Page 8 of Ouch! My Vampire Doms Keep Biting Me
The woman behind the counter gives me a friendly, yet cautious look. “Can I help you?”
With a little shrug, I say, “Probably not. I’m looking for work and I have no ID or phone.”
“I’m not hiring,” she says with a rueful smile. “And most places are going to insist on ID at minimum, for tax purposes.”
I nod. It’s no less than I expected.
Nobody in this area is going to hire me.
“Thanks,” I say, before pausing at the threshold. “This is a beautiful store, by the way. You have some really nice pieces.”
She beams and thanks me, and I’m back out on the street again.
I survey my surroundings. This city is beautiful, but untouchable. I’m not going to be able to go back to the motel. Unless I find work that will pay cash, right now, I can’t even afford another night. I need to find an even cheaper place to stay, and again, they can’t be picky about ID or fake names.
Turning up one side street, then another, I try to get myself back to the seedier part of town where I might have better motel luck.
There’s a large building up ahead, possibly motel-sized. My stomach clenches with hunger pangs, but I force myself to keep walking. Soon, I’m standing in front of a well-landscaped grassy lawn peppered with flowering bushes and groupings of fat, happy daisies.
An antique-looking engraved metal sign nestled in with some daisies readsThe Corbin Library.
Libraries are great. They’re welcoming, peaceful. They feel safe to me, over anything else.
I straighten up, hoisting the straps of my messenger bag and purse over my shoulder, and walk up to the glass-paned double door.
It feels disrespectful to be walking into such a hallowed place wearing a stranger’s skirt, flip-flops, and a hoodie, but it can’t be helped. Besides, books don’t judge people; people judge people.
There’s a woman at the front desk. She has curly black hair, deep blue eyes, and her pantsuit is a thing of envy, especially with the jaunty polka-dot bowtie she wears with it.
“Hello,” she says. “Are you a member?”
“Um…no?”
Her smile is pleasant even as she says in a practiced voice, “I’m sorry, but The Corbin is a private library.”
I mouth the wordsprivate library. “That’s a thing?”
She chuckles. “It is. Membership is curated.”
“Oh. Crap. I just wanted to look around for a little while.”
“You can purchase a one-time pass without becoming a member,” she says. “It’s not cheap, but you’ll have the run of the library for the entire day.”
Not cheap? I shouldn’t do it.
Yet something tells me that I belong here, that I need to do this.
“How much?” I ask.
“It’s a flat one hundred.”
Damn.
I’m not an impulsive person, but I look around at the large, circular room. The walls are mostly books, with the occasional piece of art on display. Corridors and doorways lead to more rooms filled with books and more curiosities, I’m sure of it.
I’m gripped by a need so strong, I barely consider my dwindling resources as I reach into my shirt and pull my cash from my bra.
The librarian’s dark eyebrows shoot up on her forehead, but she takes my five wrinkled twenties without flinching.
