Vial Things (Resurrectionist #1) - Leah Clifford Page 0,6
but I’ve got easy access to it.
“Did you send me another case?” I ask breathlessly, but even as the words are leaving my lips, I know Sarah would never send anyone to my doorstep. I move slowly, alert, watching.
“Tell me what you see.” There’s no panic in Sarah’s voice.
“It’s…” I don’t want to say. The shape in front of my door doesn’t move.
Is it dead? I wonder. I’ve been playing the cat and mouse game as long as I can remember, long before my parents lost and I wound up at Sarah’s place. Random work doesn’t happen. It’s dangerous to be known any more than necessary. We go to the cases, they don’t come to us. I take a flurry of steps toward my apartment.
“Allie, answer me,” Sarah demands.
It’s a boy, at least from what I can tell. His shoulder blades jut against the material of his shirt, head under a curled arm. If he still has a head, I think. All body parts and organs need be present for a proper resurrection. At least the important ones.
I edge closer. He’s laying over something. Suddenly, the body rolls over and yawns and I see the oversized backpack.
My shoulders sag in relief. “Damn it,” I whisper. The tension flees as Ploy offers me a sleepy, apologetic smile from where he’d nodded off waiting for me. I let the knife drop into the bag, hooking it into the sheath by the tip and then hold a finger to my lips. “Sarah? It’s fine. Someone left a trash bag in the hall,” I say and stick my tongue out at him as he gets to his feet.
He mocks a playful punch to my stomach and I ‘oof’ out of reflex.
“I have to go. I’ll call you later,” I say.
“Allie…” I wait for her to go into the inevitable lecture. Don’t get close. Don’t trust anyone with secrets that compromise the safety of myself and the others. Don’t make ties that can’t be cut. Instead she says, “We’ll talk tomorrow,” and hangs up without waiting for a reply.
Shoving the phone in my pocket, I shoot Ploy the evil eye. “Christ. I thought you were dead.”
He raises his pierced eyebrow. “Bodies show up on your doorstep often?” He means it as a joke. Ploy has no idea what I can do. After the night I’ve had though, I barely manage a sarcastic laugh. “Can I crash here tonight?” he asks.
“Yeah, fine,” I grumble as I unlock the door, secretly relieved for the company. I hang my key ring on the hook by the door. My jobs start with dead bodies. Ending one the same way unnerves me. I snap on a light and carry my bag through the living room to my bedroom. As I toss it onto the bed, I hear Ploy latch the deadbolt, then the chain. I’ve trained him well.
“Everything okay?” he asks from the living room where he’s set his pack down beside the couch.
I grunt in answer.
He ducks around the threshold. “The aunt again?” He knows the barest details of my past—dead parents, sheltered three years with Sarah and now the apartment she pays for to keep me under her thumb. I know even less about him. He’s lived mostly at the Boxcar Camp, an abandoned railroad station, with a loose knit group for going on a year. He knows all best places to beg tourists for change. For a couple months now, he’s had a soft spot for my couch and feel good comedies as long as they’re not romantic. This is the first time I haven’t been home when he stopped by.
He runs a hand through his sandy blond hair. It sticks up in a faux hawk, whether from the drizzle or lack of shampoo, I can’t tell. “Everything’s in the normal spots,” I say, pointing to the frayed sheet folded on one arm of the couch, the comforter he lays over the cushions. “Shower first?”
He snickers. “Yeah. Point taken.”
“Towel,” I say, tossing him the damp one I used this morning. I dig into the laundry basket of clean clothes I haven’t gotten around to folding and pluck free the oversized sweatpants he borrows when he’s here. If he’s following past procedure, he’ll take his own clothes into the shower with him and scrub them as best he can with my body wash, dry them over the shower door. I’ve offered to put them through an actual laundry cycle, but he claims if he gets rid of all