When All is Null and Void

Chapter Three

It was after midnight when Caleb opened the front door to the Rhoades' apartment. Technically, at fifteen, he shouldn't have been working such late shifts, but since they were only five hours, there was a leeway to it. He had school in the morning, and it was always difficult to get up when he had this late of a shift, but he would manage. Part of him had been hoping Angelica would be awake so he could talk to her about the fact that Titus James had just shown upwhile he was working. Seeing a one of the James' in person, unless it was at the Galas they hosted every other month to celebrate some new artifact going on display, was rare. The events were by-invite only.

He warmed a piece of bread in the toaster, and slathered peanut butter onto it when it was acceptably darkened. If he had been hungry, the apartment lacked more than this and an old juice carton. Angelica was a single, nearly elderly woman who'd taken him in because she was lonely. She'd told him it was her duty to help out those who didn't have homes or families, but her job didn't leave much room for disposable income. A hairstylist in the Bronx, she'd recently discovered her wrist had carpal tunnel, so jobs were fewer and farther between now.

Caleb had gotten the job to help her out a little, but Angelica had been against it from the very beginning. Caleb was eventually quite blunt about the reality of their situation. "You're not going to be able to sustain this—us," he had said, and her cheekbones had flushed a deep maroon.

Angelica had finally acquiesced. She wouldn't be happy he'd come home so late. He could hear her voice, the motherly tone of it, in his head. She saw herself as his mother, but Caleb wasn't sure he could accept her as his. Try as he might to push aside the knowledge that his own parents didn't see it as important to stay, he couldn't get rid of the nearly ever-present slice of pain in his gut. Angelica acting as a mom seemed like a mockery to him.

As Caleb tidied up the living room in semi-darkness, he could hear the Holo in Angelica's room discussing tonight's Gala. He went to turn it off, but he was suddenly sucked in, hearing the way the anchors of the show talked. "Titus showed up in black jeans with a turquoise sweater," said a woman with diamond earrings.

"He was soaking wet too!" said a gleeful man with a nasally tone. They cut to a photo of Titus, and Caleb's blood thrummed in his veins. So he hadn't just imagined meeting Titus. He hadn't been mistaken either. He'd hoped the entire thing was in his head, an effect of smelling too much coffee and cleaning supplies.

Apparently not.

He flicked his wrist in a downward motion, and the Holo shut off, instantly casting the room room in shadows. Angelica flopped over in her bed, but she didn't wake. Caleb slipped out of the room, closing the door behind him. He entered his own room across the hall and eased the door shut. He'd wanted to shower, but the idea of standing any longer, after having walked across town, was enough to make him. So he laid down in bed, the wafting scent of stale coffee beans settling over him. Despite the sluggishness of his thoughts, his mind started to whir like it always did when his head touched the pillow.

Of course, tonight it had something concrete to latch onto. Titus James had come to tell him he'd been chosen to be Tested. He had absolutely no idea what that entailed. Apparently, three years ago, Rhea James had created a lottery system, looking for a specific boy to take part in an intensive schooling program. He didn't know what that meant, and thus far no one had been chosen. He'd expected to at least know of one person to pass the tests, but Rhea James was incredibly picky. Some speculated she was looking for someone to pass the company to, since Titus was hopelessly uninterested. It all seemed to call back that old, old movie about the chocolate factory.

But Caleb wasn't so sure that was true. Titus wouldn't have been actively seeking someone to take his own place, would he? Again, another thing Caleb didn't know. He did know one thing for sure: He would never, in a million years, go through with Rhea James' test. He enjoyed sleeping too much.