Luc sat in the empty park, perched on top of the picnic table she, Marie, and Maisey had claimed as their meet up spot while doing jobs. Neither of them were here. Maisey couldn’t take jobs with Luc or Marie anymore. Marie hadn’t taken a single job since they’d broken up.

  She shivered, fingers numb on her phone as she searched through jobs. The silence weighed on her, filled her ears and deafened her. Without the banter and the flirting, this job wasn’t nearly as fun as it had been.

  Luc hadn’t realized just how much her life had changed for the better after meeting Marie, until Marie wasn’t in her life.

  The things she’d said came back in a wave and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block them out. If it had just been the apartment, Marie’s well intended lie, they could get past this. But Luc had said terrible things, and there was no way Marie would ever forgive her.

  A new job finally popped up as Luc opened her eyes, and she accepted it without a single second glance. Work would be better than just sitting here in pain.

  Luc hopped in her car, placing her phone into a mount on the dash with directions to her next job. The job took her just outside of town, to a huge general store she usually avoided. She could get pretty much everything she needed from Bobby’s, and aside from that, people from school seemed to love to hang out here.

  She slowed down as she pulled into the parking lot, not sure it was possible to get closer to the store. People spilled out of the building, some running in fear, others lingering, trying to catch a glimpse of the monster Luc was here to stop.

  She mentally checked her storage space, doing an inventory of what she had stored inside. It wasn’t especially large, though it had grown since she first implemented the spell, but she’d stuffed it full of tools. They were even more necessary now, when she didn’t have backup.

  The plan had always been to deal with these monsters with Marie at her side. Alone…

  She parked her car, hoping the local cops would be nice enough not to tow it when they recognized it as hers, and hopped out. She hopped out and dodged someone running past to their own car, then sprinted toward the front doors.

  The store’s customers were fleeing, but its employees had grouped up just outside the door in a clearly prearranged spot. She angled toward the group, looking for someone who could tell her what to expect inside, and felt the ground go out from beneath her.

  Her mother stared at her like she’d seen a ghost and Luc stared back, gasping for air. Thinking she’d never see her mother again, especially while living in the same town at her, was silly, but she’d never expected to see her while doing a job.

  She had to find somewhere to work after the cafe, Luc thought, mind going to the small restaurant building across from Bobby’s gas station. She hadn’t said a word to anyone, or looked for her mother, when the building quietly closed up and went dark, but she’d noticed.

  “Miss Gadget?”

  The voice broke her out of her spell and she forced a breath down, stuffing it so far into her lungs it hurt. “Which department is the monster in?” she asked, giving her full attention to the man who’d spoken, and not her mother. She just needed to deal with the monster and leave before she had to see her mother again.

  “The deli aisle.”

  Luc nodded and took off without bothering to look back and ask for details. She’d deal with whatever was inside; she couldn’t deal with her mom.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  The lights were still on in full force when Luc walked into the store, only increasing the eerie feeling of walking through empty aisles. Wandering through the empty store, her skin bristled as she stalked toward the deli section.

  Snuffling, low and wet, caught her ear and she tensed. It sounded almost animalistic, but wrong somehow.

  She reached into her pocket space, seeing into it without actually looking, and picked a tool. Making a tool on the spot would possibly be more effective, but the last thing she wanted was to be stuck here for longer.

  Slowing as she neared the deli aisle, Luc pressed her back against a shelf and peered around the corner.

  Something like a pig, but clearly made out of a mix of deli meats, snuffled around an overturned display in the middle of the walkway. Bottles of sauce scattered in every direction, clinking as they rolled across the store.

  Luc lifted her gun, and the deli-pig turned, olive eyes blinking at her.

  She fired. It sizzled against his skin, sending up a smell like cooking bacon as the creature squealed and ran at her.

  With a yelp, Luc scrambled up the shelf she’d been pressed against, barely managing to get to the top before the deli-pig slammed into the bottom of it. The whole shelf shook, threatening to go spilling over even as she grabbed onto the wall and fought to hold it upright.

  Reaching over the lip of the shelf, Luc fired off another shot.

  The shelf shook again, rattling boxes and cans off of it as the pig roared in pain and redoubled its efforts to shake her off.

  It began to tip, and Luc leapt, managing to land on her feet and break into a run a moment later. She’d forgotten just how much running this job had involved before Marie had come along, handling all the physical stuff for her so she could make her tools and destroy the creature.

  Her run took her to the deli counter, where she leapt and vaulted over the glass dome over it. Landing on the other side, Luc spun and fired off two more shots, managing to strike the deli-pig again as it ran after her.

  This isn’t working.

  Making a mental note to work on the power level of her ray gun, Luc dropped it back into the pocket space and grabbed the deli slicer on the counter.

  With deft fingers, she broke it open, freeing the blade from its safety casing.

  Funneling magic into it, she turned the slicer on and threw it over the counter as the deli-pig slammed against it.

  It screamed, then died, as the slicer ate into it.

  Breathing hard, Luc stood up from behind the counter and brushed herself off. She grimaced as she looked down at the now destroyed pig and the slices and bits of deli meat scattered across the floor.

  This wasn’t nearly as clean as she wanted.

  Leaving the mess behind, Luc made her way back through the store and stepped out into sunlight. Not immediately spotting her mother, she walked over to the man she’d spoken to before.

  “The monster has been dealt with,” she said. “And, sorry for the mess.”

  The man thanked her, and Luc turned away, walking back toward her car.

  Her steps slowed as she spotted the figure hanging around it. Her mother stood at the trunk, arms crossed over her chest, eyes full of hatred.

  Luc sucked in a deep breath and kept walking. Apparently, her mother wasn’t going to let her get away without saying something.

  “Where are your friends?” Penny demanded. “I haven’t seen you with them in a while. Did they abandon you?”

  “I thought you didn’t care about me,” Luc said, not looking at her.

  “I’m the only person who has ever cared about you,” Penny said, spitting the words. Luc wondered how she could say something like that with so much hatred. “I hope you realize that now that those people you called friend are gone. People don’t care about people like you and I. We’re destined to always be alone.”

  The words resonated for a moment before she rejected them. It was a lie. People cared about her, and people had cared about Penny too, before she’d pushed them all away. Penny had no one, and that was her own fault.

  Luc would be the same, if she didn’t find a way to fix it.

  “Maybe you are,” Luc said, pushing her mother away. “But I’m not.”

  She climbed into her car, pulling out of the parking lot with one thought on her mind: How do I fix the relationships I’ve ruined?