Page 51 of The Nowhere Witch
“I don’t care if people don’t come in. They’ll come back eventually—or not.” He stood there, putting on such a good act that Bibbi sighed. I wouldn’t fall for it.
I nodded again before I made my way to the other side of the room, where it was safer. The more distance from him, the better.
I sat at Belinda’s now-empty desk again, wishing I could feel happier about having a place to live and less preoccupied with dissecting why that was. If Hawk was at least upfront, it would be an easier pill to swallow than this horse pill of BS he was handing over. He should save the nice act for someone who was buying it, maybe for Bibbi. The way she was staring at him now, she’d buy any load of garbage he sold her.
He followed me over, stared at the desk I was sitting at, then pointed at it. “If you’re unemployed, you might as well fill the empty spot.”
Bibbi might be a little dippy from the looks of her, but shehadfilled the spot. Talk about just discarding people. The girl was sitting right there while he gave her job away. From the look on her face, she was as traumatized as she should be about it. Poor idiot.
“You hired someone, remember?” I asked, looking at Bibbi and then him. “There is no job available.”
Even if it had been my job first, I wouldn’t kick her out, no matter how I’d fantasized about it.
He didn’t look at Tippi. “She’s a sorter. I’m talking about being a broker.”
Bibbi sagged in relief.
I was too stunned to do anything. From what I’d heard, being a broker here was about as good a job as you could land. You made all the wheeling and dealingshappen. Every person in Xest treated the brokers with a certain deference because they could make or break your livelihood. They handed out the best jobs for the most money. It was a dream job.
That he would have control of. That he could take away on a whim. It would be handing him over another part of my life to control so he could screw me, as he had in the past. I would be a masochist to even consider it. It was a nice thought for all of one minute.
“I’m not interested in working for you. I’ll find a position of a more permanent nature on my own,” I said, crossing my arms and staring him dead in the eye, using all my past grievances to shore up my refusal.
There was a flicker in his eyes, a split second where they shifted away before hardening and meeting my gaze again. “Who said it couldn’t be permanent?”
Had to give him credit: he never gave up, ever. If he wanted something, he kept at it. Too bad he hadn’t wanted me to stay in Xest.
“The fact that you’re the one offering it says it all.”
“Mull it over a bit and get back to me,” he said, as if I hadn’t already said no several times.
He walked into the back room without waiting for another no.
Zab got up and walked over to me. “Are you crazy? Do you know how many people want this position? We make a ton of coin. You’d be set. Everyone would be nice to you. Even the people sneering at you now would probably back off, because everyone wants to work with us.”
I glanced at the door, making sure Hawk had stayed in the back room.
“What’s the point? So he can take it away whenever he wants? I get comfortable and then he screws me over again, and I hate myself for taking anything from him? No. I can’t do it. I won’t work for him.” I was crossing my arms again and shaking my head.
“Then you do it for a couple weeks, maybe a month, and quit on your terms, but it’ll give you a cushion. Not to mention, if people see you working here, they won’t be afraid to hire you if you leave.”
Everything he said made sense. It added up neatly in a little row with no errors, except for the rage inside me that Hawk would have that much control over my life. His stamp of approval could make or break me every day.
“I won’t give him that kind of control over me again. Not after what happened. I can’t do it. It’s bad enough I’m back living here. He doesn’t get to control my entire life.”
“Not even if it’s the smart thing to do and you know it?” Zab took a seat on the desk beside me and said, barely above a whisper, “You can’t go to immigration with no job.”
Shit.I’d been so mad and flustered that I’d forgotten about that little issue hanging over my head. And by little, I meant gigantic. And by hanging over my head, I meant like a guillotine with a worn rope. I didn’t want to do it, but was I stupid enough to say no? I might be.
“What if I take it and then he fires me right before? Maybe he was doing this on purpose to screw me?” That would be much more likely than this nice-guy act. Hawk had said himself that he wasn’t a nice guy.
Musso cleared his throat and walked over. “Here’s what you need to do. We all know this job is your best solution right now. I also understand. He burned you. So you need to get a little insurance. Have Zab negotiate a contract where Hawk can’t fire you for a set period of time and make him swear to it so he can’t renege.”
The monkeys kicked back in, but this time talking like they were sportscasters.
“What do you think she’ll do? Will she take the play?” Speak No Evil said in a hushed voice of a commentator with a microphone.
Where had they gotten a pink, glittery microphone? There was probably some little kid out there somewhere crying over a lost karaoke machine.