A collection of shorts featuring the characters and the world from my novel, "The Last Coffee Shop"(read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/303281417-the-last-coffee-shop )
~ I might answer all the questions you had (and never had) about THAT en...
Description: A longer-form short story featuring Mads and Luc, and introducing Lottie (aka the baby). Set almost immediately after The Last Coffee Shop's epilogue. It's several stories within stories (like a nesting doll), and most likely indulgent, but it also sets up some other stuff that I keep wanting to write about.
TW/CW: Death. Blood and injuries. Capital Punishment. Mentions of brothels/prostitution. Minor cursing/language (all PG13)
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Night #1
She didn't know why she didn't com the Peace Keepers immediately. Maybe it was the shock. Maybe it was the way he'd just sort of melted onto her carpet, blood pooling underneath him. Maybe it was the guilt. But for whatever reason, she didn't com anyone. She didn't call Krill, and she didn't wake Grandmere. She did the one thing she always tried not to do: she acted on impulse.
It took her five minutes to get him upstairs and into her bathroom. His face was a mass of cloth, only one languid green eye blinking slowly at her as she demanded he help her out here. When he didn't respond, she left him lying on the bathroom floor while she went back for Lottie. Once the baby was tucked into her bed and silent, Mads returned to the bathroom, armed with first aid supplies.
Luc . . . Jive . . . was still lying where she'd left him, propped against the giant tub she'd had put in . . . with the money . . . Mads closed her mind against that train of thought and nudged him with her foot.
"Baby," he said, in a slurry way.
Mads was confused, but she felt her cheeks heat up anyway, for some reason. Idiot. "Why are you here? You were supposed to be . . . being executed."
"On live broadcast." His voice was so soft she barely understood him. Then he cleared his throat and continued in a stronger voice, "Barbaric, don't you think? Speaking of barbaric, are you really just letting me bleed out on your floor? And where'd you get a baby? Uh . . . congratulations?"
Mads glowered at him as she bent to plug the tub and start it filling. "I am not helping you clean yourself up. But are you going to die or not?"
"Sounds familiar," he wheezed. "And it would be funny if you had to explain it, if I died here."
Mads paused, then swore under her breath as the water got too hot, "That would not be funny. You're a lunatic, and a criminal. Once you get cleaned up, get on your way, or I'll com the Keepers."
"You owe me," he whispered.
Mads flinched. "I'll get you some clothes."
She went and got some of Alan's things, refusing to think too closely about what she was doing. She moved like one of the robotics, not thinking, not feeling. She didn't see what she grabbed, and she forgot to knock when she returned. Somehow, thinking about Alan right now felt like a betrayal. It still hurt, almost two years later. It would always hurt.
