised when she scooted around Hugo and Yvette’s pointed nonconversation. She was pale in the evening light shining through the windows, and her wide blue eyes viewed Ashley with some mistrust.

“Oh, hi!” Ashley greeted her. “You must be Angel, right.”

Angel nodded and presented her hand. Ashley shook it and gave a surprised squeak.

“Your hands are so cold!” she commented.

“I’ve been dead for seven years,” Angel said drily. “That’s as warm as they get.”

“Right,” Rhys announced with a clap of his hands. “Everyone ready? Let’s head out.”

———

That night, Sasha was off to one of her more disagreeable jobs: waitressing at Purple Dog Pizza. It wasn’t the waitressing itself that made it so unsavory, even though customer service required a repertoire of skills she rarely possessed. In fact, the hours were flexible, it was the most legitimate entry on her long resume, and the pay was surprisingly generous. No, was the location of Purple Dog Pizza right across from Hyperion Academy. There were better, more expensive restaurants, but somewhere along the line every Hyperion student “worth knowing” had decided Purple Dog Pizza was the place to be, and that meant every evening the linoleum floor bustled with snobby rich kids in casual fashion that still screamed of money. Many of the guys assumed that the world that had handed them everything on a silver platter would hand them any girl they wanted, and she had to turn down some grease-smiling sleazebag almost every night. The manager was a gutter-punk street racer who only stayed in Hyperion Academy because, it was rumored, his mom was in the mob.

Tonight was no better. She was already tired from last night’s festivities, and Purple Dog Pizza was crowded as always. One table in particular was being a bit rowdy.

She’d seen that particular group before, but never paid them much mind. There were four of them. One was definitely going to be an accountant—he squinted through thick-framed glasses and slouched so bad he might have scoliosis. There was a deathly pale girl with black hair and deep hollows in her eyes—some sort of nonconformist goth, perhaps. As if any Hyperion student would actually oppose the status quo. There was a woman with dark skin, dreads, and a dress more expensive than the entirety of Sasha’s wardrobe. And then there was the bellwether, the boy that, if the tables were rectangular, would no doubt be seated at the head. He was handsome, with slicked-back brown hair, deep brown eyes, and a dazzling smile. He wore a red tie like a Republican presidential candidate. He had a demeanor that held the world captive, and when he gestured with his hands as he talked about some dumb movie, Sasha was reminded of a magician torn from the pages of an old fantasy novel. He was the embodiment of hope, of genius, of the potential Presidents cooed over in America’s youth, and Sasha hated him instantly and with a burning passion.

About halfway through her shift, August, the manager, waved her into the kitchen. Sasha braced herself for another lecture about “service with a smile,” but he just handed her the phone.

“It’s for you,” he said.

“Sasha,” Janey said without preamble, “Don’t panic. Are you sitting down?”

Sasha sat down.

“What is it?”

Rhys.

“What about him?” “He’s coming in for a reading. Tomorrow afternoon at 5:00.”

Sasha took in a deep breath. She wouldn’t have to go looking for Rhys after all.

“I’ll cancel my shift.”

“Good girl. Go work.”

She hung up, her heart pounding in her chest. The bustle and purple glow of the pizza place suddenly felt trivial, as though the whole place was made of cardboard that would fall over with the slightest breath.

A chill ran over her spine as she realized tomorrow she would meet the boy she was to kill.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder.

It was strictly against Sasha’s code to be touched. Especially not now, when she could feel the rush of something bigger in life behind the greasy countertops of Purple Dog Pizza. She was sequestered behind the bar, for christ’s sakes! It better not be a customer. She spun around with vehemence, teeth gritted.

“Can. I. Help. You.”

It was the Hyperion student from the table, the insufferable bellwether one whom Sasha had taken to thinking of as President Red Tie, looking presentable and senatorial. His fancy watch probably cost more than his tuition. Sasha took some small ounce of satisfaction at his pasty skin—usually, Hyperion students had a far more flattering tan. Probably something to do with those vacations to Spain and Panama and Belize and all that. Places Sasha would never go.

“I hope so,” President Red Tie said, in a tone that indicated everything he’d ever hoped for had happened. “You see, I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”

If he’s just here to get his goddamned iced tea topped off—

“My friend thinks you’re rather cute,” he continued, pointing unnecessarily to his booth, “and I was wondering if you would go talk to her. Not the orange shades. The black-haired one.”

