Page 3 of Demon Food

Then he did eat the seeds—just swallowed them whole like they were tiny capsules of medicine—and licked the stickiness from his hand with his tongue so red and swollen from his fresh piercing.

My heart, the frozen brick it was, melted.

I slid my gaze to Jaxlyn as he continued his rounds, sighing in defeat at what I was about to do.

The shelled drapes tinkled when I shoved them aside to hop from my nook.

“Hey,” I said, saddling up behind Jaxlyn as he stopped at the next sofa. “Listen. You have to give him something. He’s going to starve to death, and I can’t watch it. You know I can’t.”

He swiveled around, face scrunched. “Who?”

“Obviously him.” I pointed. “The new guy. Lennox, I think.”

Jaxlyn squinted over my shoulder for a moment, then dismissed the thought, gaze back down at his register, like someone starving to death was so common it wasn’t even worth discussing. “Well, you know how these things go. That’s life.”

“No, it’s cruelty. He’s on his third week with no money, and he’s already out of food.” I tried pacing into his path, but he sidestepped me. “We can’t just let him suffer. He needs an advance.”

“Oh, Feloré, do not start with me.” Jaxlyn peered down through his spectacles, finger stopping on the next name. “That’s not how it works, and you know it. Lucia, I’m sorry, you did not make quota this week.”

“It could work that way just this once,” I said. “Come on. One coin. You have the money right there.”

“It’s obviously not my money⁠—”

“Then it should be no bother if one coin goes missing.”

“You want me to steal from the brothel?”

I almost laughed out loud. Was he joking? You didn’t survive without stealing. They’d designed it that way. “Why not? Because the brothel doesn’t steal from you? And me? And him?”

He glanced over his shoulder, then mumbled, “You should mind yourself a little better. You don’t want to get caught saying the wrong thing.”

“Like how there shouldn’t even be a fucking quota?”

“Shh, Feloré⁠—”

“Like how it’s a deplorable system? We should get paid per feeding, and you know it.”

His eyes rounded. “If you have such a problem with Terrek’s policies, that’s fine, but leave me out of it. Better yet, why don’t you go take it up with him?”

Terrek, a vultus and the owner of this fine establishment, would sooner have his eyes plucked out by a crow than listen to what I thought about his policies.

I glanced once more at Lennox, who’d curled onto his side, just a pile of bones.

“Fine.” I wheeled toward the door.

“Feloré,” Jaxlyn said. Then when I didn’t respond, he shouted, “Feloré! Have you gone completely mad? I wasn’t serious. Do not bother Terrek. You know better.”

“Do I?”

“Yes. You’ll get yourself hurt.”

It wouldn’t be the first time. I shoved the door open with a loud whack and trudged toward Terrek’s study. And it wouldn’t be the last.

2

The closer I drew toward Terrek’s office, the more moronic I felt. Dear gods, what was I doing? Trudging down his dark hallway on a self-slaughtering mission that wasn’t going to change anything about anything. Well, besides maybe the current state of my health.

But sometimes it became too much. Sometimes, the suffering was so loud and racketing inside my skull that it was its own brand of pain.