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ChapterOne
Teddy De Ver
“I got this,”I told the wall in front of me. “I so got this.”
My hands shook a little and my palms were a bit sweaty, but I had this. This wasn’t nervousness—it was excitement.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I touched my forehead to said wall. It was cool against my skin, and it distracted me for a second…before I remembered where I was again, and my empty stomach threatened to come right out of my mouth. But I’d been prepared for this. I’d seen it coming, hence why I hadn’t eaten breakfast at all. Prepared. And, yeah, I was panicking, but it wasn’t going to last forever. Possibly about two weeks, and then I’d be just fine.
Taking in a deep breath, I turned around and pressed my back to the cold wall, my palms against it. The button of my jacket was still in my hand—a tiny thing painted golden that had fallen off just minutes ago. Not sure if that was the reason why I’d run and locked myself in here, but I could sow it back on. As soon as I got home, I would make it look brand new again. I was a pixie. I could sow a button in my sleep. No need to freak out.
The room where I hid was dark, no windows anywhere, and barely any light slipped from under the door. So I was hiding in the janitor’s closet—so what? It was my first day at Orion’s Department of Protection, and I was entitled to running and hiding at least a couple more times this week. That wasn’t going to change the fact that I was here. I’d made it. I, Teddy De Ver, was in New York City, over eight thousand miles away from home, all by myself. Probably not the first pixie to live in a big city but definitely one of the very few.
“I made it,” I said to myself and started pacing in the small space in front of the door. I talked to myself a lot, but I wasn’t crazy or anything. That’s just how I gave power to my thoughts. That’s how I convinced myself that I was not going to drop dead any second now. “I made it. I’m here,” I mumbled, and the movement of my legs felt mighty fine against the panic. “I’m going to be okay. I’ve got the Ds. I’ve got everything I need. I made it.”
Another couple of minutes of saying those words to myself, and I’d be ready to return to my desk.
But…
“You might dig a hole in the floor if you keep pacing like that.”
I froze.
The voice of a man came from somewhere deeper in the rectangular room. I looked at the darkness, tried to see a head or a body or anything moving, but there was nothing there.
Light. I needed light.
Moving back to the door, I searched the wall to its side until my fingers found the switch. I flipped it up, and the white overhead lights almost blinded me.
But a couple of blinks later, I could see.
The man sat on the floor at the end of the room, back against metal shelves full of detergent bottles, mops, buckets, and toilet paper. His elbows rested on his knees as he watched me, completely calm. A loud sigh escaped my lips. Not a three-headed monster about to tear me to pieces and eat me raw. Just a man sitting in the dark by himself.
“I’m sorry,” I said, breathing a little easier, then looked at the white tiles of the floor. “Is that really possible? Is this a special floor? Like magical or something? Does it actually get spent?” I’d heard a lot of tales about this place back home, but for the life of me, I couldn’t find anything on those tiles that said they were about to fall apart.
The man stayed perfectly silent. He stared at me, eyes wide and lips slightly parted. He looked positively shocked.
I stepped a little closer and squinted my eyes at him. “Why aren’t you talking?” I whispered. He’d talked before, hadn’t he? I didn’t imagine his words—he’d said them. I was ninety-nine percent sure of it.
The man blinked once, then pulled his lips inside his mouth. “It’s just an expression,” he finally said, and it was almost like it pained him to say those words.
An expression.
“Oh!” I said, slamming my hand on my forehead. “Of course! Of course, it’s an expression.” I couldn’t dig a hole in the floor if I tried. I barely weighed a hundred and five pounds—which was a lot for my kind actually but still not enough to even chip those tiles with my steps. “I’m gonna have to learn all about those, too.” Expressions were important. If I was going to fit in, I needed to know everything.
“You will,” the guy said. “The most important things are the Ds, and you apparently got those.”
I laughed. “I sure do. Determination. Dedication. Discipline,” I counted on my fingers. That’s what the pamphlet said I needed, and I had all of it. I had what it took to be here. So what if I was the first of my clan to actually leave home and work for the ODP? No pressure.
“You look nervous,” the guy said again.
“No, no—just excited. I’m…I’m excited, not nervous.” I read somewhere that the body reacted the same way to both emotions, so all we had to do was trick ourselves into thinking that we’re excited when we’re nervous, and voila!
Except I was already exhausted—and a teeny tiny bit suspicious that that was, in fact, bullshit. Resting my hand on the wall for some support, I sighed. Nervousness, excitement—it was all the same, wasn’t it? It sucked out your energy completely.
“Sorry,” I mumbled to the guy who kept analyzing me. I must have looked like a fool to him, so I straightened up again and cleared my throat. “I’m Teddy, by the way. I’m new.”
“You don’t say.”
