Nineteen

Chapter 8

A few days later:

It was Day 7 of working from home, and Levi was restless.

The boy was coping well. The bandages around his ankles, wrists and thigh had come off. The head would take another week said the doctor who was scheduled to visit every four days.

Levi was surprised to see the boy hide a small smile every time he came to check up on him. These past few days, the latter would blush every time Levi encouraged him during his physiotherapy sessions. Levi loved his small one-way conversations with the green-eyed lad.

Hanji Zoe had contacted him saying that the Leonhart siblings were arrested in Prague by Interpol for embezzling from government funds. Levi smirked at that knowing Erwin Smith had spun his magical wand. She was still divided about opening her institute claiming to wait until the 'storm had settled.' She asked about Emerald and was glad to hear that the boy was recuperating well. She was to drop by for a "surprise visit" just to double check. Great!

Levi was unexpectedly called to work more than four times this week when someone from the high office beckoned him to sign the papers relevant to the transfer of rights. In all this drama, he did not have the time to fire Petra. But now that all this was out of the way and he was home, it was time to say sayonara to her. She was a clumsy caretaker and a terrible cook. Levi was twitchy with OCD when she left his beloved kitchen a mess after cooking soups and porridges that tasted like fermented piss and sweet slime respectively. She really was lazy and Levi wondered how she had served the Corps for so long. He did some background checks and was pleased with the results.

"Petra," he poked her shoulders. The dumbshit was passed out on the couch again. The TV remote was on her stomach and she was snoring away to glory.

"Get up!" Petra woke up with an alarm.

"What do you want?" she asked groggily sitting up letting the remote fall off her to the floor with a loud clank.

Levi sighed. This ho gots to go.

"What do I want? I want you out of my house. You have one hour to pack and leave."

Levi's words fell on her ears like ice cold water. Her eyes widened and she got up in a flash.

"You can't fire me, my sister said—"

"Doesn't matter anymore what she said. I should not have let trash like you inside in the first place. Why, it's never too late to make amends so chop-chop." Levi clapped his hands and started going up the stairs when a hand came around his wrists. He turned around and glared at Petra who was looking as though she would cry any second.

"So you know I am not on holiday. I was fired from the Corps."

"Your sister may be gullible enough to believe your lies. Sadly, I am not."

"What? How?"

Levi rolled his bored eyes and lazily looked at her.

"You worked for Hooters from 2009-2012. Then you got fat and they fired you or maybe it was your incompetence. You landed up on your ass but then an ex customer who liked your 'hooters' recommended you to his friend who got you a job at the Corps. The poor fellow was under your spell not knowing that you lied about being a part time medical student. Training for six months and barely scraping through studies you failed the tests, so you stole a deserving candidate's paper and swapped names. Bravo on you forgery work, because it took them six months to catch your lie. You managed to pull another Houdini on them and stayed in hiding for all of five-ish years but guess what they are still looking high and low for you. Did I miss anything?"

Petra was shaking with rage at having her murky past thrown so blatantly at her face. She had to keep this job or she would have to spend her life behind bars. She looked up to see Levi enter Emerald's room.

Desperate times, desperate measures    

~End of Chapter 8~

***