The pale girl had her face planted on the table in embarrassment while the glasses guy and the dark-skinned girl watched in fascination. They seemed to hold absolutely no hope that this conversation would go well, and for once, Sasha found herself agreeing with Hyperion students.

“What would we even talk about?” Sasha scoffed. Their vacation homes? How nice their yachts were?

“I’m sure you’ll find something,” President Red Tie said glibly. “We are extremely interesting people.”

Sasha took another look at the booth. The girl was no longer so pale, as her face had turned bright red. She was delicate, and quite beautiful once Sasha took the time to look at her, like a sepia photograph of a Victorian girl who had died an early death. Her eyes were pools of blue that stood out against the girl’s faded black-and-white overall color scheme.

For an embarrassing millisecond, she imagined slogging over to them and muddling through a few minutes of uninteresting and vaguely classist conversation. Growing up with psychics fostered a certain amount of whimsy, but even Sasha could imagine no scenario in which this ended well.

The girl was cute, sure, but she’d seen cuter at Hollow Point High School. She had her rules exactly for situations like this.

“Do you see my apron?” It wasn’t a question but an accusation. “It means I’m working. For a living.”

“How much do you make per hour?”
Sasha blinked. “What?”

President Red Tie whipped out a wallet and began rifling through a tidy pile of twenties. “I’ll talk to your manager and take care of it. Make your time worthwhile.”

Sasha’s whole face burned with rage, and she briefly considered whipping out her pepper-spray-equipped keychain. For a second, she couldn’t even find anything to say.

“I am not a prostitute!” she finally sputtered out.

Against all odds, President Red Tie turned even paler.

“That’s not—that’s not what I meant.”

“I—I can’t—“

Sasha took a moment to compose herself before she came up with something adequate to say.

“Most girls,” she told him, “if they like someone, will sit with them for free.”

President Red Tie looked dejected and embarrassed. Probably the first time in his life someone had told him no. Sasha felt absolutely no sympathy for him. His friend would find some other girl, some Hyperion chick with porcelain skin and chalked-in eyebrows.

‘I’m afraid I’ve messed all this up,” he confessed, no doubt looking for pity. He would not find it.

“Yup,” Sasha agreed.

“Look, I’m just trying to—“

Sasha pushed past him. The dark-skinned girl made a gesture of a plane crashing into the ground while her table-mates buried their heads in their hands.

“I have other tables,” she told him waspishly. “Flag me down when you’re ready for your check.”

When she ended her shift that night and stepped out into the night, she took a moment to rest her head against the brick wall and scream into her hand. It didn’t seem fair. Rhys’s specter had come into her life and everything had changed, yet she was expected to keep waiting tables in this trailer-trash town, writing application letters for colleges she could never in a million years pay for even though they cost less than Hyperion Academy.

“Hey.”

Sasha looked up to see the black-haired girl standing there. She seemed at home, somehow, in the moonlight. Her body language betrayed uncertainty.

“Sorry about my friend back there.”

You don’t need to apologize,” Sasha sighed. It was just another Tuesday, really.

“He means well, he’s just stupid about money. Really stupid. I, ah, just wanted to…introduce myself? I’m Angel.”

She offered a hand to shake, and Sasha took a moment to consider before taking it and replying, “Sasha.”

Her hand was cold, but her smile at the name was quite warm.

“I was wondering, um, if maybe I could ask. If I could call you sometime, that is.”

Sasha had dismissed this girl earlier, in the harsh light and the domain of the Hyperion students. But there was something different about the back alley by the dumpster, something that made the pretension of Hyperion seem so much farther away.

In a moment of astonishing impulsiveness, she scribbled the number for 300 Fox Way on a napkin and handed it to Angel, who took it with a smile.

“Thanks. And sorry again. I’ll call you?”

Sasha smiled and unlocked her bike. Janey had explicitly warned her against relationships, but the prophecy specifically used masculine pronouns, so Angel was in no danger. After all, she couldn’t let fate control her life. She had a choice, and she was choosing to give her number to a cute girl.

As long as that didn’t mean she had to see President Red Tie ever again.