The Devouring Gray(7)

“Oh, good.” Isaac Sullivan was reading behind the cash register. “You can take over during the dinner rush.”

The best word Justin had for how Isaac presented himself was deliberate. His half-shaved head and dark, tumbling curls. The flannel shirt buttoned tightly around his throat. The twin medallions tied around his wrists that gleamed red against his pale skin—the one he’d earned, and the one he’d taken from his brother.

“Everyone will watch us founder kids no matter what,” he’d say. “Might as well give them something interesting to stare at.”

It was part of why they were best friends. Isaac understood how it felt to constantly be seen.

Justin tied his apron around his neck. “I’m not working the counter. I’m on dish duty.”

“I’ll take dish duty,” said Isaac, snatching up his book and backing away from the counter. “You handle the customers.”

Although they’d been working at the Diner for months now, Justin couldn’t resist a snicker as the message on Isaac’s apron came into view.

Welcome to the Diner! read the curlicue script. I’m your friendly server. There’s nothing I won’t do to make a customer satisfied!

“Really?” said Isaac. “You’re wearing an apron, too.”

“Yeah, but it pisses you off more.”

Isaac’s jaw twitched. Justin had learned years ago what the hard-edged expression on his face meant: trouble.

“Not anymore,” he said, touching his fingertips to the front of the apron. The air in front of the embroidery blurred and shimmered as the stitches singed themselves beyond repair, leaving behind a blackened, ashy hole.

Justin cursed himself silently. Baiting Isaac was a foolish move—especially at work.

Isaac had gotten the job at the Diner after an incident at the grocery store led to an impressive amount of property damage. Everyone in town knew it was only his founder kid status and the Hawthornes’ influence that kept him there. Even the book in Isaac’s hand would’ve made a better waiter than he did.

“Oh, you’re here. We need you out back before the dinner rush starts.” Pete Burnham strode out from the kitchen doors. His family owned the restaurant, but he was the only one who actually kept it running. Then Pete caught sight of Isaac’s apron. “Not again,” he said, sliding a hand across his bald head. “You know Ma Burnham embroiders those aprons by hand?”

Isaac looked decidedly unimpressed by this revelation. “So buy her a sewing machine. Or tell her to get a better hobby.”

“Don’t disrespect Ma.”

“You’ve got a weird thing about your ma. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“I don’t have to take this from you, Sullivan.”

The air around Isaac started to churn and shimmer, like a heat wave rising over asphalt. Across the Diner, Pete stepped back, toward the kitchen doors.

Justin readied himself to intervene. Isaac usually listened to reason, or at least he did when the reasoning came from him. But before he could speak, the door to the restaurant creaked open, revealing a white girl Justin had never seen before.

She was all sharp angles and knobby limbs, dark eyes and shoulder-length hair that shone jet-black. The rips in her high-waisted jeans showed off half her thighs.

There was something almost feral about the way she was assessing the Diner. It made him uneasy. She barely spared a glance toward Isaac’s apron or Pete’s obvious distress as she marched up to the counter.

“I assume one of you works here?” she said in their general direction.

Pete sprang into action, jumping behind the counter and shooting her his best customer-service grin. “Pete Burnham,” he said. “Manager of this fine establishment.”

“Lovely,” said the girl. She was one of the Saunderses. She had to be. New people didn’t just show up in Four Paths without a reason. “Then you can tell me if the Diner does takeout.”

Pete nodded wildly, like a bobblehead. “Of course,” he said. “You made an excellent choice. We’ve got the best food in town.”

“You don’t have much competition,” the girl noted dryly.

“Yes, well,” said Pete. “Quality over quantity.”

She ordered off the menu behind the counter, which Justin had never actually seen anyone look at before. Pete bolted into the kitchen—probably happy to get away from Isaac—promising to stand over the chef until the food was done.

The girl stayed by the cash register, tapping her fingernails absently against the glass. Her collarbones protruded sharply beneath the straps of her tank top. A tangle of crystals hung around her neck, glimmering dully in the fluorescent lighting.

If this girl was a Saunders, she could be the person on the card.

Talking to her could be the first step in preventing the next death.

Justin remembered his mother’s orders to keep his distance. But no crimson founders’ medallion was tangled in her necklaces or tied at her wrist. If Augusta got on his case about talking to her, he could just say it had been an honest mistake—he hadn’t known who she was.

He glanced over at Isaac, who had slid into the nearest booth and opened his book. Isaac scanned the pages with an intensity that, while fake, indicated his complete lack of interest in the current situation. Which was strange, considering Four Paths hadn’t had a single newcomer since they were in second grade.