Agony
Author: Susan Kaye Quinn
Date: 2013-03-25 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Short Stories; Fiction; Dystopia; Science Fiction; Cyberpunk; Fantasy; Urban Fantasy
Description: **Urban Fantasy with a Cyberpunk Twist** ***second episode of the nine-part serial*** **What’s your life worth on the open market?** In this gritty urban fantasy, debt collectors take your life energy and give it to someone more “worthy”… all while paying the price with black marks on their souls. **Agony is approximately 11,000 words or 44 pages,** and is the second of nine episodes in the first season of The Debt Collector serial. Lirium tries to forget Apple Girl, but a rough collection finds him spiraling deeper into the abyss. He faces a one-way ticket to The Retirement Home for debt coll

Text copyright © 2013 by Susan Kaye Quinn

March 2013 Edition

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

www.SusanKayeQuinn.com

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. For information visit
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Cover by Steven Novak
www.novakillustration.com

The Debt Collector Serial

EPISODE 2 – Agony

Contains mature content and themes.

For YA-appropriate thrills, see Susan’s Mindjack series.

Agony is approximately 11,000 words or 44 pages, and is the second of nine episodes in the first season of The Debt Collector serial. This dark and gritty future-noir is about a world where your life-worth is tabulated on the open market and going into debt risks a lot more than your credit rating.

Summary

What’s your life worth on the open market?

A debt collector can tell you precisely.

Lirium tries to forget Apple Girl, but a rough collection finds him spiraling deeper into the abyss. He faces a one-way ticket to The Retirement Home for debt collectors, until his psych officer offers a way out.

Recommended:

read EPISODE 1 – Delirium first

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I hear the screams as soon as the elevator doors open.

It’s a woman—I know that even before the high-pitched sound jerks me to a stop. I’m frozen inside the elevator, my jackboots welded to the floor, my hand braced against the stainless steel wall. The liquid-metal feel of it chills my palm. My right palm. The one I’m going to use on the woman whose wails are bouncing off the walls of the oncology ward. We all come into the world in this agony: first our mothers scream their pain, then we wail our own in that first breath of life. It’s a wonder more of us don’t leave the world the same way.

Mrs. Riley is screaming because I’ve come to collect her debt.

I shudder, and it vibrates my hand against the wall. I should call my psych officer, tell her I’m sick. It wouldn’t be a lie. I’ve had a couple of vodka benders since my most recent collection, and the last time I looked, I resembled a half-animated corpse. But drinking my way through the week isn’t what’s drained the life out of me. Vodka doesn’t make me feel like the marrow has been sucked out of my bones, as if they’re empty of life and might snap if I take too vigorous a jog to the bathroom.

That hollow feeling is the hangover I get for giving a mercy hit to a dying girl; a hit that almost killed me. Some mornings I almost wish it had, but then I see that thought for what it is: a one way ticket to the madhouse the psych officers call The Retirement Home. Even on a good day, collecting feels like playing roulette. Red, I’m good for another day. Black, and I’m free-falling into a bottomless pit. Today doesn’t feel lucky. I should get another debt collector to take my place, but the truth is, I need my cut. I need to fill out my bones before I break altogether.

The doors start to close. I bang my hand against the edge to stop them and lurch through the open space before I can change my mind.

The screams fade, and I beat back the hope they’ve finally calmed her. The nurses try—I can’t fault them for not always succeeding in an impossible task. Preparing someone for collection has to be the shortest straw in nursing assignments. They don’t send newly minted nurses on collection prep rounds, but the senior nurses are savvy enough to get out of rotations before I show up. That means the nurses on duty are usually young enough to be pretty and experienced enough to know what they’re doing.

Just the kind a guy like me would enjoy spending time with outside the hospital—except they all give me the same level of interest they would give the Grim Reaper. I don’t blame them. Everyone looks at collectors that way, and nurses have more cause than most. They witness what I do first-hand.

I lumber past the nurses’ station, empty no doubt because everyone’s been summoned to Mrs. Riley’s room. My boots are finally broken in, so they don’t squeak. The only sound is the slight irregular rhythm of my steps. I can’t tell if I’m favoring one side or the other; my entire body complains as I move, the plodding of a man with fifty years more than my actual twenty.

I mentally review Mrs. Riley’s file as the room numbers tick by, counting down to number 530. She’s one of the unlucky ones, not that anyone I visit could be termed lucky. Mrs. Riley, forty-two years old, mother of one (I’m not sure if it’s a boy or girl; the file doesn’t say). Just recently took out a business loan for her new start-up, leveraging everything she had, and then some, on the promise of future earnings. A life filled with potential ahead of her. Mrs. Riley had an MBA from some big school that specializes in that sort of thing. She had a business plan. It was a smart loan. She just came up black on the roulette wheel and got cancer right in the middle of the collapse of the textiles industry in India, her biggest supplier. It wasn’t her fault her potential got cut short at the exact same time all her bills came due.

The bean counters are the ones who tallied up her debt, I tell myself. I’m just the collector. Each silent step across the polished tiles of the hallway inches up my hope that they’ve calmed her somehow. I reach Mrs. Riley’s door just as the screams start again.

I freeze at the threshold, blasted by the full impact of the sound.

Three nurses hold Mrs. Riley down. She’s shaken loose one of her IVs. It snarls around the snow-white shoes of the redheaded nurse holding Mrs. Riley’s shoulders, dripping a puddle on the floor. They’ve tried to strap her down, but only half succeeded. She has one leg trapped by the three-inch-wide nylon webbing across her knee, while the other leg kicks at a nurse trying to catch it. A wide reflow strap across Mrs. Riley’s chest pins one arm down, but the other flails free. The strap is one of those new materials that separates then recombines into one solid piece again, depending on how you tug on it, but the struggle has turned it into a sticky-tape mess. The nurse leans away, face scrunched, as Mrs. Riley claws at her with the free hand. The nurse seems inexperienced in dealing with frantic patients facing a visit from a debt collector.

Sedatives are only allowed when the patient requests it. Otherwise, the law specifically states that patients are entitled to meet the debt collector and live every moment right up to the end. Prisoners on death row get the same courtesy. Never mind that it would be a lot easier to collect a debt from someone who has the life in them muted by drugs. The point was to make it hard on the collector—at least that was the consensus when the laws were written. Collecting should be justified, rare, and above all, difficult. Then people—especially politicians who want to be re-elected—can talk about how collecting is humane. But then there aren’t any lawmakers who have to collect the debt themselves.

Mrs. Riley’s face is contorted with rage, but I can still see the hollows of her cheeks and the ravages of the failed cancer treatment in her lack of hair and the paper-thinness of her skin. The screaming stops when she sees me in the doorway with my black trenchcoat and boots. She gives me a look that would shrivel the heart of any ordinary person. It bounces off me like I’m made of steel, but I’ve seen that look before, and it doesn’t bode well for the collection. Better to get this done quickly.

