MORTAL COILS Read Online Free Page B

Forty dollars and it was yours
for the evening.
     
    Then
the smell hit her: vanilla and pesto and an acrid scent that wasn’t food . . .
anymore.
     
    She
stiffened and pulled the sliding doors apart.
     
    It
was instantly apparent what had happened last night: twenty sugar-crazed spider
monkeys had been locked in this room under the pretense of a six-year-old’s
birthday party. Scattered on the walls, floor, and only by the sheerest of
coincidences the table, were pasta, pizza crusts, globs of congealed cheese,
baby-blue frosting, and pools of melted ice cream. And over everything was a
sprinkling of confetti.
     
    In
the corner was a chunky orange spatter, and Fiona then understood that when
Mike had told her someone on the night shift had gotten sick, he didn’t mean
one of the staff.
     
    Fiona
pushed the cart in and closed the doors behind her. No need to expose the
paying customers to this.
     
    She
pulled a hairnet over her head, then tied a bandanna over this. Next came a
chin-to-knee, white linen apron, and finally she snapped on thick rubber
gloves. This was her armor.
     
    She
swept up the confetti, food, and bits of wrapping paper (which had tiny robots
on it). She then used the dustpan to scrape off slimier things.
     
    Fiona
wondered what it would be like to have a real birthday party. She and Eliot had
a brief ceremony on the morning of their birthdays. Cee tried to make something
special for breakfast, and they pretended to enjoy it. There were presents:
books usually, pen sets, or blank journals. But never wrapped in colored paper.
And certainly not paper with robots printed on it.
     
    Of
course to have a real birthday party you needed friends and balloons and games.
Fiona could never see that happening in Grandmother’s apartment.
     
    She
halted in the middle of sponging up a puddle of olive oil, suddenly angry at
Grandmother and her 106 rules.
     
    Could
Fiona be like Linda without those rules? Able to speak to people? Smile? Keep
her eyes off her shoes? She wouldn’t have a job. She’d have spent her summers
at her friends’ houses, slumber parties, and midnight movies . . . mythological
occurrences that seemed far less real to her than the dusty histories on the
shelves of her room.
     
    Fiona
felt drained. She would just lie down and they could find her here at the end
of the shift.
     
    A
flash caught her eye. A fleck of red foil, partially hidden under a paper
plate, glimmered. She moved the plate and spied a piece of unwrapped candy.
Printed on it were the words ULTRA DARK SPECIAL.
     
    Her
heart quickened and she stepped closer.
     
    It
was chocolate.
     
    While
not specifically forbidden by Grandmother’s rules, it was as rare in her life
as a day without homework. Cee had it in the kitchen, semi-sweet chips, cocoa
powder, or sometimes a brick of bitter baking chocolate . . . which she then
transformed into cookies, mole, and Christmas fudge—that were only by a loosest
definition “eatable.” Fiona had snuck a taste once, a few chips before Cee had
rapped her knuckles with a wooden spoon. It had been worth it.
     
    She
gingerly removed one glove and picked up the morsel. It was heart-shaped and
was at first cold, but then quickly warmed to her touch.
     
    Should
she save it for after work? No. A million things could happen between now and
then to the tiny sweet—dunked in water, smashed, stolen—best to eat it now.
     
    What
about Eliot? She should share it with him, shouldn’t she?
     
    It was
so small, though. Maybe two bites.
     
    She
removed her other glove and carefully peeled back the red foil. Inside was a
dark lozenge of black with swirls of midnight and eddies of the deepest brown.
She inhaled a rich scent of something inexplicable: it was secrets and love and
whispers.
     
    She
took the tiniest bite.
     
    The
chocolate was smooth and yielded to her teeth. She closed her eyes and let it
dissolve on her tongue, spreading like velvet. Warmth coursed through her blood
into her