-1-
Just Do It by Julia Michaels
“Here--let me help,” a familiar voice calls to Charlotte Dory, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps coming down the walk up apartment’s stairs to meet her.
She can’t place the voice and she can’t see the owner of it because her hands are full with a stack of oversized boxes holding her new dinnerware and coffee service—a vintage rose pattern she’d ordered from Europe last week.
Warm hands brush her own as the owner of the voice grabs the other side of the two boxes on the top , making it easier for her to walk up the stairs to her apartment.
Her apartment.
It had never occurred to her the reason Jean didn’t just live in his opulent suite at Virtue was because of her.
He’d stayed at Treasure Island to give her a home to grow up in and return to but he hadn’t been back to the apartment she’d been raised in for months. Last week he’d taken what he wanted, gave her the keys and given her “carte blanche to throw the rest of his shit out.”
It had been a dream she didn’t know she wanted.
A place of her own.
“Thank you,” Charlotte says once she is up the steps, setting her own box down to open the door with the clunky manual key.
Next item on her list were chip-enabled locks.
As soon as the box is gone from her vision she sees the stranger helping her isn’t a stranger at all but Zacharias Washington. She hadn’t seen him in their apartment complex since they were children. He’d never come by to see his brother who had been living next door for weeks.
“Oh, its you,” she says and he nods. “I didn’t see your car--”
“I took the train--”
“Is everything okay ? Did my rent payment not go through--”
“No, it’s not about the rent--”
“Is Aunt Minnie--”
“She’s fine. I--I actually came to see how you were doing.”
Charlotte looked down, feeling a punch in her stomach as she finally got the key in.
How she was doing ? She’d hated herself for what she did to Lindsay but she’d done it for her family, to protect the ones she loved. Her father had tried to soothe her with stories of his own regrettable murders but it only made her feel worse. What would it mean when she got to a place where killing someone didn’t tear her up inside ?
“Taking it day by day,” she responds with a shoulder shrug.
He smiles. It’s a sweet, steady and rarely used smile that took her back to their childhood.
“I hardly recognize this apartment,” he says admiring her kitschy minimalist design. “It’s nice.”
“Thanks,” she says and looks around not sure what to do next
“Is that all you wanted ?”
“No,” he says quickly, clasping his hands behind his back. “I came over to invite you to dinner--”
“I have the invitation for the birthday dinner--”
“Not that one, I meant—another—just you and I…dinner ?”
Despite his awkwardness his face morphs into the flat coolness that reminds her of Rayne Washington. He was building himself a wall for her rejection.
She can’t hide the smile that breaks on her face. A dinner invitation as was a silly thing to smile over but someone had looked up and noticed her and that made her smile.
He wasn’t the same boy she’d known as a child and she savored the idea of getting to know him all over again. To re-examine their strange childhood in a way only the two of them could. She wasn’t sure what her feelings for Zacharias Washington were, but it was only dinner.
It could mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.
“Yes,” she finally says and his body relaxes. “I’d really love that.”
“Great. Where do you want to-- ”
He pauses at the a sharp bleating noise in the distance. The sound was outside but gradually making it’s way towards them. It’s followed by the blare of the citywide emergency sound system cracking to life.
“What the hell are those-,” Zacharias asks, his hands over his ears.
“I think those are the lockdown sirens.”
Her Syndicate pings with a sharp tone announcing a citywide lockdown. It was an emergency precaution system put in place in the Sprawl. It was supposedly for safety but they all knew it was a way for the Federation to contain the population when it needed to. All residents were to stay indoors, check in their location on a government server and wait for an all clear. They’d done a drill a few years ago but the system had never been put into use.
Charlotte hears the familiar roar and screech of Luce’s car pulling into the small garage in the back of the building. She could hear Luce’s loud footsteps, followed by Haley’s as they run up the stairs to the apartment next door. She was sure Luce would be complaining about the sirens. The walls between their living room were paper thin and she was used to the sounds of Luce’s shouting, stomping ,cursing and---
Crying ?
A baby crying ?
Rias is out the door first and she follows behind as they go next door. Luce hadn’t even locked the door to his apartment and Rias jerks it open. Luce is by the window setting up a long distance sniper rifle and Haley is sitting on the couch impassively--gripping a red-faced distressed looking toddler in his lap.
It’s the pin that gives it away. The little pin on his little suit with the seal of the President of the Federation.
Phoenix Maxwell.
Rias slams the door behind him.
“What the hell have you two done ?”
End
-----