I stride into the room, full of purpose.

All three nurses hold still, as if frozen by the soft sound of my footfalls. I march straight to the head of Mrs. Riley’s bed and stand just out of her reach.

The inexperienced nurse recovers first. “I’m sorry, Lirium, we tried—”

I stop her with a raised hand, and her eyes go wide, as if I had wrapped my fingers around her windpipe. Whatever she was going to say wouldn’t help with the patient, but I regret having to cut her off. The nurses know me, but they don’t generally chat me up, much less apologize for not convincing a patient to go easily to their death. They keep their distance, and I let them. But in spite of my best efforts, I feel something when she says my name. It’s just my collector name, but still: it tugs at me.

I’ve been holed up in my apartment too long.

“Mrs. Riley?” I focus on her anger-mottled face, but I don’t wait for a response. “I promise this isn’t going to hurt, ma’am.”

Her mouth works, but she doesn’t say anything, like she doesn’t have words for the outrage. I don’t tell her it will be a relief. I don’t say that her debt will go to someone who will do great things with her life energy. Someone full of potential to make the world a better place. Someone just like her, only who came up red on the roulette wheel instead. I simply turn over my left palm, the one I used to silence the nurse, and activate my screen implant. I bring up the recorder and turn it back to the patient, face out.

“Mrs. Riley, I need to record your final statement, if you’d like to make one. It’s optional, ma’am, but if you’d like to make one, please feel free to take your time.” I lean a little closer, to make sure she can see the recorder already started in my palm. She should see her image, bald and trembling. Sometimes seeing themselves, ravaged by their disease and on the path to death anyway, will shock them into compliance. Or perhaps despair. It doesn’t take much to tumble down that deep, dark well, as I know too intimately.

Just as I think she’s going to be the kind that refuses to admit what’s happening, Mrs. Riley tears her free arm from the inexperienced nurse and sails it toward my hand with the recorder. I think she’s going to hit my hand, maybe hoping to make a poetic last statement of sorts by destroying the recorder, but instead her bony fingered fist slips past the recorder and punches me in the face.

I reel back, even more shocked than I am injured. The strength of the dying always surprises me. As if life conjures some extra battalion of energy right at the end. The nurse holding down Mrs. Riley’s leg gives up that fight and edges toward me, hesitating. The wide-eyed look on her face, plus the metallic taste of blood in my mouth, tells me Mrs. Riley managed to split my lip or something. I wipe my face with my right hand, and it comes away bright red. Facial wounds—they always bleed like you’ve cut a major artery. My lip starts to throb just as Mrs. Riley screams again, limbs flailing against the nurses’ hold once more.

I don’t hesitate and she doesn’t see me coming. I slam my right palm on her forehead and push her head deep into the pillow. It slides a little, greased by my blood, but I maintain the contact and start the transfer.

My hand heats immediately, her life energy pulsing into my palm and up through my arm. She stops flailing, her arm and leg dropping as if she’s been knocked unconscious, but she’s not. She’s awake and staring at me with wide-eyed horror. I know what she’s feeling now. I know the life-stealing blackness that crowds her vision and the despair that fills her chest with darkness. I know because I feel it. Every damn time I have to pay out.

Mrs. Riley will only feel it once.

In that way, she may be lucky after all.

Her life energy pulses stronger in me now, juicing me, a high like no other. My body pulls it faster and faster, like it’s starving for the liquid-rush feeling and can’t get enough. My palm is hot with the transfer, too hot, and I realize that Mrs. Riley had longer to live than the bean counters calculated. Not a tremendous amount, just a month more than their estimated two weeks. But it’s enough to fill me with an unexpected burst of energy that has my hand shaking. I have to push her head deeper into the pillow to make sure I keep contact through the last drip of life force draining from her body.

It’s a blissful feeling—and it fills my bones.

Mrs. Riley’s eyes are still open, but there’s no life behind them. I pull my hand back, leaving a bloody handprint with five bloody fingers on her hairless head. My stomach heaves, a violent storm of disgust and jittery-high brewing and threatening to bring up my breakfast. The nurses are silent. Motionless. I hear the distant ding of the elevator arriving, calling me, and I have to leave the room.

I shove the nurse who almost came to my aid out of my way, probably less gently than I could have, in my haste to get out. Mrs. Riley’s life energy is pulsing through me, making my steps fast and unsteady. I reach the elevator just as it’s about to close again and slip through the doors. I stalk to the back of the stainless steel box then turn and pace the perimeter, a tight circle that keeps bringing me back to the polished surface of the walls. They reflect a warped image of my bloodied face. I stop, wipe my chin with the back of my hand, and pace again. My stomach drops as the elevator moves, whisking me away to some floor, and I realize I forgot to hit the button.

I turn to face my reflection and punch that instead.

Pain lances up my arm, and the stainless steel dents in. I jerk back and see the dimpled impression my fist left behind—along with a smear of my blood. The elevator sways to a stop, and it’s enough to unsteady me. I fold in on myself, my trenchcoat fanning around me as I curl around my injured hand and sink to the floor. Whoever was going to come into the elevator doesn’t. The doors close again. I still haven’t pushed the button.

I’m staring at the abyss and I know: I’m in serious trouble.

I sit across from my psych officer, Candy Kane Thornton, and try like hell to look normal. I’m not exactly sure what normal is, or what Candy’s typing into her palm screen after she glances at me, but I need to avoid the “you look like shit” response as well as the long, drawn-out sigh that usually precedes the “What am I going to do with you, Lirium” lecture. I need a change in my collection duties, but I don’t want her to think she has to retire me. Or worse, somehow discern that I’ve done an illegal mercy hit. I haven’t been to see Flitstrom, the bean counter, so he hasn’t had a chance to find any anomalies in my tracker from the mercy hit. Candy can’t see how much life force I’m carrying just by looking at me, but then I can never tell what she’s really thinking. She approved a new apartment for me on the east side just two weeks ago, so she knows something is up.

Candy taps her palm screen one more time and folds it in her lap. Her bright red nails are long, pointed daggers that sprout from her fingers. I have no idea how she navigates the screen embedded in her hand without drawing blood. That thought reflexively draws my hand up to my face. I cleaned up, but I still look like I’ve been in a bar fight. I cover the motion by running my hand through my hair and returning Candy’s stare. My split knuckles are taped together with a series of small band-aids from the hospital. They’re like little white arrows pointing to how messed up I am. Candy’s gaze is drawn to them, then returns to staring at me in a silent standoff. I’ve never figured out if her crazy-green eye color comes from contacts or implants, but they’re unnerving. Her too-red hair curls on her black suit jacket, which is low-cut, tight, and reveals a tattoo on her breast that I should only know about if we’re dating.

Candy doesn’t do demure.

