Sebastian (Bowen Boys, #5)(7)
The phone ringing outside her room had her listening to see if anyone would answer it. Lately it had been for someone named Carol. Ama was pretty sure that Carol had left about two weeks ago owing a great deal of money to the people who ran this place. When it rang five times, it finally stopped. She never answered it, as no one but the Bowen’s driver knew where she was.
Getting up to get the paper, she wrapped a sheet around her nudity. She didn’t mind being naked, especially when the air was cool like it was now. She felt her sigil hum along her skin but for the most part ignored it. She had to find a job.
Her last job had been great. She’d worked as a telemarketer for a large cell phone firm. No one had to see her and she could wear pretty much anything she’d wanted, but when the building burned down about four months ago, they’d decided to go to another location to set up business and it was too far for her to walk. She didn’t know how to drive, and couldn’t afford a car anyway. But she’d gotten unemployment and a nice fat bonus check, and that money was still hidden in one of her shoes. She wasn’t going to touch that unless it was an emergency, because she was going to buy a house and grow plants in the backyard.
She still had plenty of unemployment left, about a year if she needed it, but she didn’t like not working. She was starting to feel listless and out of sorts and knew it was because she wasn’t working. Then there was the lack of sleep.
Ama could sleep for only four hours a day, if that. And she needed to eat, a lot. Her species, she supposed, had a great deal to do with that in that she burned a great deal more energy than humans.
She thought of the Bowens and them knowing what she was. Last of her kind? She thought she was but had no way of really knowing. She thought her mom was dead but wasn’t sure. And since she had no clue who her dad was, she just assumed he was dead, too. She wasn’t really sure what she’d been until about five years ago when someone had touched her, like the Bowens had, and called her an earth faerie.
The man had been very nice. He’d told her that he’d seen others like her, but none of them had been a purebred as she was. He explained to her in great detail what was going to happen to her when she turned twenty-five and why, and he’d been dead on the money. After spending about a week with her, he’d simply disappeared, warning her that she must tell all those that figured out what she was that if they told anyone else they would die. He told her that most beings, if they’d ever heard of her, would know that anyway. She wondered what had ever happened to him.
Her thoughts turned to the man, Sebastian, again. She’d tried her best not to think of the things he’d said to her, but it was hard. She really didn’t blame him for wanting to protect his parents; she might have done the same thing. But he’d caught her off guard being so mean to her after she’d had such a wonderful time with his parents. She supposed that by now George and Corrine had forgiven him and he was no longer going to get his hide stripped off him like they’d threatened. She smiled as she got back into the bed, realizing that she’d not seen anything in the paper because she wasn’t really reading it.
The phone started ringing again. She knew that at midnight someone from the offices would come around and take it off the hook so that it didn’t bother anyone. She also knew that it was so that the woman at the desk could read her books without interruptions. Ama thought the woman read to escape whatever drama was going on at home, because sometimes she’d hear her arguing with someone on the phone. She didn’t know if she had children, but the person on the phone seemed to take great pleasure in making her cry nightly.
Finding a job was proving to be the biggest hurdle she’d had in a while. Before she’d worked for the telemarketer she’d been a waitress, but since her face had decided to betray her, she’d had to find work that put her behind the scenes rather than in front of the customers. Even working in a pizza shop had been hard with having to go to the counter sometimes. People would stare at her and she’d be pissed. The manager finally told her one night, after there was a line of teenagers in to ask her about themselves, that she was more of a hindrance than a help to him. She left with her last check and an extra-large all the way that she’d given to some homeless man under the bridge.
She decided she was going to find a job tomorrow even if she had to put a bag over her head to do it.
The phone ringing woke her up. She looked at the clock above her bed and rolled out of it. Whoever it was wanted the girl named Carol really bad. It was barely six in the morning and it was already starting. Gathering her things, she went to the shower just outside her room. Might as well get a start.
She was back only about ten minutes when a girl, someone she’d never seen before, knocked on her open door. Ama looked at her, trying to remember if she actually knew her or not. The girl cleared that up in a hurry.
“Are you, Ama? If you are, this guy’s been calling here. Says his name is Sebastian something. He wants you to call him back as soon as it’s convenient for you.” Ama started to tell her she didn’t know anyone by that name, but the girl spoke first. “He sounds kinda yummy. And nice, too. I’ll call him if you want me to.”
She remembered then...Sebastian Bowen. “If he calls again, tell him that I’m not upset and I don’t want to talk to him. Tell him to stop bothering you.”
“Sure, but he’s not bothering me. So you don’t want him? I can have him?”