Page 1 of Look at Her and Die

One

I’m burning sage and my boyfriend is talking shit saying it’s irritating his skin. He’s probably a demon.

—Text from Calliope to Searcy

SEARCY

“Goddammit!” I slammed my hands down hard on the table.

My mom looked up from where she was cleaning the counter of the bar.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, looking concerned.

My mother wasn’t used to that kind of outburst from me. At least, not when I was doing the work I loved.

Now, the work I didn’t love…I couldn’t say that I had the best attitude on the planet.

But one had to pay their bills, and to do that, you sometimes had to do things you didn’t want to do.

“Another fucking client,” I snarled, closing my laptop much more gently than my attitude wanted to, “left because they decided to go the AI route. Fuck them.”

Artificial Intelligence had single-handedly ruined my good mood for the last year.

One after another, my clients in the book world had left me for AI generated book covers.

Three years ago, when I’d started this photography and cover design venture, I’d been on top of the world. I’d thought, for once, my life would turn around, and I could finally claw myself out of the deep, dark hole that was my life.

Then, slowly but surely, the gods decided to show me that nothing good ever happened to Searcy Maddelyn Hodges.

“Oh, baby. I’m sorry,” my mom replied, her face turning down into a frown.

And, since I hated seeing my mom frown because it reminded me of how two-faced she was, I chose to change the subject.

Anger simmered below the surface, but I wasn’t going to dwell on things I couldn’t change.

For now.

I’d do that in the comfort of my own bedroom tonight after everyone was in bed.

Speaking of everyone, my siblings came tromping through the door right then, cursing the heat.

“You’re late,” I muttered to my younger sibling.

“I’m fuckin’ trying,” Koda grumbled. “I’m not used to getting them up and out of the house on a timetable.”

That was true.

Koda was home on leave.

He was in the Air Force, and was doing phenomenally. Hell, before we knew it, he’d be ruling the world.

But for now, he was just our big brother, home on leave, pulling his weight since he wasn’t ever home anymore.

“Mama!” the youngest, Anders, at seven years old, went running to my mother with her arms wide open.

It was just after the morning rush—and when I say rush, I mean four regular old men that came to eat and shoot the shit for a couple of hours every morning—and my mom was leaving shortly to take the kids to the dentist.

We had Koda, who was six years older than me. Me. Kent, who was fourteen. Finally, there was Anders, our little baby doll, at seven.

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