She’s waiting for me to speak first. I did call and request the meeting after all.

I clear my throat. “So,” I say, with extreme articulateness. “I was thinking about maybe getting some medical needs training. Um, you know, if there are slots open.” My voice is a wreck, and I sound like an idiot.

Candy doesn’t say anything for moment. Then she says, “You look like hell, Lirium.”

Shit. “Rough collection.” I hope she buys it. It’s the truth, after all, and that makes for the best lies.

Candy nods her head.

“So, I was thinking that medical needs training would be, you know, something new. I could use a change of pace.” I would still have to collect, but if I trained for medical needs payouts, maybe it would fill some of the holes I’m carrying around in my soul. I would be saving lives, not just taking them. I flash back to the burning-hot feeling of goodness that came after the mercy hit. Giving Apple Girl’s dying sister a life force hit gave me a taste of something that I wanted. Needed. Badly. Medical needs transfers go to people who have high future potential, but who need the life energy hit to carry them through a operation or treatment they’re undergoing… maybe it would give that same pure feeling of goodness afterward. It had to be better than paying out to perfectly healthy people who happened to be high potentials.

Candy gets up from behind her desk, which is shiny black and reflects the bleak white light from the overhead panels. Her office is in the seedy section of the east side of Los Angeles, but the interior looks like an art deco installation in Manhattan. The desk and chairs are spare and lacquered, and bio artwork on the wall oozes a blood-red gel in constantly changing shapes, but the rest of the tiny room is stripped of any personal effects. There’s nothing to indicate that Candy has a life outside of this oasis of retro slickness, and I can’t imagine her anywhere but inside these walls.

She trails her fingernails along the desktop, dragging out a scritching sound that makes my teeth ache. She sits on the edge in front of me, legs bared from her too-short skirt, and she brushes my pants leg with her foot in an accidentally casual motion that’s entirely intentional. Her bright red heels click as she crosses her ankles. I know other collectors have psych officers who force them to do all kinds of things, just to keep out of retirement. I keep waiting for the day Candy asks me to play sex worker for an afternoon, but it hasn’t happened yet.

She towers over me. I’m slouched in her chair, still folded up, like back in the elevator. I shift in my seat, straightening, but I still only come up to her chest. I try hard not to stare and mostly succeed.

“What am I going to do with you?” she asks.

I have a feeling her answer to that question isn’t the same as mine.

“Medical needs would be perfect—”

“Lirium,” she cuts me off, leaning forward so I have a really good view of the tattoo. It’s a barbed wire that disappears into her jacket. “You’re not ready for medical needs training. Not yet.”

I give the tattoo a good long look, since that seems to be what she wants, then let my gaze slowly travel up to her green devil eyes.

“What would I have to do to be ready?” I’m willing to pay whatever price she wants, so we might as well cut to it. I’m in no shape to negotiate anyway. I almost didn’t make it out of that elevator under my own power today.

She smiles, enjoying my leer, I guess. Then she leans back, examining me again.

“Wash outs make me look bad, Lirium,” she states in that out-of-left-field way that she does sometimes. I swear, they must give psych officers advanced training in how to mess with collectors’ heads.

“I’m not washing out. I’m fine.” I’m not convincing anyone, least of all myself.

“You look like you’ve been hiding under a rock, drinking to excess, not sleeping, and smoking skeet.”

“I’m not doing drugs.” Life force hits are my drug of choice. She knows this. I hold in the sigh of relief that doing mercy hits wasn’t on her list of bad acts.

She raises one perfectly manicured brow, but lets the rest of the list slide. “Just one rough collection is enough to make you look like… this?”

I nod. It’s not hard for me to look pathetic.

“This is a tough business.” Her voice has gone soft. She looks at me like she wants to cuddle me up in her perfectly tailored lap. I barely hold in the shudder. “I’ve already lost one collector this week to retirement, and I’d rather not lose you as well. Like I said, wash outs make me look bad, and besides,” she gives me a lascivious grin, “you’re pretty to look at, even when you’re beat up. I’d like to keep you coming round my office.”

I blink and say nothing, holding my breath to see where she takes this.

“Do you know what the average wash out age of debt collectors is?” she asks.

Of course I know, but I dutifully answer anyway. “Ten years of collecting.”

“Ten years,” she says solemnly. “And that’s the ones who live long enough to wash out. Life expectancy is actually shorter. Did you know that?”

I know, but I shake my head to humor her.

“Collectors who last, the ones who manage to live past the average wash out age and keep collecting, have figured out how to stay in the game, Lirium.” Now she’s turning Life Coach on me, which actually might be the one thing I can use. “Sometimes they figure it out on their own—that’s for the best, because each collector has their own pathway, their own rituals, which allow them to keep looking in the mirror every morning.”

I don’t mention that’s something I avoid whenever possible.

“You’re performing a vital function in our society.” She prim crosses her legs at the knee. “You are the grease that makes things run. You facilitate the smooth, efficient operation of our world, moving the most precious resource we have—life itself—from where it’s least needed to where it’s most needed. You do it all within the confines of our laws and regulations and at no small personal cost.” She smiles kindly at me, morphing into a freakish simulacrum of a caring mother figure. “Society appreciates what you do, or we wouldn’t go to such great pains to make sure you are able to do it. But sometimes collectors need help. That’s my job, Lirium, to get you the help you need.”

“I’m not washing out,” I say, desperation creeping into my voice. “I just need a change of pace.”

“You need someone to help you figure out how to manage the stress of collection,” she says with finality. “I’m assigning you a mentor.”

Shit. “Candy, I’m fine, really—” I can’t have a mentor. It’s like having a round-the-clock babysitter. A full-time spy for my psych officer. If Candy had any idea what my life really looked like, she would have already shipped me off to retirement.

She slides off the desk and stands in her six-inch heels, looming over me. My nose comes up to her navel, and her heavy perfume assaults it. “I’m not giving you a choice, Lirium.”

I lean back in the chair, staring sullenly at my hands clenching each other in front of me. “A mentor sounds like a fantastic idea.”

“That’s better,” she says. “I want you to take the full twenty-four hours with this collection. You’re in no shape to pay out right now, and I’d like you to talk to your mentor before you do, anyway. Don’t check in with Flitstrom until tomorrow. I’ll send the mentor by your new place tonight.”

“Can’t wait.” I’ll have to hide the vodka bottles before this mentor shows up, or Candy will pack me off to rehab without blinking. Rehab, for a life-force addict like me, isn’t as bad as retirement, but it’s really just the first step to sending you there. Besides, life-force addicts don’t get rehabilitated. They wash out.

And that’s the one thing Candy and I would both like to avoid.

It’s seven o’clock, and I’m still waiting for my new mentor to arrive.

