Page 1 of Awry
One
ZAYA
The girlat the counter is maybe fifteen.Tiny but long limbed, her multicolored scraggly hair hiding her face as she bows her head over a greasy plate of fries.But I saw the deep blue of those eyes, verging on violet, as she cast her gaze around the cafe.Her two companions, who couldn’t look more like stereotypical bikers if they tried — leather jackets, beards, club patches and all — are easily three times her size.As they’d entered, their grip on her upper arms was beyond proprietary.
The violet eyes are as rare as the power the girl has simmering in her veins.But it’s the glimpse I catch of the raw skin on her wrists when she pushes up the sleeves of her overly large, ratty sweater that disturbs me more than the eyes or the power I can feel all the way from the other side of the cafe.
I touch the essence amulet I wear under my own sweater.Unlike the girl’s hand-me-down, my sweater is luxuriously soft, thin-knit black cashmere, intentionally oversized and tailored to slide artfully off one shoulder and be figure flattering.For spending the day in the car and the cooler weather, I paired it with merino wool-lined faux-leather pants and bespoke lace-up black leather boots.
It’s early March.Which, on the West Coast of North America at least, means rain and early-morning fog and crocuses poking their way through the awakening earth.It also means I’m technically only three weeks away from my thirtieth birthday, despite still looking closer to my midtwenties.As I always would.
The girl’s legs are bare.And dirty.If she’s wearing shorts or a skirt, I can’t see either.She isn’t carrying a purse, nor does she appear to have a phone.Anyone else her age — essence-imbued or not — is usually glued to at least one device at all times, even this deep into the so-called wilds of Cascadia.
The cafe is filled mostly with nulls, aka those who can’t wield essence in any form.They’d all gone silent when the trio entered, and the murmur of conversation is slow to pick up in the aftermath of their bombastically noisy arrival.An older woman had hustled out from the back kitchen area,smiling broadly — wearing the expression like it might be armor — and nudging the other younger female server aside to take the bikers’ orders at the counter herself.The owner of the cafe, I assume.She ignores the violet-eyed teenager.
Everyone ignores the girl wedged between the bikers perched on the stools at the front counter.Their huge thighs press against hers, caging her between them as they mow through their burgers.
The younger server, her curly blond hair streaked pink and pulled up in a bun, sets my Caesar salad in front of me, cocking her hip against the edge of my table, effectively blocking my gaze of the girl and the bikers.
Deliberately?
“Thank you,” I murmur.
“Eat, princess,” one of the bikers snarls, not all that quietly.“I ain’t got no problem forcing you.”His accent is slanted in a Southern direction, and he chuckles darkly, pleased with himself.
“Anything else?”the server asks me stiffly, her order pad in hand and her expression guarded.
I glance at the salad, served in a large bowl.It’s taken longer to make and serve than the burgers and fries the trio at the counter ordered.The creamy dressing is so thick that it’s difficult to discern the green of the lettuce.I should have known better than to order a salad in a roadside diner.
But that’s not why I already know I’m not going to sit here and eat it.
I open my mouth to ask for the bill.But then I say instead, “A chocolate milkshake and chicken strips … to go, please.”
And with those words — fed to me by a power both beyond myself yet flowing through me — I do something I almost never regret, no matter the personal cost.
I give the threads of fate just the tiniest of twists.
The server frowns.
Not completely aware of what I’m doing — my actions abruptly dictated by the innateknowingI triggered before I’d even thought things through — I feel the certain-to-be-stupid, utterly foolhardy plan unfold with each choice I make in the moment.I reach into the side pocket of my bag and pull out the fold of twenty-dollar bills I shoved in there before leaving Seattle, where I overnighted.The cafe is outfitted with a sleek tablet set to the side of the cash register on the far end of the counter, near the front door.But the wilds— aka the stretches of neutral and not-so-neutral territory between major cities or shifter-claimed territories— still prefer cash exchanges.
Peeling three green hologram-stamped bills from my short stack, I set them on the edge of the table.“I’m actually in a bit of a hurry.”
The server’s gaze flicks over me, then across the table to take in the brand-new, top-of-the-line phone and the designer sunglasses set next to my elbow.Both items are ridiculously expensive.But even though I could now rather suddenly afford many more such things, I didn’t pay full price for either.I rarely paid full price for anything.
I trade in favors, not cash.Though owing me isn’t a burden to be undertaken lightly.
Beyond the windows, the sky is gray, rain threatening.But I would wear the sunglasses in the bright interior of the cafe if I could get away with it.My eyes are perpetually sensitive to light.And for those who know what they’re looking at, they firmly mark me as awry.The sensitive sight is one of the drawbacks of the type of power I wield as effortlessly as breathing.
The other not-so-effortless manipulations I can achieve?They occasionally come at a far steeper price.
The server is still checking me out, or rather trying to figure me out, shifting her gaze to the black vegan-leather designer bag on the bench seat beside me.The large bag might be more understated, but it’s also worth more than the phone and sunglasses put together.I don’t much go for labels, and the one typically found on this designer’s work has been removed — or rather, never adhered — before it was gifted to me.A thank you for something I can barely remember doing.
That intermittently hazy memory isn’t typical for an awry with my affinities.But nothing about me or my affinities is typical.
I add another twenty to the pile of bills on the edge of the table, though it’s possible that doing so will make me even more memorable.My actions are being guided by that same flicker ofknowing, and unless it comes with a miasma of death and destruction, I usually follow my own innate senses.
To be completely clear, if only to myself— I usually follow whichever way my essence and the universe itself leads, headlong into mayhem and potentially self-destructive deeds.
