Undercity: Manifest

Chapter Five

'Sadie, look at the sate of your face. You're not seriously considering going to work'. Emilie's tone was not one Sadie would usually mess with, but she was done being pushed around, even when it came with the best intentions. Sadie's face was a mess, but she was able to conceal the worst of the bruising with carefully applied make-up. 

She rolled her eyes at her sister and regretted it immediately as her cheek throbbed and ached. The joys of being punched in the face. 

'Em, it's been three days, and I lost all the money I made from the night it happened. I need to go to work'. 

Emilie had been hovering since Sadie told her about the attack the morning after it happened. She did not hide her fury at not being woken up and informed the night it happened and vowed to hunt down the 'spinless fuck,' as she called him. 

'Fine, but Chris is picking you up- no argument'. 

'Okay, I'll message him as soon as Tony announces closing.' Sadie kissed Emilie on the cheek as she readied herself to leave. 

The flat was filled with packing boxes, a sombre reminder that her time living with Emilie was ending. Sadie took a moment to scan her home wondering how different it would feel to live alone. She had never lived alone before. They grew up in a group home following the death of their mother. Nobody claimed them and they had no idea for most of their lives who their mother was beyond the necklaces she left for them. 

They only knew she had died years later when they tried to track down their family and were able to connect the timeline to a Jane Doe who was found in an unregistered house within the East District. The report they received showed the woman was post-partum from a twin birth and the babies were never found. The cause of death was classified as 'undetermined'. She just died. They had come to accept that this would be all they would ever know because the investigation was closed by the time they managed to find any information.

They had no idea who left them outside the hospital other than security cameras showing blurry footage of a red-headed woman walking away from their pushchair and leaving without looking back. Jane Doe was blonde, so the only thing they could be certain of was that it wasn't their mother. As for their father, they never even came close to finding any information about him.  

Emilie's voice broke her out of her reverie, 'Are you sure you're okay to go?' Sadie didn't know how to respond to that. She hadn't left the flat since the attack. She just nodded, grabbed her bag, and hugged her sister before she left sighing as the door clicked closed behind her. 

Truth be told, Sadie didn't want to walk home alone. She would never admit it, but she was shaken from what happened. It was light enough that she felt relatively safe walking to work. When the journey passed without incident, she felt a small sense of achievement the moment she pushed open the back door to Angelo's. 

The boxes were still there and seemed to have multiplied. After dropping her bag off in her locker, she started moving them to the recycling container in the alley. She was lifting the last box into the bin when a tingling sensation crept up the back of her neck. She had the feeling that she was being watched. You're being paranoid. She tried to convince herself she was imagining it and shook off the feeling as she let the lid drop. She hadn't felt the same since it happened, and she wasn't even close to being ready to unpick the way she seemed to erupt and send the man flying back into the wall. It would be parked in the back of her mind along with the rest of the unanswered questions she had about her life. 

She made her way inside and positioned herself behind the bar plastering on a smile which felt more forced than usual. Tony was there and looked her over not commenting on her face beyond asking if she was sure she was ready to be back. It didn't matter whether she was ready or not, she needed to be able to stand on her own two feet. Emilie was moving out in less than a week and after losing four days pay, she needed to be at work. Tony didn't push her when she insisted that she was fine and explained she was being picked up at the end of her shift. He was good like that, did enough to show he cared but didn't force her to look deeper and share what she wasn't ready to. 

It was quieter than it had been on the night of The Event. The regular customers had fallen into their usual routines and Sadie knew most of their drink orders without having to ask. She was falling into the rhythm of her job and felt herself relaxing with each passing hour. Tony let her know that they would be closing in an hour, so she fired off a text to Chris from her new phone to let him know when she needed picking up. For how limited her circle was, she was glad to have people in her corner. 

Sadie was passing her last order of the night over the bar to a couple of well-dressed Elites when the door opened. Zach's eyes connected with hers as soon as he walked in and didn't drop until he took the same seat at the bar he had occupied previously. He looked furious. It should have unnerved her, but for all the mystery that surrounded him and their strange interaction, she wasn't afraid of him. It had crossed her mind that he could have been the man who attacked her. She knew it wasn't him. The man who robbed her didn't hold himself with the same assured confidence that Zach did, and she heard both of their voices.

'We're about to close.' Sadie explained when she reached him after handing the couple their change. 

'I know'. Was all he supplied. 

'Beer?' She probably shouldn't serve him, but she was curious and wanted to know more about him. So, she offered him a drink to keep him there a little while longer. He nodded in response. She noted that his tattooed hand was placed on the bar. He wasn't hiding it from her like he had done the last time when she had complimented it. She moved away and poured his drink before setting about wiping down her area and breaking down the bar for closing. 

He hadn't said anything else to her, but she could feel him watching her. Sadie continued with her tasks feeling the rising tension building. There was only the couple and Zach left finishing their drinks by this point. She was counting her tips and checking her phone for a message from Chris when Zach's voice broke through the quiet. 

'What happened to your face?' His voice was neutral, the tightening of his jaw being the only thing to betray his attempt at hiding his anger. 

Sadie took a silent breath before she replied, 'Somebody decided to relieve me of my phone and money'. She continued to put her cash into her apron pocket and nodded her thanks to the couple as they left. When Zach didn't speak, she continued, 'It's fine, the police are looking into it, and I've got a friend coming to pick me up, so I don't need to walk home tonight'. She was rambling- he didn't even ask but for some reason she couldn't bare the silence between them. 'Anyway, if you're done with your drink I need to lock up'. 

Zach finished the last of his drink on one swallow placing the glass on the bar with a dull thud. 

'I hope they make the fucker pay when they catch him'. 

'Me too'. Her voice was low, honestly, she didn't even know if she meant it. There was probably a reason he did what he did. Maybe he had a family to feed or had lost his job and needed to pay rent. Those in the lower North often fell on hard times, something she sensed Zach would never understand. He was clearly an Elite from the way he dressed and carried himself. 

'Do you always hold your necklace when you're nervous?' His question caught her off-guard. She hadn't even realised she was holding it. 

'It means a lot to me. The man who attacked me, he tried to take it. I honestly would have been devastated if he hadn't dropped it when he ran away'.

'What made him run away?' 

'I don't know- maybe the neighbours turning their lights on.'

'Hmm'. He didn't seem convinced by her answer causing the uneasiness to grow within her. 'Why does it mean so much to you?' 

'It belonged to my mother.' She could have lied. She had no idea why she was telling him all this. 

'Are you close to her?' 

'She's dead. I never even met her'. 

Zach shifted in his seat. This conversation often made people uncomfortable. Nobody knows how to respond to people when they reveal something like that. That's why she rarely spoke about it. It was hard to explain feeling grief over someone she had never known, and other people's discomfort only made it harder. 

Sadie's phone buzzed. 'My lift is here'. She stated hoping Zach would leave without asking any more questions. As if he sensed what she needed, he stood and offered her a reserved smile. 

'Goodbye Sadie'. 

'Bye Zachariah.' She watched him leave before locking the main door behind him and making her way out of the staff entrance to meet Chris.