The swelling on my lip has gone down, and fresh bandages cover my busted knuckles. I’ve cleared out the vodka bottles, laundered the few clothes I keep, and disinfected my small apartment, trying rid it of the smell of squalor that took hold while I lay festering in my misery. I had to stop indulging in sex workers when I moved out of my old apartment two weeks ago, but that part of my ritual is sorely missed, leaving just a sea of wódka to get lost in. But as long as Madam Anastazja is giving random, unscreened hit-seekers my house number, staying there is a ticket to the morgue for me.

In the end, it isn’t too difficult to clean up the place.

I’ve paced the confines of my new apartment a dozen times now. It’s a little more spacious than the last one. The bedroom has room for more than just the bed, and I have an actual kitchen, not just a corner with a hot plate and cold box. There’s even a table with two chairs that I never use. I try to imagine sitting down with my mentor over bowls of corn flakes… and fail utterly. I don’t eat here. I drink and pretend to sleep, but mostly pass out. If I’m feeling well enough to eat, I get my sorry ass outside into the smog-filtered sun and find a place that won’t poison me with week-old milk and weevil-infested cereal.

I have a small panic moment when I realize my cold box and pantry are empty. Unless my mentor’s an idiot, he’ll realize why in an instant. And Candy won’t send an idiot—she’ll send a spy who will figure me out in two seconds. My hands shake as I open my palm screen and wonder if I have enough time to run out and get groceries.

7:03 pm

I have no idea where the nearest grocery store is, but all of a sudden, leaving the apartment sounds like a tremendous idea. If I come back with groceries, all the better. That looks responsible. Like I have my life under control. I practically run to the coat closet by the front door and rip my trenchcoat off the hanger. I have it half on, the hanger still swinging, when a tone sounds from the front door.

I look back and forth between the door and the closet, frozen, then hastily hang the coat up before striding over to punch the front door button.

It slides open to reveal a girl in a black trenchcoat. Her hands are on her hips, parting the coat to show a form-fitting black dress that covers everything above her knees. A tiny flash of thigh peeks between the clinging dress and her knee-high stiletto boots. Her hair is raven-black and shiny, hanging in a sheet that falls well past her shoulders, competing with the jacket to cover her chest. She’s smirking at me with full lips and dark, twinkling eyes. If she’s a veteran collector, she has to be near thirty, but her pale, rosy skin is flushed with the youth of a thousand life force hits. She has an ageless beauty that has me thinking about angels and tempting demons. My first coherent thought is that the male debtors she visits probably don’t mind so much that she’s come to collect.

“Are you going to invite me in, Lirium?” Her voice is deep, somehow dangerous and sexy at the same time. It runs an electric spark through me that feels like a life hit.

I shut my gaping mouth and step aside.

She strides past me, shucking off her trenchcoat as she inspects my apartment with one glancing sweep. She turns to face me, standing only in the sleeveless black dress and her boots, holding her coat out to me. I belatedly take it and welcome the chance to hang it in the closet, just to be able to stop staring at her like an idiot.

Get a grip, I tell myself. She’s a spy for your psych officer. I take my time with the hanger, then avoid her gaze as I step to the door and punch the button to close it. When I finally turn to face her, I’ve somewhat regained my composure.

We stare at each other a moment. She looks me up and down in a way that, astoundingly, makes heat rise up in my cheeks. I am in such trouble here.

She smirks again. “So, Candy’s worried about you, is she?”

“Didn’t she give you my case file or something?” I put some bite into my voice. “Tell you how messed up I am? Or are you just doing a cursory visit so you can report back to Candy with cause to retire me?”

“Whoa, Lirium.” She holds up her hands. Her fingers are pale and delicate, spread wide as if to hold back my accusations with a force field emanating from them. “I’m not your enemy. I’m just here to help you out.”

“Help me out?” I fold my arms across my chest.

She takes a casual step closer. “Candy’s your psych officer,” she says, very seriously. “And your psych officer always, always has your best interests at heart.” It takes me a beat to realize she’s joking, but I’m not sure if I’m supposed to get the joke until she smiles.

She edges up close enough that I can smell her oddly sweet perfume. I can’t quite place it. “So, do you have a name?” I ask. “Or should I call you Mistress Mentor?”

She gives me a wicked grin. “Oh, you’re a one of those, are you?”

I have no idea what she means, but I can’t help smiling in return.

“You can call me Ophelia.”

“Ophelia. Seriously?” It has to be her collector name.

“You don’t like Shakespeare?” Her eyes shine with mischief again. “How about Mara? I’m always a fan of a good Death God.” She places her hands on my chest, and the scent of her bare-skinned arms wafts up. I finally place it: roses and lilies. Funeral flowers. “Mara, the wicked one, the Hindi spirit who specializes in seduction, temptation, and death.” She slides her hands up to my shoulders, and I stop breathing. “Funny how those always seem to go together, isn’t it?”

“I think I like Ophelia better,” I manage to get out, even though all the air has escaped my lungs with her touch.

She smiles and reaches her right palm for my forehead. I realize what she’s doing at the last moment and whip my head away, stumbling back from her. “What the hell?” I say, but my voice is soft, more stunned than angry. I’ve never had another collector reach for me that way, not even in training.

“Oh, Lirium.” She shakes her head sadly. “I have so much to teach you.”

She steps closer again. I’m wary now, but she simply takes my right hand in hers. Her skin is soft and warm. I don’t realize my hand is clenched until she slowly unfolds my fist and strokes my palm like it’s a kitten that she’s soothing. My hand warms with her slow touch. She raises it and places my palm flat on her forehead. I jerk back at the contact, eyes wide at what she’s doing.

“Shhh, Lirium, baby,” she says, like I’m a dove she’s coaxing in from the windowsill. “I’m a collector, honey. You’re a collector.” She gently tugs my hand back to her forehead. “The Candy Kane Thornton’s of the world will never understand us, never know what we see, what we feel, every day, with every transfer. She doesn’t know what it’s like. And no matter what she wants, no matter what her aims are—because, believe you me, that she-devil has hidden aims you don’t even want to know—she does know one thing. Only one collector can understand another, baby. And right now, you need to trust me. I know what you need, and I’m here to help you.”

My hand is on her forehead, and it’s even softer and warmer than her hands. My fingertips kiss her satiny black hair. I’m not sure I could pull away now if I wanted to. And I don’t. Her deeply dangerous voice is pulling me in.

“Give me a taste, Lirium.” Her voice is a purr. My last collection is still swimming in me. The bean counters will tally it up later, but for now, I can spend my cut if I want to. And Ophelia, with her big, dark eyes gazing up at me, her forehead under my hand, is damn hard to resist.

A trickle of life force drains through my hand into her. Her smile relaxes, her eyes flutter close, and a slow, full breath leaks like a whisper from her parted lips. Just watching Ophelia take a hit intoxicates me, and the light-headed feeling I have is unrelated to the small drain of energy I’m giving her. In fact, I hardly feel the transfer. I stop it after a tiny hit, but don’t pull away.

