Updates every weekend, with occasional bonus posts on Wednesdays.
Willow Locke, a teenage immigrant living in turn-of-the century Manhattan, must find the strength within her to protect her family from an insidious corporate plot to destroy the un...
Reuven lay restlessly on his bed, sweating in the evening heat and tossing from one side to the other. Rachel held a rag soaked with cold water on the side of his face, soothing an angry green and purple bruise.
"I can't stay here tomorrow," he said, through a grimace of pain. "I have to be at work tomorrow."
"Jack was there, Reuven," said Rachel soothingly, "He saw what happened. The UA won't let you lose your job."
"They are testing my pneumatic transport system tomorrow," he said. "I have to be there."
Willow quietly opened the door and slipped into the room.
"Talia, you're home" said Rachel. "His swelling is going down, but he's still in pain. He can't rest in this heat."
"I've brought some medicine," Talia said, "to help him sleep."
She drew the leather wallet from her sleeve and unrolled it, taking out the syringe and tiny glass vial of morphine. She pulled the glass cap from the needle and drew a small dose into the syringe from the vial. She rolled the morphine back into the wallet and put it away.
"Here," said Rachel. She had pushed back Reuven's sleeve and found a vein in his arm. She held his wrist as Talia injected him.
Reuven was quiet, breathing heavily, staring rigidly up at the ceiling for long moments. He ground his teeth. Then as the drug took hold he relaxed, his breathing softened, and he closed his eyes. He turned over and nestled gently into his pillow. Soon he fell asleep.
Rachel drew her daughter aside in the darkness. They stood near the window and looked out over the abandoned street. Crumpled newspaper pages were carried by the wind down the corridor, flashing in the arc light.
"What's happening to us?" Rachel asked "What's happening to our family?"
"I don't know mom," said Willow "Not yet."
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Ayala threw back the covers and crept out of bed. She tip-toed around the sleeping forms of her family, careful not to wake them; she could hear their breathing. She went to the window sill and found Talia's block of oatmeal soap. She took it and walked silently out of the Lotsch apartment, easing the door closed.
She walked up the dark, narrow stairs to the roof. She linked the hose to the threaded tap of the condenser and ran it across the roof to the giant steel wash basin. Then she turned on the tap and let the basin fill. The water ran so slowly.
Ayala looked out over the rooftops as she waited. Cirrus clouds moved fast across the sky, drawing shredded veils over the sanguine face of the gibbous moon. The laundry line flags trembled and swayed, transmitting some unintelligible signal between one building and the next. She heard the rumble of a train in the distance, and the drunken shouts of some early morning carousers. She was already shivering in her thin nightgown. She trailed her hand in the water, it was only about 6 inches deep, and it was ice-cold. There was nothing for it.
