Page 1 of Anomalies

1

LUCINA

My trust fund ran dry five years ago. Which is why I’m dragging a scrawny man through the bar by his ankles, some rock song pumping through the busted speakers.

Whoever my parents were, they must have been well off. The hefty pouch of silvers I was abandoned with bought me fifteen years of a roof over my head and food in my belly—never enough to be full, but enough not to starve. Once it ran out, Catherine and the monster she married began charging me rent.

So here I am, trying to afford it.

I’m halfway to the door with Bobby’s ankles when someone cuts the music.

My head shoots up, and an unimpressed Frankie bursts through the door behind the bar. Her stare falls to Bobby, who’s squirming in my grip, and when she looks back up at me, the corner of my mouth kicks up.

“Morning.” I drop Bobby’s ankles, and he groans when his legs hit the floor. “Just taking out the trash, Elodie left for me. She does know where the dumpster is, right?”

“She knows,” Frankie sighs, folding her arms over her chest. “But our customers are not trash, Lucina.”

“Not all of them,” I reply, and Bobby snickers. “Just the ones that—” Sticky fingers glide up my calf, and a heartbeat later, I have Bobby’s wrist pinned to the floor with my boot. “Touch me again and I’ll break every bone in your hand,” I snarl in his face, and his glassy eyes widen.

“Cin!” Frankie snaps, but I push my boot down a little harder. Bobby’s face turns crimson as he struggles to get free.

“Lucina,” Frankie warns again, but I only shift more weight into my foot, the thick tread of it digging deep into his skin.

“LUCINA CARMINE,” Frankie shouts this time, and I snap back into myself with a jolt, lifting my foot enough for him to get free. Bobby scrambles to his feet, cradling his wrist as he hurries out the door.

“Sorry,” I tell her. But I’m not.

And judging by the skeptical look on her face, she knows this.

Despite five years of working for Frankie, I know very little about her. She doesn’t drink, which is ironic, but what she doesn’t drink, she smokes. Cigarettes, by the carton, enough that her voice has gone deep and raspy. She’s barely five feet with a rounded belly and wide hips, previously bleached hair that she keeps tucked behind her heavily pierced ears. Faded tattoos litter her arms, melted and morphed into black blobs that likely used to be words or pictures. She can’t be more than forty years old, and I’ve never outright asked, but I don’t think she has any family.

At least none that she cares to talk about.

We share very little when it comes to our personal lives, and I’m thankful for that.

“I need you to work tonight,” Frankie murmurs around a cigarette poised between her lips. “Elodie quit.”

“Elodie quits once a month.” And she always comes back. This place is like quicksand. “Let me guess, some old money hotshot from West Draycott came in last night and promised Elodie a new life on his sprawling hundred-acre estate.” I mimic Elodie’s light-as-air tone, and Frankie chuckles.

“Two hundred acres.” She flicks the lighter and inhales deeply.

“You think it’s real this time?”

Frankie throws me a side-long glance, drawling through a plume of smoke, “His credit-card declined when he went to pay his tab, and he convinced her it was because he’d just come from making a massive donation to charity.”

“Gods help her,” I sigh, and Frankie mumbles her agreement.

“She’ll be back by Monday, I’m sure.” She taps the butt of her cigarette into the nearest ash tray. “I just need you to cover her shifts⁠—”

“Nope.”

“No?” Her brows shoot up. “You’re my only other employee, Cin.”

“I’m not working on a holiday.” I start flipping chairs off tables.

“Aura’s Crossing is not a holiday.”

I slam a chair down—a bit more aggressively than I intended. “Yes, it is. Elodie’s coming back, she always does.”