Her eyes lazily open, and she reaches for my forehead again. I flinch, but stay close.

“Trust me,” she says, and for some completely irrational reason, I do. Her palm heats my skin where she touches me, and I immediately feel the hit. She’s cycling it back to me, the same energy I just transferred to her, and it’s a warm gush even more intense than the life energy I collect through my hand. I suck in a sharp breath, and a smile spreads across my face. When she stops, I’m back to the same level of life force I started with, but the transfer has left me buzzing.

She snuggles in closer. “Again,” she breathes. I pulse another hit into her and feel her lean into my palm. She cycles it back to me, and the second hit doesn’t add onto the first, it multiplies. I have no idea how this is possible, this passing back and forth of life energy, but the last thing I want to do is stop.

We keep cycling the energy, and with each turn, I inch closer to her, drawn into her body like the transfer is physical force pulling us together. Finally, my lips find hers, soft and willing. My hand slips from her forehead around to weave into her hair and bring her harder into the kiss. It breaks the connection, but I don’t care. The transfer is rushing through my body in waves, and I’m already high as it is. My other hand remembers that it can move and slips around her back, gripping the thin, silky fabric of her dress in my fist. Our tongues twist together, hot and fervent, and I can almost taste the transfer on her, small electric sparks jumping at the places we touch: our mouths, my hand on her back, the warm skin at the back of her neck.

She pulls away, ending the kiss with a gentle bite on my lower lip that stings, but I don’t mind the pain. My lips trail after her, but she’s pushing me back with two hands on my chest.

There’s a smirk on her face. “You are adorable, just like Candy promised.”

Adorable?

Her smirk turns into something more wicked. “And delicious. And a very fast learner. But I’m afraid I don’t sleep with collectors.”

“I… maybe I… want something more than that.” What am I saying? I definitely want to sleep with her, as soon as possible, preferably right now. But that’s it. Then I want her out of my apartment as soon as Candy will allow it.

Ophelia gives a small laugh, and wiggles a little further away, at which point I realize my hands are still trying to draw her in.

“Oh, those baby blues eyes,” she says, patting my cheek, “and that adorable little face…” She bites her lip. “You certainly tempt a girl to break her own rules. But sleeping with collectors is a sticky enough problem. I certainly don’t make the mistake of dating collectors. Especially not a guppy like you, baby.”

Guppy?

I’m an adorable guppy. I drop my hands and give her my best stone cold look.

She laughs, covering her mouth with her hand like this is hysterically funny. “Oh don’t give me that,” she says lightheartedly, pressing a hand on my chest to nudge me away. “You know we’re not that type. Collectors in love? It would be a comedy that writes itself, if it weren’t so pitifully tragic. I can’t lead you down that path, lover, it just wouldn’t be right. And what would Candy think if I sent you back even more messed up in the head than when I got you?”

“So… this was…” I gesture between us, meaning the transfer exchange, the cooing, the kiss, all of it. Is she just toying with me? Testing me?

She shrugs. “Just trying to get you back on an even keel.” She turns her back on me and drifts toward the couch, a small saunter in her walk. “You looked like you needed a boost,” she calls before gracefully dropping onto the couch. She props her shiny boots up on my coffee table and looks entirely at ease in my apartment. Like she has already moved in and is just surveying her new domain.

I swallow and decide I’m entirely out of my league with Ophelia. The best strategy is probably to follow her lead, play along, and hopefully figure out what she’s really after before she has me marching willingly off to retirement.

I take a few calculated steps toward the couch, drawing her attention away from inspecting the bare contents of my apartment. I travel light. What personal effects I have are still in a box in the bedroom closet. She watches me with humor-filled eyes as I sit next to her, not too close, my arm draped across the back of the couch. I hope I look casual and less like a guppy to her shark.

“So this transfer exchange we just did,” I say, the buzz still making my body tingle, “how does that work exactly?”

She sweeps her long black hair back over her shoulder and props her head in her hand to study me. “Mostly the transfer works the same as it usually does. Same rush when you transfer in. It’s not the life energy that’s giving you the high, baby, it’s your body’s reaction to the sudden infusion of energy. If you do it enough, you’ll eventually lose a tiny bit of life force along the way, but otherwise you can cycle indefinitely. It’s called a boost, or boosting if you ride the merry-go-round more than once, like we did.” Her eyes are alight with secrets she’s not telling. “Did you notice that it’s not as draining to transfer out to another collector?”

I nod. It almost felt like no transfer at all, just an emptying. Not unlike the mercy hit I did. “But what about the bean counters? This,” I gesture between us again, “has got to completely mess them up.” I’m also wondering about the mercy hit, and how that will show up on the tracker. Candy doesn’t want me to check in with Flitstrom until tomorrow, but I’d like to know what to expect before I get there.

“The tracker counts every second of life energy that you transfer, yes?” she asks.

“Right.” That was Lesson One in training.

“Wrong.” She has that twinkle again. “I know you’re a guppy, Lirium, but really? Haven’t you wondered if anyone has ever tampered with their trackers?”

I scowl at her. This ‘guppy’ thing needs to stop. “Some collectors might not mind someone digging into their arm to mess with their tracker, or care if they risk an early retirement if they get caught. I’m not interested in either of those.”

She chuckles lightly. “You are so straight.”

My scowl is threatening to turn into a snarl. She gives my arm an apologetic pat, and her warm fingertips cause drops of sensation to pulse through me. I’m so reactive to her, I have to wonder if it’s a side effect of the boost. It’s making me feel more alive than I have in… well, since that mercy hit.

I need to know more about all of this. “So the boost doesn’t get tracked?”

“Nope, it’s completely off the tracker, because it’s between two collectors.” She taps a light rhythm on my arm that is completely distracting, but I manage not to glance at it. “Did you know that collectors can transfer with more than just, shall we say, the conventional position of palm-to-forehead?” Her fingers continue to dance on my arm, and her gaze lingers there. “In fact, an accomplished collector can collect anywhere with anything. All you need is a little body-to-body contact.”

Her hand stills on my arm, and she looks into my eyes. My heart lurches as I realize what she’s saying, and I jerk my arm away from her touch.

She smiles. “I could have drained you completely with that yummy kiss, lover. If I was going to hurt you, I would have done it already.”

The small hairs on my arm are already standing up, as if they’ve figured out—way ahead of me—how much of a shark she really is.

“What do you want from me?” I can’t help leaning slightly away from her.

She gives an elaborate sigh. “I’m here to help you, but I can see it’s not going to be easy to convince you of that. It might help you to know I’ve kept Candy happy for years by helping her train up her guppies, keeping them from going belly up before their time.”

“Candy’s your psych officer?” This makes more sense to me now.

“And Candy gets what Candy wants.” Ophelia gives me a grim smile. “Don’t be what Candy wants, Lirium. That’s my first piece of advice for you.”

