Page 7 of Kings of Desire
I silently waited to feel the impact of the blow. Nothing that I couldn’t handle, I’m sure, since I’ve had such thorough training from my father. But his palm, surprisingly, stopped somewhere else- under my chin. I breathed, opening my eyes to look at him while a tempestuous gaze was falling over me. A lazy thumb rolled over my lips, stealing the oxygen out of my lungs ‘Little Mouse, you’re going to keep these sealed about what you’ve just seen.’
He wasn’t asking, he was telling, though I nodded to confirm it anyway.
Anything so he would let me leave.
I knew exactly what he was referring to. He didn’t care about people knowing he was bullying that student earlier, he would have probably taken pride in that. He was referring to me seeing him taking the money. Though I didn’t care. I just wanted to disappear.
And wish granted!
‘Flee,’ he blew towards me like a flake that was supposed to wander wherever he would decide -and this time I did just that. I didn’t need him to tell me twice. I ran as fast as I could, straight into the girl’s bathroom where I glued myself to a cold radiator, with no real chances of finding the warmth I need.
‘Hey, hey, hey,’ Jenna greeted me around twenty minutes later while I was just preparing myself to detach from my new hideout. ‘Oh, did you get caught out in the rain?’ She asked, turning on the faucet to wash her hands.
‘Yeah, my bus was late,’ I muttered, remembering the real reason for which I skipped class and ended under Cole’s radar. ‘And I had the fortune of running into the golden boys,’ I whispered so that the rest of the girls that were in the bathroom won’t hear us.
‘OMG, did they hurt you,’ Jenna asked with concern and a tint of horror plastered on her face.
‘No, I just overheard them talking about something.’ I wouldn’t normally have told her about my encounter, not because I had something to hide, but because I didn’t think it was worth mentioning. Yet, I was curious about an aspect, and she might just have an answer to my question ‘Do you know about them having some arrangements, like something coming up? They seemed excited about it.’
‘Oh, I think they were talking about the party.’
‘The party?’
‘Two times a year they throw a luxurious party. The first half of the hallway is generally invited. No money is spared- and that’s because the money comes from the Herd.’
I was confused ‘What do you mean it comes from the Herd?’
‘They usually consider anyone outside their close contacts as a member of the Herd. You see, the money is like a protection fee. They use it to finance the party- not that they couldn’t afford it anyway, but it reinforces their authority. The more the Herd produces, the more expensive the bottles on the tables.’ Jenna puffed in profound disagreement.
‘And do the ones attending also pay the fee?’ I needed to understand what was going on around here once and for all.
‘Yeah, most of them need to pay it, depending on how rich daddy and mommy are, but for them, it’s a ticket to the ultimate party, because everything goes there. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING..... At least that’s what I heard. I wasn’t invited to one as you may have guessed by now.’
I know that theeverythingin her tone should raise my interest and probably bring me to start dreaming of getting myself an invitation as any other student would. But it left me cold. I had an idea of what could go down at an Elite party where overly bored people would only begin doing stupid things. That’s about summed it up for me. A bunch of assholes clowning around with no real worries on their mind, when I alone had too many for a single person to bear.
I cut the conversation short since it was just a small curiosity, and decided to go to class before I miss my next seminar too.
The day passed relatively fast, and I was a little excited about getting my first payroll. The first money I ever worked for, and even if it was far from being enough, it was giving me a strong feeling of independence.
A false feeling of independence!
I took off from the Academy, leaving everything that happened there behind. I needed another mindset now, one that would get me into a working mood. I never backed down from a challenge, but working nine hours every night and lifting twenty-five pound boxes sometimes had an effect on me by the time dawn came.
Our boss never stays until the morning, mostly because the factory has three shifts and it would be impossible for him to always be on duty, so taking that into consideration, I stopped by his office before going to fulfill my daily duty’s.
Heading towards the other part of the compounds’ courtyard, where the containers that serve as the main office lay, I noticed a woman crying, hurrying towards the gate with eyes full of tears and worry. I knew her, she worked on a line next to mine, but I never interacted with her. I never interact with anyone here since we’re paid according to what we deliver, and every cent matters these days, not only for me. We were human robots from 10 pm to 7 am, and in a way, that was fine by me. I needed to focus on what was important and not take someone else’s problems on me. It’s in my nature to sympathize with others’ pain until it can merge into me, and when it came to sole destroying places, this factory was holding the lead.
‘Can I come in?’ I knocked on the metal door but didn’t push the handle until I heard a confirming sign echoing from within.
I think I must have had the most ridiculous smile splattered on my face as the excitement of receiving my first salary was overwhelming me.
‘Ms. White, please take a seat,’ Randy, the man who hired me gestured towards an empty seat near his desk. I followed, then waited for him as he was searching through some papers for something. ‘There it is,’ he uttered, pulling out a thin file and opening it up in front of me then pushing it towards my end of the table. ‘Sign below the marked line,’ he indicated as if I had any idea what this was all about.
‘What is this?’ I stuttered, noticing the wordfinalizingsomewhere above the line he was referring to. I didn’t get a chance to read too much, but from the one-second speed reading, I had an idea of what the document was about.
‘It’s a termination of our contract,’ the man calmly spoke as if this was our initial agreement.
‘What do you mean, I thought it was indefinite!?’ I didn’t understand what was going on as my mind began shaking, threatening to lose all sanity.
