Witch {Book One} [UNEDITED]

XL: The Voice

My boss was genuinely surprised that I showed up to work, but she didn't protest because she heard about the car accident I had gotten in. I anxiously rubbed my wrists and put on my name tag without saying another word. I went behind the counter and pulled out my phone while I waited impatiently for someone to call or come in or leave or whatever. 

I got a text from Sammy a minute later. 

Where are you? She asked. 

Away. I replied. I closed out my messages and started googling the Gavel family tree. After a good half an hour of research, I found that the Gavel family did indeed cross over to the Lee family. I already knew that; I was only confirming the fact that I was related to Ada. 

I was looking at black and white pictures of the aftermath of Ada's massacre when the phone rang, startling me. I set my phone down, not turning it off, and answered Propaganda's hotline. 

"'Ello. You've reached Propaganda; Ba--Adelaide speaking. How may I help ya?" I tried to sound interested in what I was saying, but I was so damn bored and annoyed with everything that my voice was both monotone and thickly accented. 

"'Th's is th' whore house, yeah?" Another thickly accented voice said back. It wasn't the same Louisiana accent I had, but it was an accent. t somehow felt like I recognized the voice, but couldn't place it. 

"Yup. How c'n I help ya?" I asked, still bored. I rested my elbows on the counter and tucked the phone between my cheek and shoulder. I was sure that the guy on the other end was going to ask for some private and special treatment or an hour with our prettiest girls, but that's not what he said. 

"And you're Adelaide Lee?" I sat upright, suddenly not bored and more intrigued. This guy knew me somehow and I vaguely recognized his voice. 

"The one and only," I said, suddenly trying to sound professional. 

"Your shipment is in. Now, who's your prettiest lady?" 

I covered my mouth and tried not to scream. My shipment? What the hell did that even mean?! Drugs? I didn't do drugs. And I hadn't ordered anything that I could remember ordering. Maybe it was something related to my birthday--which was in less than a week--but I highly doubted it. I took a full minute and a half to think about what my shipment was, forgetting about the guy on the other end completely. 

Finally, I remembered him and his question. 

"Our most popular is Missy. But all our ladies are pretty," I mumbled before repeating it louder so he could hear. Before I could say anything else, he hung up. I set the phone down and picked up mine, resuming my pointless browsing of old 1920s pictures. 

Twenty minutes later, a man in a dark suit and a hat pulled low over his eyes walked in. I quickly shoved my phone into my pocket and tried to look like I was busy with something other than looking at grainy pictures of a massacre. 

"How may I help ya?" I asked, shuffling though a stack of papers. The man took off his hat and tucked it under his arm. I searched his face, trying to find a detail I recognized. He was obviously the man on the phone and I couldn't stop feeling this twinge deep inside of me. A voice in my head screamed YOU KNOW HIM! but I did my best to ignore it. I couldn't even tell if the voice was my conscience or one of the voices that I was graced with. 

"Missy in?" It was definitely the man on the phone. And hell, I recognized his voice even more in public than I did over the phone. I knew that Missy was in, but I shuffled through some papers so it would look like I was actually good at my job. At the same time, I kept glancing up to look at the man. He had a sharp jaw and dark hair. His eyes were so light that they looked transparent against his skin and the dark hair didn't help with that. He was also tall. Very tall. But everyone was taller than me so it didn't count that much. 

"She is," I said, finally done stalling. "Go on back. Her room is the first on the left." I waved the man off and waited until he was gone to pull out my phone again. I resumed looking at the massacre pictures. I looked at them for a good fifteen minutes before I realized where I've seen the man. 

He was one of the voices in my head. 

Which could only mean one thing. 

I opened my conversation with Sammy and sent her the message how crazy am I? 

She took a while to reply: not crazier than any of us. 

I frowned and made sure that no one was watching before texting back. I'm a schizophrenic. 

So? She said. I sighed and muttered a curse under my breath. 

One of the voices in my head just walked into the building I'm in. It took all my willpower to send her the message and I turned my phone off so I didn't have to see her reply. Honestly, I had no idea how it was even possible for one of my voices to just spring to life. Sure, Annie--my childhood imaginary friend--turned out to be real and her older brother was also real, but this was completely different. Voices don't just come to life. Personification doesn't work like that. Hell, nothing works like that. You can't just make something out of nothing. 

Unless . . . 

Unless he was a ghost. 

Which I highly doubted because what kind of ghost wants to go to a whore house and waste his life savings on some 90% plastic Barbie doll? None that I knew. Even if I were a ghost, I wouldn't want to do that. But the only time that real people could get into my head was if they were ghosts. So he had to be a ghost. 

I turned my phone on again and checked all my messages. Nothing from Sammy or any of my other friends. Nothing on the Honorary Insomnia Group Chat. Nothing from . . . 

Ada had texted me. I opened her conversation and read her message. 

Your final trial (don't get it done by your birthday, my Hell Hounds will get you): You have to walk one hundred miles in barbed wire.