“There’s more?”

She glances around the apartment, raises an eyebrow at my bandaged knuckles, and finally looks me in the eyes. “Lay off the booze. If you want to get high, find a collector and ride the merry-go-round. Clean life hits will serve you better any day of the week. Just make sure it’s a collector you trust.”

“I don’t trust you.”

She smiles wide. “Yes you do, baby. Or you wouldn’t have been stealing kisses from me.”

“That was before I understood what you are.”

She presses a fine-fingered hand to her chest. “Oh, baby, you wound me! After all I’ve done for you.” She’s got a Cheshire grin now, but then the wattage fades. “I mean it, Lirium. Be careful who you boost with. And make sure you don’t sleep with any collectors. Boosting’s tricky enough with the conventional position and someone you trust. It gets a lot more difficult to, ah, control when you’re between the sheets and otherwise occupied. I don’t need to draw you a map about that, do I?”

My eyes must have gone wide, because she nods sharply. “That’s a dangerous business, baby. Don’t do it. It’s a lot safer to use sex workers to scratch that itch.”

I swallow. Definitely out of my depth with Ophelia, but I’m starting to believe that she’s not actually going to eat me, even if she’s a bigger shark than I thought.

“I’m not sure sex workers are all that safe, either,” I say.

“How so?” Her face scrunches, but she must have thought of the danger already.

I’m not ready to tell her the truth, so I go vague. “What if they’re not screened? What if they sell your address to the highest bidder?”

Her eyes go round and large. “You have sex workers come to your apartment?”

I’m feeling more like a guppy by the minute. She runs a delicate hand over her face, then glances at the door. “Have you had one here?”

“No,” I say quickly. “That’s why I moved. I haven’t had anyone here, in the new place… except you.”

I can see the tension fleeing her body. “Let’s keep it that way, shall we? I’ll hook you up with a madam who doesn’t do house calls.”

“You’re hooking me up with sex workers?” I give her a bemused look. “Was that part of Candy’s plan to rehabilitate me?”

“Candy doesn’t know jack about collectors.” She pats my arm again, and surprisingly, I don’t flinch. “If it was left up to her and her lascivious incompetence, they’d all wash out. And I’d hate to see a cute thing like you go into early retirement.”

That makes two of us.

She gives a large sigh. “I think that’s enough training for one night, sweet thing.” She climbs off the couch and sways toward the kitchen. “I’m starved. Missed dinner tonight because I had to do a collection. What have you got for eats around here?”

I cringe as she disappears into the kitchen. After a moment I hear the refrigerator open. The tap-tap sound of her boots impatiently beating my tiled floor drifts in.

“Lirium, Lirium, Lirium,” she calls from the kitchen. She comes to the door and peeks around it, holding onto the wall. “You’re out of ice cream.”

“Really?” I ask with a smirk. “I just got some last week.”

“Looks like you need to make a grocery run, lover.”

I grin and climb to my feet. In the span of less than fifteen minutes, Ophelia has boosted me high on life force, kissed me but refused to bed me, then lectured me on the finer points of transfers and trackers. She’s taking over my place like she’s lived here for years, and the strangest part is that I’m starting to enjoy it.

I’m going to have to figure out where the grocery store is after all.

I couldn’t decide between Rocky Road and Vanilla, so I pulled both from the frosted freezer case at the convenience store. Now I’m staring at them and debating which one to put back. Ophelia told me to get Rocky Road, but I’m not sure my stomach can handle more than Vanilla right now, not with Mrs. Riley’s life energy, the boost from Ophelia, and my own residual lack of eating mixed into the turbulence. I should just get both.

I haven’t had ice cream since I was a kid. We didn’t have much, my mom and me, growing up on the east side, with her working two jobs just to keep us afloat and ahead of the debt collectors. I only clearly remember one ice cream event in my life, and it’s from when I was very young. Maybe my dad was still around, or maybe the world just seemed brighter because I was such a little kid and didn’t know anything about it, but I clearly remember a mountain of ice cream, a forest of spoons, and a dozen of my friends. We attacked that thing like consuming it was a moral imperative straight from God.

“Hey pal!” a voice sounds behind me. “You okay?”

I blink. I’ve been staring at the refrigerator case, clutching two pints of ice cream in my hands, for… I’m not sure how long. The crusty ice on the outside of the containers is sliding off and dripping on my boots. I haven’t thought about my childhood, at least not the good parts, for so long that for a moment I think maybe I am starting to lose my mind. Or maybe it’s an after-effect of the boost.

Ophelia. There’s something about her that’s triggering this happy desire to run out and buy ice cream for a girl I just met. Only she’s not just a girl, she’s a collector who’s more shark than girl. And more woman than either. She’s something good. I can feel it.

She might save me after all.

I swap my melting ice cream pints for fresh ones from the case, then turn to wave one at the convenience store clerk, so he doesn’t call the police to come get the demented guy by the freezer. I work my way forward through the store, my gaze roaming the dusty shelves of snack foods for anything else Ophelia might want. I grab a bag of cookies that look like they might go with the ice cream, and if they don’t, they’ll make good snacks for later. I’ll have to get some real food soon if I’m going to be feeding two.

I smile, hands full, all the way to the front. The clerk is a wiry guy with more hair on his face than his head and a dour look that makes me think he has a gun under the register. I should have checked out the neighborhood more before I moved here. While he packs my stuff in a double layer of plastic bagging, I dig out my debit card. It’s the one we’re issued in training, so we can stay off the grid. All our collector salary goes on the card, and purchases with these aren’t supposed to register on the central databases, just on a special, secure server accessible only to the Agency higher ups. Even our psych officers have to request information, and then only if they have to track down one of their errant collectors.

The clerk swipes my debit card past the check-out scanner and hands it back to me.

“Thanks, man,” I say.

He nods a gruff acknowledgment. I swing my groceries in one hand and stuff my debit card in the pocket of my trenchcoat with the other. The cool air outside is a welcome change from the musty smell of the store, and I stride across the darkened street. The sun is setting, turning the urban canyons of my neighborhood into a patchwork of shadows and dying sunlight that’s shifted blood-red through the smog.

I don’t notice the shadows are moving until three of them melt from the alleyway and surround me—two in front, and when I glance back, another behind. The first time I take a walk in this neighborhood, and I’m about to get mugged for ice cream. Fantastic.

Maybe I should start carrying a gun. The Agency issued me a license in training for self-defense, but I never thought it wise to actually have one around my apartment. There were too many weekends where I spent my time fighting off personal demons for ready access to a weapon to be a good thing.

