Luna on the Run (The Carmsborough Vigilantes #1)

Chapter 4

Today is just an ordinary day for me.

I wake up on the cold hay floor of the rundown windmill I've been using as this month's makeshift home. The sun still isn't in the sky yet, but the calmness that hangs in the air tells me it will be soon.

It's days like today that keep me going.

Sure, I've gotta work at Cheapskate Chad's today, and the walk is far from convenient, since the windmill sits right between the Industrial and Housing districts, but at least on the way I'll get to hear the birds chirping and feel the dew on my hands as I run them through the morning grass.

Spring, for me, is fresh. It's the cold bottle of water you pull out of your cooler while walking the hilly countryside. It's soaking in the sun after spending your eight-hour workday illuminated by harsh industrial bulbs. It's watching the innocence of a house finch bounce around on the cobbled streets, searching for worms in between the cracks.

Those are pretty good descriptions. Maybe poetry is in my future.

I'd need to stop working at Chad's first, though.

Unfortunately, this is not spring. This is fall. And this day in particular is the anniversary of the end of my life. Or I'm pretty sure it is, considering I don't have a calendar readily accessible. Fall is everything spring isn't. Hopeless, brutal, heartbreaking.

I thought I'd feel more on the anniversary. More sad or angry, that is. But I don't. Not yet, at least.

My trip to the scrapyard from the windmill is roughly forty-five minutes, which means the sun won't have even started painting its spherical canvas a rumbling orange by the time I clock in.

The birds, like every other respectable creature, are still asleep right now. I'll just have to listen to them while sorting my bins today. I'm sure today's song will be as beautiful as yesterday's. I'm counting on it.

I jolt awake. Someone in front of me touches their foot to my leg. I gag a bit, bend my leg a little further so I'm out of range, and my heavy eyelids close shut again.

"Good morning, Luna," Cheapskate Chad says, marking me as present on his timesheet.

"Yeah, we'll see about that."

"Oh, please. You love working here. Why else would you walk forty-five minutes across Carmsborough?"

"Probably because nobody else will hire an underage homeless black girl. You're the only one with standards low enough."

"Oh, please. I'm blushing. Go get to work, Luna."

I begin my day at basin thirteen, per usual. I don't understand how Carmsborough comes up with all this metal and scrap, but there hasn't been a single day where we've even gotten low on truckloads to sort. Half of the iron dumped into the basin rusts before it even makes it into one of the sorted bins.

In my first hour, I wheel off four bins full of plastic or metal. After wheeling off my fifth bin, however, I return to find my pile even bigger.

"What's the big idea?" I yell, looking at the truck driver who just dumped into my basin. Half of the material doesn't even belong in my tin. It's just a bunch of electronics that don't match the plastic or metal that I normally sort through.

"What's happening here?" Cheapskate Chad asks, making his way to my basin.

"This numbskull just dumped electronics into my basin! I'll be working for days to get this stuff out!"

"Hey, Jeremy!" Chad yells to the driver. "What the hell are you doing? You're gunking the system!"

"Sorry, boss," Jeremy shouts from his vehicle. "I got confused about which one to put it in."