Assassination

Chapter 13

Brynleigh Pasternack

Brynleigh woke up the next morning to four strangers bustling around her. She didn’t know who they were, but she assumed they were her roommates. She would be slightly worried if random people were moving around her room for no apparent reason, so she stuck with roommates in her mind.

“Come on, chica nueva. Time to get up.” Someone leaned over her and clapped their hands in her face.

She didn’t recognize this person, but they had olive skin and dark hazel eyes. Their hair was short and shaved up the side of their head, wavy hair flowing down just to the base of their neck. Their hands clapped in front of her face as they said, “Eschuame, por favor. No lo haré dice esta dos vez.”

She looked at them in confusion, trying to figure out whether they were speaking a different language or if she was just too groggy at that moment to even understand English. She rubbed at her eyes as they kept talking, and she decided definitively that they were definitely speaking a different language.

“What?” She asked them with a confused expression.

They looked back at her unsettled look on their face and said, “Oh, do you not speak Spanish?” Brynleigh nodded. “Oh…sorry, I’m used to people around here knowing Spanish. You might want to try and learn some to communicate easier around here.” They said before turning away again and talking, this time in English. Though, Brynleigh wondered if that was really going to be a problem for her.

“Right, your current assignment as a servant is being a cleaner. That’s where most new people start out. The job does suck, but it is what you have for now until the new recruits come next year and you can request to move to a different department. Don’t even bother trying before then. Just deal with it for now. Where are your papers?” Brynleigh reached over to the folder that she had set on her bedside table and handed it this new person. “You’re gonna be using these a lot in this coming month until you got this whole place memorized, so I’m gonna pull out some of these that you got to keep on you no matter what. Got it?” Brynleigh nodded, wanting to get this over with.

“Right, this is the map of the castle. You’ll need that one a lot.” They handed her the paper that she got lost using the night before. “I know it looks busy and confusing, but just know where one hallway is, and you can build off of that. This is your assignment of where you’ll be working. You’ve got three hallways and one of the libraries, you should feel lucky you didn’t get stuck with a bathroom. It doesn’t seem like much, but remember, all of those places are at least twenty feet tall each, and you ‘ought to get on a ladder to clean all of that. You also ‘ought to be real particular in your detail if you wanna keep a job here. I don’t know how many will be with you, but I’d suspect maybe two or three others to help with that. I’d give you four if you manage to get really lucky.”

“Since I’m one of the older ones you got roomed with, I’m in charge of showing you around and all that. Both of us are getting half the day off to do that. I’m only gonna show you where you need to know to go. Don’t bother trying to learn anymore than that. This place is huge and an absolute maze to decode. You’ll walk yourself in circles, trying to find your own way around.” Brynleigh thought momentarily about her situation the night before, and perhaps they were right in this regard.

“You should know your way between these dormitories, the dining hall, your work area, and some of the bathrooms outside of this room. I can’t think of any reason you would need to know past that, and if you do, you can always come to me to show you. I’ve lived in this castle my whole life. Okay?” Brynleigh nodded at the question, wondering how much longer this would take.

“Right now, I ain’t gotta tell you anymore than I already have, but I am gonna, there are other things you should know. Plenty of people in this castle will sell out anyone for anything, so don’t break rules unless you are absolutely sure you can deal with the consequences of your actions. If someone seems scary, be scared of them. If they don’t seem scary, be scared of them. You don’t know what anyone is capable of or what they're willing to do to help out their agenda here. I’ve seen too many people like you get killed or worse because they weren’t careful and gave the wrong people the benefit of the doubt. Be scared of me, and I’ll make sure to be scared of you.”