Don't Feed Me, I Will Come Back

one

Nine Years Later

Zeppelin huffed as she shoved open the bar's creaky old front door, the smell of beer and salted peanuts wafting to her nostrils immediately. It was hardly a relief from the sweltering heat outside, the cheap circulated air barely puffed through the vents around the ancient pub.

  She nodded and smiled at a few of the regulars and murmured a hello to the other bartender as she tossed her leather bag under the counter and tied her hair up in a tight ponytail.

  Z had been working here since the first week she and Benji arrived to Atlanta. The bus dropped them in downtown center, and after letting her brother run around the shops and tourist sites for a full day, she checked him into a hotel and set off for the darker parts of the city.

  Not too dangerous, but not swanky enough that she wouldn't be able to afford the rent either. Once she stopped seeing a Starbucks on every corner and the Whole Foods markets turned into dollar stores, she figured it was a safe place to start.

  The For Rent sign hanging on the outside staircase leading above the bar caught her eye first. The street was well lit, though she still wouldn't trust walking down it without her pocket knife and container of pepper spray. There were no other doors to the section upstairs, so it was presumably a two bedroom based on the amount of windows she could count.

  So, she went in to the bar and asked to speak to someone who would know about a job and the place upstairs. The bartender, a young and pretty woman with shiny auburn hair, eyed her with a glare, hazel eyes shooting daggers up and down Z's body.

  Wordlessly, she turned and shouted down the hall to the kitchen, "Tony! Tell Debbie there's a girl here for a job."

  "And the apartment," Z added, plastering on a fake grin as sweet as sugar.

  The bartender rolled her eyes before shouting, "and the apartment!"

  Z waited a while, filling the time by people watching around the bar. It was relatively quiet, and the crowd was mostly middle aged. Debbie finally made her appearance, a short, bumbling woman with kind eyes and a bright smile. They sat in a booth in the corner and chatted for close to an hour, and Z found herself itching to get back to Benji.

  "How old are you again?" Debbie eyed the girl across from her.

  "Twenty," Z lied instantly.

  If there's one thing she knew about lying, it's to make sure you're confident when you do it.

  Debbie didn't look fully convinced, but enough to agree to let her wait tables and help clean up until she was old enough to train behind the bar.

  "Now, about the apartment upstairs," Z started, suddenly feeling a weight of anxiety pressing down on her shoulders.

  "Two bedrooms, but you can turn one into a workout space or-"

  "No," Z interrupted. "I'll have my younger brother with me so two bedrooms is perfect. How much?"

  Debbie paused, her gaze glinting with something different now. "Younger, huh? How young?"

  Z could feel beads of sweat forming on her hairline, trickling towards her temples. "Um.. he's twelve. Thirteen in a month," she added, as if that made much of a difference.