The men are muscular and dressed in rugged workpants and lumpy hoodies that make them look misshapen. Their boots crunch the dirt and broken gravel of the alley. I’m only thirty feet from my apartment door, which is just around the corner at the end of the alley. I might be able to outrun them, but the two bigger ones are between me and my apartment complex. I edge backward, knowing the other one is still behind me. Maybe I can just give them my ice cream and debit card. They won’t recognize the card for what it is; it looks like any other. Maybe they’ll beat me up a bit, but then they’ll move on…

“There’s nowhere to go, collector,” one in front of me says. “You might as well come with us, peaceful like.”

Shit. They know who I am. How can that be? My heart is trying to beat its way out of my chest. I grip the plastic bag tighter in my hand. I have to fight them. A quick death in the shadows would be better than an extended torture session while they try to get me to collect for them. And if I fight, I might get lucky and break free long enough to make it back to my apartment. Barricade myself inside. Call the police.

Shoes scuff behind me. The guy is close. I turn and swing the ice cream as hard as I can. They’re twin rocks at the end of my plastic rope, and they cold-cock the guy. He goes down hard. I’m on him, palm pressed to his forehead, just in case that cracking sound wasn’t his skull actually breaking. A surge of energy pulses into me, a blinding flash that whites out the world for a split-second then brings it roaring back. The man is young, years of potential life ahead of him, and it burns my hand like a branding iron. I hold on as long as I can, a scream wanting to tear out from my throat, then I yank my hand free. My body floods with the energy of a hundred men.

The other two are on me, but I’m wild with energy. I whirl the ice cream like a club, crashing down on one of them. The other takes a swing at me, but I lean back. He over rotates on the miss, and I take him in the gut like I’m a line-backer and he’s a tackle dummy. I slam him into the graffiti-covered concrete wall. The air whooshes out of his lungs, but he recovers and shoves me away. I stumble backward and fall.

He pulls a gun from under his black hoodie and points it at me.

I scramble backward, manage to get my feet under me, and run like hell for the end of the alleyway. I expect a bullet in the back the entire way, but it doesn’t come. I don’t look back until I reach the end and skitter around the corner. The thug with the gun is bent over one of his buddies, helping him up. I don’t hang around wondering why they haven’t shot me yet.

My hands shake as I fish in my pocket for the swipe key to the complex. My heart is pounding a staccato note that I swear is going to kill me before the thugs can come around the corner and do it. I finally get the key out, only to notice that the door is open, standing ajar an inch.

Ophelia.

I yank the door open and sprint up the stairs. Three flights to my level, and I can’t take them fast enough. My legs are full of life energy and panic.

When I reach the door, it’s already slid open. My apartment is empty. I dash three times into the bedroom and the kitchen, calling Ophelia’s name, before I come to my senses.

She’s not here.

I clutch my hair with both hands. Think. The door was open. Did she leave? Did someone take her? Was this all an elaborate setup? Send Lirium out for ice cream and attack him in the alley? That didn’t make any sense, but… I lurch over to the closet, my legs protesting the panic that’s stopped up and held prisoner as I sort out what’s happened. I rip open the closet door. Her trenchcoat is still there.

If she had set me up, she would have taken her coat with her.

I wander to the front door in a daze. Belatedly, I remember to close and lock it, just in case the alley thugs are on their way up. I turn and brace my back against it, and that’s when I see the signs.

The coffee table is slightly askew.

The thin carpet underneath it has a bunched-up bump that wasn’t there before.

And finally… a dark smear on the polished wood floor a few feet from the door.

I slowly step toward it and bend down. On closer inspection, it’s reddish black. Ophelia’s blood is staining my floor.

Oh no.

They knew I was a collector. They came looking for me, but they found Ophelia instead. They hurt her, took her, and came for me next… my head is woozy. I brace my right hand against the floor to steady myself, then heave up and flip on the screen in my left palm.

I punch in the number. A woman’s face appears in my hand.

“Nine-one-one, please state the nature of your emergency.”

“A woman has been kidnapped.” My voice shakes. The operator says something in response, but all I can think is that one of the Madam Anastazja’s girls found me. They tipped off one of the east side mobs, and somehow they tracked me down to my new place. Only instead of me paying the price for my guppy stupidity, they took Ophelia. I try to console myself that there’s only a smear of blood. Maybe they didn’t hurt her too badly. But worse is coming, wherever they’ve taken her. Much worse. Only then does it occur to me that I should have called my psych officer before the police.

Candy is going to kill me.

“What do you mean?” Anger is turning my words into snarls. “Why aren’t they looking for her?”

Candy flashes me a dangerous look, and I check myself. She returns to digging through her lacquered black-and-gold handbag. Not long after the police arrived, Candy dragged me away from the crime scene, previously known as my new apartment. At the time, she was all coolness and professionalism, flashing her psych officer badge at the local law enforcement and sweeping me away to her office. I barely had time to snag my box of stuff from the closet. Now it sits at my feet.

“Of course they’ll try to find her,” Candy says. “I talked to Officer Lamb and gave him temporary access to Ophelia’s file. He has your statement, and he’s going to look for camera footage of the alley, but we can’t even be sure those men were the same ones who took Ophelia.”

“But they knew I was a collector.” That can’t be a coincidence. It has to be tied to me and my guppy idiocy with Madam A’s sex workers. Not that Candy knows about that.

“Officer Lamb said that part of town is rife with the Kolek mob,” she says. “They must have seen Ophelia and recognized her as a collector. The building super says he doesn’t know how they got in, but he’s probably on the Kolek payroll. You should count yourself lucky you were in the alley. Officer Lamb will put out a bulletin about Ophelia, and the police will keep an eye out for her. But she’s with the mob now, Lirium. She’s probably already dead.”

“You don’t know that!” My voice is cracking, and I feel the thin, icy line I’m skating with Candy. I force myself to lean back in the chair and run my bandaged hand over my face. It’s still healing from when I punched the elevator, but my right hand is worse. The life-force I pulled out of the thug in the alley left an angry red burn mark on my palm, a straight-line welt that looks like I got whacked with a ruler made of hot coals. I keep my hand curled and tuck it under my arm, so Candy doesn’t see. When I told the police I got mugged, I didn’t mention that I drained one of the alley attackers. I’m still stunned myself that it happened at all. I’ve never collected under pressure; it’s not supposed to be possible.

I have so much to teach you. Ophelia’s words haunt me, along with the smear of her blood on my floor. I’m starting to wonder if anything I know about collecting is actually true.

“What if there’s no video of the alley?” I ask. “You didn’t even give me a chance to give them a description...”

She’s still rummaging through her purse. “Did you see anything?” she asks, sarcasm in her voice. “Tattoos? Faces? Something other than,” she makes air quote fingers, “‘three guys in hoodies’?”

The look on my face says it all.

She shakes her head. “The police will do their job, Lirium. You focus on yours. But don’t hold out hope for something that’s not going to happen. If Ophelia’s lucky, she’s already dead. And if we’re lucky, we’ll find her body sometime soon.”

