Page 21 of Cloak of the Vampire
He whipped his head around to me, his eyes glowing a freakish neon-yellow color. “You’re one of Ragnor’s new girls,” he barked.
“Yes,” I said, schooling my face into a blank expression despite fuming at being called one of Ragnor’s new girls like I was some fucking possession of his. “I’m—”
“I don’t care for names,” he cut me off harshly. “For me, you’re number two forty-nine. Come,” he said, waving me forward and walking quickly through the gigantic kitchen. “I’ll show you the ropes once, and then you’re on your own. Learn quickly, ask questions if you don’t understand, and pay attention. Show up late or fail to follow instructions, and you can forget about a warm and fuzzy recommendation. Understood?”
No, I didn’t. “Recommendation?”
“For the Auction! You need a glowing recommendation for the Auction,” he growled before shaking his head and throwing up his hands. “I don’t have time for this. Every quarter, you noobs get dumber and dumber. Come!” he said louder this time as I struggled to keep up with his frantic pace around the kitchen as cooks, bussers, servers, and other staff buzzed around.
Unsure how to respond, I simply followed him inside the kitchen, where he shoved a white apron into my hands, sniped at me to put it on and get to work, and left in favor of yelling at another worker.
This was going to be a blast, I could tell.
Putting on the apron, I turned to a frightened-faced worker cutting veggies so quickly I was half-scared he would cut his finger off and asked, “Where should I start?”
He shoved a cutting board my way, handed me a knife and a huge pile of onions, and whispered in a horrified tone, “Just dosomething.”
So I did. I cut eight large onions as tears burned my eyes and ran down my face. When I was done with that, I tenderized some steaks in all different cuts and left them out to get to room temperature. Then I helped prepare gallons of Alfredo sauce, making sure each cook had a supply that would carry them through tonight’s dinner, and when that was done, I cleaned the dishes that had piled up.
No one talked while they worked except for the occasional “Order up” alert from the cooks. Lon paced from one part of the kitchen to another, raining absolute terror down on us with his menacing growls and yelling. It was either the presentation was off, or the temperature of the meat was wrong, or maybe someone ordered meat sauce andnotmarinara. He questioned how we had managed to hold down jobs as humans if we were so inept. He wondered aloud how he would make it with such idiots working under him, and vowed to have a talk with Maika for assigning such complete losers to work in the kitchen.
But the worst part was his tasting of the food, which almost always resulted in us having to remake entire servings after he dramatically threw the food into the trash with an almost theatrical “People, I have had shit that tastes better than that!”
Gordon Ramsay looked like a cuddly teddy bear next to Lon.
I kept my mouth shut and did what I had to do. Every time Lon shouted or poured a pot full of sauce down the drain, my anger grew. But Lon was just a cog in the machine. He wasn’t the one responsible for it all, for me being here. He wasn’t the one who was going to pay for what they did to me and to Cassidy.
Close to lunchtime, Lon began calling workers by their numbers without yelling, for once.
“One hundred! Two thirteen! Sixty-seven! Twenty! One ninety!” Lon read from a list he held in front of his acne-scarred face.
One by one, all those he called paled as though they’d seen a ghost. They each quickly lined up in order in front of him, awaiting his commands.
I turned to the girl working at the island next to mine and asked softly, “What’s going on?”
She glanced at me in fear. “He’s selecting lunch servers.”
That’s it? “Why the fuss, then?”
She didn’t have time to respond before Lon called, “Two forty-nine!”
Knowing he referred to me, I left what I was doing, wiped my hands on my apron, and met him where he stood. He didn’t even look up from his paper when he said, “Follow one ninety.”
Number 190 introduced herself as Jada as I followed her out of the kitchen and into the cafeteria. She was tall and Black with a mass of pretty dark curls surrounding her head like a halo. Her stunningly pale gray eyes were friendly when she told me, “Don’t worry about Lon. He might be an ass, but at least he’s upfront about it.”
I snorted out a chuckle. “You sound as if youlikehim.”
Jada returned with her own snort. “Don’t be daft,” she said. “I’m just trying to find the silver lining, is all.”
She took off her dirty white apron and put on a new black one, motioning for me to copy her. As I did, I said a bit bitterly, “Doesn’t seem like there’s one.”
She gave me a sympathetic look. “Well, true,” she said quietly, “but if it makes you feel better, I can try and push Lon to assign you to dishwashing duty next time.”
I tried not to scrunch my nose. “That doesn’t sound any better,” I said as we scurried over to the buffet.
“You’d be surprised,” she said with a grin. “Out of all the jobs I’ve done around this place, dishwashing is the best.”
“All the jobs?” I asked while we unloaded the Lon-approved food from their pots and pans onto the huge plates.
