Page 2 of Pain Run Rampant

I swallow. I have the feeling I know where this is going. All I do is shift my weight in the uncomfortable metal chair I’m in and lower my gaze to my lap. I could try to tell her it won’t happen again, but that’s what I said the last two times. You can only say things so much before they start to lose their meaning.

“Listen. You’re a good kid. You’re trying your best, but I think you’re doing too much. You’re a full-time student and you work damn near full-time too, when you actually show up. I think it might be time to consider you taking a step back.”

I meet her eyes. I never particularly liked Maggie; she’s near sixty, the kind of woman who takes her job very seriously. She doesn’t joke around, and I’ve always felt like she has this giant stick up her ass, but at least she was never outright cruel—which is more than could be said of other bosses, I know.

“I have to let you go,” Maggie finishes up. “I’ve written you up too many times already. We’ll mail you your last check.”

Leaning forward, I tell her earnestly, “I need this job.”

“And maybe I’d believe that if you showed up on time,” she says. “But three times in less than a month? Come on, Rey. That doesn’t look good, and if I let you get away with it, it’ll set a bad precedent for the others. I’m letting you go.”

My luck is resoundingly awful, so it shouldn’t surprise me, but still, as I get up and leave her small office, I feel my head spinning. I take off my blue vest in a daze, grab my things from my locker, and walk out of that store for the last time.

Goodbye discount on ramen, and goodbye rent money. I need to figure something out, but right now, the only thing on my mind is getting back to my place and eating some late dinner.

It’s after midnight by the time I’ve eaten and showered, and I fall onto my bed. Though it’s dark and I have no lights on in the room, I pull out the picture of my dad I keep on me, the only one that made it through the tumultuous years that came after his death. A picture of him at the zoo, the smile on his face genuine and warm.

“What am I gonna do, Dad?” I ask him even though I know he’ll never answer me back. He never does. He can’t.

Because he’s dead.

He’s dead and I’m alone—and it’s times like this when I can feel it. Most of the time I can ignore how alone I am, how, even when I’m surrounded by bodies on campus, I’m alone. When I’m stuck working on a stupid group project with people I don’t know, I’m alone. When I’m trying to make myself feel better by hooking up with a hot guy who gets my motor running in all the right ways…

Yep, still alone. It’s like I permanently lost a part of myself when my dad died, and nothing I do will ever get that piece of me back. It’s gone forever.

God, if this is what I’m going to feel like for the rest of my life, I don’t know how I’m supposed to do anything. I thought grief was supposed to get easier as the time went on, but it never really does, does it? It’s just a lie people tell each other to make them feel better.

I set his picture on my nightstand and curl up on my side. I’ve never felt more lost than I do right then.

What if I can’t find another job? What will I do? Frank is nice, but when money is in the picture, you can’t expect nice to last forever. Eventually he’ll want his rent. And if I’m homeless, how will anything work?

Fuck.

Tomorrow I will spend every waking minute at the library, applying for any job in the nearby vicinity, even if I’m not qualified for it.

But tonight? Tonight’s for wallowing.

Of course, I stupidly thought losing my job would be the worst of my problems, but life kept throwing me curveballs after that. I forgot to send in the necessary forms to continue getting my scholarship. Frank told me he needed his rent or I’ll have to move out before he starts the official eviction process so it won’t be on my record. All in all, the shit just kept hitting the fan.

Then I saw a glow across the street in an alley and everything changed. Suddenly I was thrown into another world, a dark and brutal world where death waits around every corner.

And as a bonus? I wasn’t alone anymore. I had Rune.

Now I have Invictis.

Chapter Two

It’s a beautiful day in Laconia. I sit in the middle of a field of flowers on the northern edge of the Acadian region, far enough away from the farms on the cliffsides surrounding the main city. The sun shines overhead, not so intense that it makes me sweat, and a breeze blows past me every few seconds, gentle enough that it doesn’t make my hair a mess.

Nature is finding its equilibrium again now that the threat of Invictis is gone. It will take years for the land to heal, even longer for its people to be as widespread as they were before, but now they have that chance.

Because of me. They have that chance because of me. Man, still feels weird thinking it. I never set out to be a hero, but that’s exactly what I am to everyone who’s left. I can still remember the moment when Kretia announced me as Laconia’s new high empress and everyone in Laconia kneeled down to show me respect.

It was weird. Weird and uncomfortable, especially when I looked over at Frederick and his dad and saw they were kneeling, too.

My gaze falls to the red ribbon on my left wrist. Prim would be proud of me. She’d probably never stop sayingI told you soand other variations of it. When she saw what I could do, she put her whole heart into believing in me.

Prim didn’t know at the time that what magic she was seeing actually belonged to Invictis—but then again, if I have a piece of Invictis inside me, maybe the power really was mine all along.

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