You Are Mine Little Sister (by Syra Tucker) novel Chapter 175

RALI

The shop sign still said "Closed."

Morning light sifted through the stacks and laid quiet stripes across my shoes. A lace of frost veined the window where snow kept kissing the glass, blurring the outside to watercolor.

It was beautiful. Peaceful. Furtuiousl

"So, it's that time of the month where I make you work a little harder," My boss said, addressing all three of us over the counter.

Steam climbed off her coffee; her eyes did the same to us. "It's just my own way of making you good sales reps. By week's end, whoever racks the most sales gets a special reward. All you have to do is convince a customer that wanted two books to get four. Let them see reasons why more is better"

She sipped her coffee.

"We stock a whole flock of business-strategy titles," she added, one brow arched. "I trust you've been reading those and not just chapters on boyfriends. Good luck."

"Yes!" Brielle clapped as soon as the door swung shut behind our boss. "I can feel it. I'm winning this."

"Keep dreaming," the third rep huffed, already smoothing a stack that didn't need smoothing.

Me? I just shook my head and slipped into the aisles.

I'd love to get that money. God knew my wallet was on life support. But I was the least social salesperson on the floor. An upsell felt like tightrope without a net.

'You deserve to live, Rali. There is no one restricting you anymore. Right now, you're your own prisoner,' my therapist's voice threaded in.

Okay. Maybe I could do something about the socialization.

By day three, Brielle and the other rep were far miles ahead. I kept rearranging shelves and practicing courage, telling myself the week wasn't over and neither was I.

‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡

VOID

12 Years Old.

The shooting had ended.

It was over.

I slid the panel aside and climbed out of my hole—the one Mama built for situations like this, a fox den fitted beneath my bed.

My room was a mess. It'd been turned upside down. They were probably looking for me.

Downstairs, the house was a red map. Every step drew me past more bodies, more blood. It was a massacre. For the first time, Mama's enemies succeeded.

Her hair was still black, and staring at her dying frame, I couldn't find an iota of the love I once had. Or maybe it was just tightly locked away with the padlock being the things she did over the years.

She gurgled something I couldn't hear, her hand still stretching toward me. She knew she wasn't surviving this. The hands of death were probably gripping her already. Hence, she wanted me to hold her. Wanted to feel my touch one last time. The touch of her 'favorite' son. Yet, even that, I denied her.

She finally got out the word she'd been gurgling and trying to pronounce just before her eyes stopped moving.

It was my name. And for the first time, I realized I hated the name.

Right there on the blood-tiled floor, I decided: I would never answer that name again.

...

I fogged the window with a drag of smoke, eyes on the miles of city below.

I'd been at this very spot for hours, waiting for her face to spark in the crowd. I didn't take this room for the view; I took it because it felt like a net.

The door opened with the hinges dragging their feet. I cut a glance over my shoulder—Katya. One look at her told me everything: today had the same empty pockets as the last.

She stopped some paces behind me, her hands probably tucked into her pockets or something. I wasn't looking anymore. Didn't care. My focus stayed stitched to the ant trail of strangers below, cursing them quietly for not arranging themselves into Rali.

"Maybe she's gone," Katya said after the room had counted a while. "She probably felt the need to keep running and left for a different city. It's been over a month, afterall."