I try to calm my breathing. “How long was Ophelia one of your collectors?”

My words jar her enough to make her look up from her purse. She stares at me with her devil green eyes. “A long time. Why?”

“Don’t you care at all?” Maybe I should tell Candy what I suspect… that one of Madam Anastazja’s girls tipped them off. It’s a lead, if nothing else. Candy will string me up for being an idiot, but at least we might be able to track down Ophelia before the mob tears her to pieces.

If they haven’t already.

“I care about all my collectors.” Candy looks affronted, but it chills me, because it echoes what Ophelia said. Your psych officer always, always has your best interests at heart.

Candy goes back to digging in her purse, and I give up. Ophelia is probably being tortured at this very moment, and all Candy cares about is finding her lip gloss. She finally pulls what she’s looking for from her purse. It’s a tracker scanner. She curls her dagger fingernails at me, wanting me to come closer.

I hesitate. Too long. She gives me a look that makes my throat close up. “I want you to go ahead and do your payout tonight. I know you’re torn up about Ophelia—we both are—but you need to put this behind you and move on. Come here. I need to scan your tracker before you meet the payoff.”

“You… do?” Flitstrom always scans me. Always. A bean counter has to do it. I’m pretty sure that’s the law, but with the crazy mixed-up state in my head, I’m suddenly unsure. “Er, is Flitstrom on vacation?”

“No.” She glares at me. “But he doesn’t work nights, if he doesn’t have to.” I belatedly scoot my chair closer and lay my arm across her desk, within reach of her nails and the handheld scanner. I keep my fist closed, so she can’t see the branded mark on my palm while she runs the tracker over my arm. “Flitstrom approved me for documenting your transfer from Mrs. Riley, given the unfortunate circumstances we find ourselves in.”

Unfortunate circumstances? If she’s so concerned about what’s happened, why the sudden urgency for the payout? Something’s not adding up.

But that thought is lost as Candy coolly looks at the number on her scanner. I have no idea what it is telling her, but my heart starts to pound and a trickle of sweat forms between my shoulder blades. Can she see the mercy hit payout? Or the blinding hot transfer from the thug in the alley? I don’t know how much I collected then, but it could easily be years. There’s no way that wouldn’t show up. Is there?

“There was extra,” I say quickly. “Mrs. Riley had more than her two weeks left.”

Candy looks up at me, a small quirk of a smile showing at the corner of her slickly glossed red lips. “Indeed there was. Lucky thing for Mr. Brodsky.”

My shoulders relax just a fraction. She sees something, but she’s going to let it pass. “Brodsky?” I say as evenly as I can. “Is that the payoff?”

She slips the tracker back into her purse without answering, then turns her attention to her palm screen. A few razor sharp taps, and she holds it up so I can see. There’s an image of a man with unnaturally youthful skin. He’s obviously a regular payoff—I can tell he’s much older than his features by the wateriness of his blue eyes.

“Mr. Brodsky is CEO of Brodsky Electronics,” Candy says. “He’s making some extraordinary breakthroughs in cybernetic implants for the disabled.”

I hold my palm up and touch her hand quickly. It’s cool and clammy, which strikes me as odd. Maybe she’s as affected by Ophelia’s disappearance as I am, but she’s too icy to show it? The image of Brodsky stares at me from my palm screen along with his basic information.

I look at Candy, uncertain what I’m supposed to do now. Do I pay out Mrs. Riley’s transfer and all the excess I sucked out of the mob henchman? Both transfers are still singing in my body, filling out my bones, and I don’t want to part with any more than I have to. But I’m at Candy’s mercy. She has the scanner.

“Does Brodsky get the full transfer?” I ask, deciding that’s a safe question. “Or is there another payoff?”

Again the quirk of a smile. She knows I want to keep it. “Only pay out Mrs. Riley’s calculated two weeks, plus one more. I’ll tell Flitstrom I’m approving you to keep the rest.” I feel the relief seep through me, and for a moment I don’t hate Candy as thoroughly as I usually do. Then she pushes up from her chair and swings around the corner of her desk. She stands way too close to me, forcing me to look up at her.

“After all,” she says, “you just lost your mentor and you need something to keep you going for a while.” She takes my chin, tilting my head back even further, her nails scraping my neck. “You are going to keep going, aren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I choke out, feeling her daggers bite into my Adam’s Apple as it passes.

“No washing out.”

“No, ma’am.”

She releases me and pats my cheek. “That’s a good boy. Just forget about everything that’s happened today. Keep focused on your job. And I’ll check and see if there are any slots opening up soon in medical needs training.”

She gives me a smile that feels half-leer, half-crocodile-ready-for-lunch. I’m not sure if I want to throw up or curl into a ball of self-loathing. Either way, I need to get out of Candy’s office. I spin out of my chair, scoop up my box of things, and head for the door.

“And Lirium…” she says.

Dread washes through me as I stop, hand poised above the door button.

“Don’t go back to your apartment. I wouldn’t want you to get swallowed up by the mob, like poor Ophelia. We’ll start fresh with a new place for you. I’ll message you an address. You should have it by the time you’re done paying out.”

I don’t say anything, just nod, punch the button, and get myself away from her before I do or say something I regret.

There’s no way I’m going to forget what’s happened today. And I’ll make it to my payout appointment tonight, just like Candy wants. But then I’m going to do something really stupid. Something that, if Candy finds out, will kill any chance I have at medical needs training. And I know I’m going to regret it as soon as the certainty of it settles into my chest.

I’m going to find Ophelia.

If you enjoyed Agony, please leave a review.

The Debt Collector Serial

EPISODE 3 –Ecstasy

Available 4.3.13

Lirium’s attempt to find Ophelia takes him to the last place he wants to be.

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Susan Kaye Quinn is the author of the bestselling Mindjack Trilogy, which is young adult science fiction. The Debt Collector series is her more grown-up SF.

Susan grew up in California, got a bunch of engineering degrees (B.S. Aerospace Engineering, M.S. Mechanical Engineering, Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering) and worked everywhere from NASA to NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research). She designed aircraft engines, studied global warming, and held elected office (as a school board member). Now that she writes novels, her business card says "Author and Rocket Scientist," but she mostly sits around in her pajamas in awe that she gets paid to make stuff up.

All her engineering skills come in handy when dreaming up dangerous mind powers, future dystopic worlds, and slightly plausible steampunk inventions. For her stories, of course. Just ignore that stuff in the basement.

Susan writes from the Chicago suburbs with her three boys, two cats, and one husband. Which, it turns out, is exactly as much as she can handle.

Susan loves to hear from readers!

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Table of Contents

- Agony Cover
- Agony Title Page
- Agony Copyright
- Agony Chapter 1
- Agony Chapter 2
- Agony Chapter 3
- Agony Chapter 4
- Agony Chapter 5
- Agony Other Works
- Agony To My Readers
- Agony About The Author