Page 3 of Outlaw Witch

He doesn’t sound impressed with me, but I shrug his displeasure off. He doesn’t like me doing these kinds of jobs. Ember’s an artist and he’s the one responsible for most of the artwork covering the shithole warehouse where we live. Sometimes he even deigns to sell a few pieces of his work under a false identity and brings in a few coins, but it’s never an income we can rely too much on.

Not that any of us can have jobs that are steady. There are no nine-to-five office jobs in our futures. That would mean being included in a database, having our names and addresses filed away somewhere. All things that you can’t have when you live your life in the shadows.

When you no longer have a name that you can claim ownership of.

Or like Rook and me, you’ve been dead for the past decade and are living under false identities.

It’s not like anyone would want to hire us for legitimate work, anyway. We’re the forgotten dregs of society and that works for us. We make it work.

Ember doesn’t seem to get that I can’t go around turning down jobs, just because they’re a little high risk.

After all, our entire lives are risky.

*

TWENTY MINUTES LATERand my feet are burning in my cheap boots as I hotfoot it down the hill to the Salvage Yards. Our place is one of the old warehouses in an entire district of them. The district has been abandoned for at least fifty years, ever since the city got an influx of magic users and most of the humans moved out. All the warehouses and the factories got shut down, and they were left to grow cobwebs.

To rot. Just like those of us who choose to live here.

Ten of us live in an old textile warehouse, one that’s absolutely plastered with graffiti—all thanks to Ember and his need to decorate everything he has to look at for more than five minutes. The inside is a hodgepodge of furniture we’ve rescued over the years and out back there’s a little oasis of a garden, thanks to our resident potion maker and herbalist, Luna.

It’s not all sunshine and roses, though. We barely have a waste management system since the city authorities don’t bother to stretch this far, considering no one is supposed to live way out here. No transport runs within about a mile of us, so we all do a ton of walking since none of us have the cash to even consider buying a car. We barely have working plumbing either, and the system our electricity works on is unregulated, which means it goes on and off at odd intervals.

The only other people around are those that aren’t welcome anywhere. Most of the time, they’re no trouble. But every so often, we wind up having people dipping in and out, where we wake up one morning with all our wiring stripped out or our savings swiped.

The whole place is a dive. But it’s all we’ve got, so we make do.

As soon as I step through the warehouse door, I’m accosted by two teenage girls who can somehow scent the bag of doughnuts I picked up on the way home. Seriously, the two of them are like bloodhounds when it comes to sugary treats.

Una and Mona, twins that have only been with us for the past few months.

And I have to say I’ve got a soft spot for the two of them.

I thrust the bag at them and grin. “Breakfast of champions.”

My offering is met with two very high-pitched squeals that echo off the high ceiling and I wince slightly. Hopefully, everyone is up already. They’ll certainly be awake now if they weren’t.

“Not sure that’s what counts as a healthy, balanced diet,” Ember grumbles from behind me. I spin around and shoot him a shit-eating grin. These two kids spent a couple of months living underground in The Buried Citadel before they found their way to us. It's a labyrinth of tunnels, old sewer pipes, and catacombs where only the really desperate outcasts from our society go. Things must have been pretty dire with their mother for her to send them down there and it’s clear the two of them have seen more shit than they should at their age.

I can’t see a sugary breakfast damaging them too badly.

“So today went well,” he says drily. “You’re not still planning on doing the job, are you? If you get caught, there’ll be no saving you. You get that, right?”

I roll my eyes at Ember as I feel the waves of his disapproval in my general life choices rolling off him.

But screw him. The guy might be like my brother, but he’s not the one who can do the things I can. He’s not the one who ends up getting most of the jobs that put food on our table. Who buys us clothes and medicine, shoes for us all and whatever else we might need.

This job should keep us sitting pretty for a couple of months at least. We might even be able to get our water heater fixed so that it doesn’t scald us randomly. We’ll have to pay a massive premium to anyone willing to travel this far out to fix it. And while we all try to be handy and fix stuff ourselves as much as possible, the system is ancient and doesn’t respond to either coaxing or threats.

Ember must see the resolve in my expression. He sighs loudly and puts his warm, stained hands on my shoulders.

“Fine. Let’s go find Rook and see if we can find you some alternate escape routes. Something tells me you’re going to need them.”

*

IBLAME MY SHITTY SENSEof direction for what happens later that night, too.

One wrong turn and I wind up in an alleyway right on the edge of the Nexus District, a place known for its underground clubs and bars and an anything goes nightlife scene.

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