Vamp-Hire Read Online Free Page B

endeavors. Nick didn’t know exactly what those
endeavors were outside of the odd jobs he found for him.
    They’d met at the clinic shortly after Nick’s
discharge, where he was dispensing meds. Out of everyone he’d
handed pills to that morning, there was something about Nick that
had made Lucky do more than just pass a plastic cup. It had been
through his industriousness that had led Nick to Nancy.
    “Come to think of it, we need to have a
conversation about that,” he said to himself. Nick was about to
approach the recessed doors and saw they were shuttered too. Right.
After hours.
    Convenience marts and other places of
business with extended hours remained open primarily for emergency
and other after hours workers. There were also those in dire
emergency. These days someone knocking on a neighbor’s door at two
in the morning was liable to get the light show from the end of a
double-barreled shotgun, but a jealous ex-boyfriend or a thief who
wasn’t considerate enough to wait until a house was unoccupied
meant that sometimes people had to go somewhere safe in a hurry.
Places like the Big Pig were meant to be safe houses in instances
like those.
    He approached cautiously. These places always
had cameras even though Lucky had told him that the Pig’s hadn’t
worked since before he’d started working there. That wasn’t in
compliance with local and federal ordinances. Nick peered inside
and saw the vest-covered back of either a skinny blond-haired girl
or thin-framed boy, leaning in front of a display case.
    The boy turned around—yes, it was a boy— and
started tossing the handfuls of cigarette packs into the air. Nick
didn’t move, trying not to be threatening. Sometimes not moving at
all was the scariest thing of all, like swatting a spider and then
it seeming not to notice it had been hit. Nick didn’t remember
putting his hands on the glass like he was about to scale the face
of the building like Spider-Man. He slowly took them down and
waved.
    “Smile,” he told himself and felt both sides
of his mouth slowly lift, revealing not-too-much teeth. The boy,
who looked around nineteen or twenty, still hadn’t moved. “I should
probably say something,” he whispered.
    “Hi. I’m Nick.” He patted his chest
demonstratively, speaking loudly as if there was a language barrier
between them instead of six inches of Plexi-glass. “Does Lucky
still work here?”
    The boy made a face as if he really hadn’t
understood. There was a panic alarm no more than three feet away
and he’d hit it if Nick couldn’t get through to him. Nick locked
eyes with him.
    “It’s cool. Everything’s all right.”
    The boy’s shoulders slumped and he
straightened. Well, sort of. The boy had to have been at least
six-foot five and had a hooked posture.
    “I don’t know you, do I?” He spoke slowly,
his voice deep and somehow still immature. Nick felt his words
swirling around in his head. His heart slowed as if matching pace
with the boy’s. He felt himself pulling closer, like… like a fish
on a line, except it was flipped upside down in his mind.
    And then the boy was standing two inches away
from the glass, staring at Nick.
    “Do you have an emergency? I can’t let you in
if you don’t have an emergency. If you want I can call emergency
services.” He spoke like there weren’t any periods in his
sentences, like one long, dream-like run-on sentence. Maybe he
always sounded that way. Nick would not have known one way or the
other.
    “No, I don’t have an emergency.” The boy, Tag
by the name tag on his vest, turned and began walking away. “Wait!
I do need your help, though.” The boy turned back. “I’m trying to
find Lucky. Is he here?”
    “Who is Lucky?”
    Nick realized he didn’t know his actual
name.
    “Lucky is his nickname.” He didn’t want to
say they were close friends and then have Tag ask him why he didn’t
know his close friend’s real name, so he decided to try a different
tact.