The Caretaker | Levi x OC

Chapter 4

Jean wasn't making her decision any easier.

The fat cat had hopped onto the counter and made a game of stealing Karma's notebook. He was curled on top of it now, his face squished with smugness.

"Quit it." Karma peeled him off and dropped him on the floor. She turned back to her pros-and-cons list, but Jean's claws were catching on her sock. She groaned. "Fine, you can hang out, but you're helping me decide."

She dragged her pen down the columns as she read her pros-and-cons list aloud. Moriano School of Arts versus the Ackerman gig. She nudged Jean with her elbow. "What do you think?" She waited for the fat cat to respond, but he'd fallen asleep. "Figures."

Karma picked up the phone. The dial tone droned in her ear. Her eyes flickered between the two halves of her paper split by a squiggly blue line. Either way, she'd be stuck in New Marley. Her fantasies of that place had always been blurry-edged and magical, but now she knew the truth. The edges had hardened and sharpened like the spired tops of a haunted church, and the magic had disappeared like bubbles grazing the floor.

There was a third option not scribbled on the page. Somewhere in the shadowed corners of her mind, Karma had always known this was her only real option. Time to stop pretending. She tore the page, leaving a trail of confetti in the spiral, and crumpled up the pointless pros-and-cons list. The paper snowball bounced off the trash lid and onto the linoleum.

"Okay." Karma took a breath and dialed the number. Her eyes squeezed shut. She knew this was the right choice despite the adrenaline that bounced her knee and drummed her fingers.

A woman picked up. "Old Marley School of Arts—"

There was a knock at the door.

"Thank god." She wasn't ready to set her future in stone just yet. Karma slammed the phone back onto the receiver, shouting, "Coming!"

She dashed out of the kitchen and threw open the front door. Shadowed in the dimly lit apartment complex hall was the pencil-sharp frame of Yelena.

"Oh, hi. Um—" The wiring in Karma's brain flickered. The hell was Yelena doing here? Karma forgot how to swallow. Her arms felt stiff. Yelena seemed to be waiting for an invitation like a real vampire. "Come in?"

Yelena stepped inside, making the apartment all the more pathetic in comparison to her dignified air.

"Would you like some tea?" Karma watched Yelena examine the couch. She swiped invisible crumbs off the seat and scooted the pillow with a hand-stitched pineapple out of the way. Her straight posture made her taller than Karma even when sitting.

"No, thank you. I'll be brief," Yelena said, ankles crossed.

Karma grabbed Jean off the countertop and took a seat across from her. Jean curled in her lap, chin in paws, and returned to his nap.

"I'm sorry for being curt on the phone before," Karma said, grateful she'd thought to grab Jean. Stroking his back kept her hands from shaking.

"That's not the apology I'm after." Yelena's mouth was a flat line. Fangs were probably digging into her lips. "You lied."

Karma's chest tensed.

"Karma Tojo doesn't exist."

Shit. Her head drooped like a wilted sunflower.

"Karma Adornato, however, is a refugee from the east." Yelena paused. "I don't suppose you lied about your first name as well?"

"No, ma'am."

"Even you had to know I'd find out eventually. What I don't understand is why you would try to leave a refugee sanctuary to begin with. New Marley is no place for you, if the fountain didn't make that clear enough."