Richer Than God - Amelia Wilde Page 0,2
your uncle? Y/N. If I check that box, will they turn me away?
The only thing worse than going inside would be a man barring the door.
The woman who asked the question isn’t the only one waiting out here. We’re not the only ones waiting out here. Somehow, I thought I might be alone while I did this. I thought it might be a clandestine operation, knocking on the door in the middle of the night and begging for sanctuary. Now, it’s turned out to be a group interview. What else would they be there for? Are they going to ruin my chances? This feels like an episode of bad reality television. It’s actually much worse than that.
I have no other options. Except…
The mountain.
I’ve heard about the mountain. People whispered about it at school. How could they not? We could see it from the soccer fields. It’s also there, looking over the cramped quad at the community college I tried to attend. I made it one semester before my father stopped paying the bills. Now, his solution is—
I don’t want to think about his solution. His solution is why I’m standing here in the night, even thinking about the mountain.
But that involves a ticket and a train, and at the other end, there’s a man who’s more dangerous than my father’s plans. A shiver grips my spine. I hope that Zeus isn’t so bad. I’ve heard that his brother is the one who kills. That his own mountain protects him. Who would bother him in a place like that? For a little while, the train wasn’t running. No explanation—not one that I heard. I noticed the absence of the sound, like an empty space in the pantry.
It’s running now.
The train whistle sounds in the far distance, high and clear, and for a moment, my heart pulls toward it. It has the ring of freedom. But freedom is risky right now. I need three things, in this order. First, money. Second, a passport. Third, a plane ticket. The plan for the plane ticket is to get to France. My mother’s family is from a tiny village in France called Saint-Gaultier. I don’t speak French and I’m sure all of them are dead, like she is, but it’s a place on a map—a direction to go when I’m fleeing the country.
Getting myself trapped and killed in a mountain is the opposite of fleeing the country. Nowhere in these borders will be safe enough to keep me from my father.
Then again…
I only have one thing to sell. One way to get the money for a plane ticket.
I twist the cardigan in my fists, pulling it even tighter, stretching out the fabric.
Someone nearby snorts. “Why not just get a job as a waitress?”
Trust me. I tried. I pinch my lips shut. My father wouldn’t let me get a job as a waitress. He wouldn’t let me save any money. I don’t even have a bank account. And if I tried to open one….
It still feels like someone’s watching, and I steal another glance over my shoulder. If I tried to open a bank account, they will find me. A streetlight at the corner spills a pool of light onto the concrete. Better in this man’s brothel than waiting under that light. I would never know who was pulling the car over to the curb, who was rolling down the window. It wouldn’t take long to run into someone who wanted to kill me. That’s what happens in the dark, when you’ve run away from your father’s house, when you should be fine, since you’re twenty years old and you should be able to take care of yourself.
I don’t even have a pocketknife.
Maybe if I had a pocketknife, I would feel better. I imagine the feel of it in my hand. Something small, easy to tuck into my palm, but with a sharp edge.
“Why is she here?” one of the girls whispers. “She’s obviously too good for this.”
The way she says good, it sounds like the opposite. As if she thinks I’m uppity.
The assessment rises into the night air and dissipates into other whispers, too quiet to hear. Run, says the voice in my head, louder than all the rest. The whistle of the train curls across the night, stroking the back of my neck and pulling the hairs there up from my skin. If I ran right now, I could get to the train station and be there when it pulls in. I could throw