Part-Time Gods by Rachel Aaron

Author:Rachel Aaron [Aaron, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aaron/Bach
Published: 2019-06-08T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

The second week was even more insane than the first. Now that Nik and I had worked out the kinks, it wasn’t uncommon for us to push ten units a day. Other Cleaners were starting to notice, and the grumbling was getting fierce. DeSantos actually got in Nik’s face at one point, which was a bad decision on his part. Nik did better on five hours of sleep a night than I did, but he was starting to fray at the edges too now, and he damn near took the older man’s head off.

I’m pretty sure people were trying to start shit with me as well. I know I got cornered on more than one occasion, but I was honestly too tired to be intimidated. I just wanted this to be over. We were so close now, just a few days away. But even though I woke up already counting the hours until I could go back to bed, I dreaded the passing of time, because now that we’d entered the third week, I was no longer able to deny that we were falling farther and farther behind.

I couldn’t have told you why. When I looked back at everything we’d done, all the stuff we’d sold, there were no obvious failures. Overall we’d done well, sometimes very well, but while the graph of our income was a line going straight up, the arc still wasn’t high enough to hit my target. Unless we got lucky, we were going to fall short, and the more days passed, the luckier we had to get.

“Just one chance,” I muttered to Sibyl as I flopped down on the dog-chewed couch in the latest apartment we’d picked up in downtown. Or maybe we were in the Financial District? I didn’t even know anymore. “Just one lucky break, that’s all we need.”

“You’ve had plenty of lucky breaks,” my AI reminded me. “Statistically speaking, you’re still doing better than the average.”

“Not good enough,” I said, burying my face in my hands. “My dad doesn’t care about ‘almost.’ If I don’t have that money, I lose.”

“You haven’t lost yet.”

That was sweet of her, but I wasn’t in the mood for affirmations. I was exhausted and hungry and so beaten down I wanted to cry. If Nik hadn’t been in the next room over, I probably would have, but I still had my pride. I’d chosen this death march, dammit. I was going to see it through to the end. I was telling myself this over and over when my phone buzzed in my pocket.

“Ooooh,” Sibyl said. “Opal, look at this!”

“You look at it,” I grumbled, rubbing my tired eyes. “That’s why I have you.”

“Listen then,” she said. “You just got an email on your old college account.”

“So? I get emails there all the time. That’s why I don’t check it.”

“This one isn’t spam, though,” Sibyl said. “It’s a request for a consultation. Some guy wants you to have a look at his dragon statue.”

I sighed. I’d done jobs like that all the time back in college.

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