Chapter 5: Northside Diner

I looked at his hand on my door.

The same hand that used to braid my hair when my arms were tired from carrying trays.

"You're threatening me with my own son," I said.

"I'm telling you the law."

"In my whole life with you, you never once told me the law. You told me you'd be home by six."

I pushed the door.

He let it go.

"Think about it," he said. "I'll give you until the full moon."

I closed the door and put the chain back on.

Through the curtain I watched him walk to the edge of the lot in the manager's blanket.

He dropped the blanket on the curb.

Then there was a black wolf, and then there was nothing.

I sat on the floor with my back against the bed until the window went gray.

In my last life, he had never come at all.

Not once in three years.

Now he'd run a hundred and forty miles in one night, and the only thing he'd brought me was a bigger cage.

At seven I went to the office to pay for the week.

The manager wouldn't take my money for that night.

"Lady," he said, "I don't want to know. But I'm not charging you for it."

The Northside Diner was four blocks from the motel.

It had a counter with twelve stools and a sign in the window that said HELP WANTED, NIGHTS.

The owner was a heavy woman in a hairnet who looked at my hands before she looked at my face.

"Where'd you work?"

"Cold Creek Diner. Nine years."

"Doing what?"

"Everything. Grill when the cook was drunk. Register. Tables."

She handed me an apron.

"Show me."

I worked the lunch rush on trial.

Nobody had to tell me anything.

By two o'clock the owner said I could have nights, six to two, and keep my tips.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Silver Moon, I Wait No More from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.