YesterWorld (Book 2 of the Down World Series)

Original Edition: Chapter Forty

I ditched the bike around the bend from the guard's station, hoping against hope that another group of women might be making their way back from lunch, providing me with a cover in which to disappear. But I had no such luck this time. It was too early in the day.

Alexei's car was also nowhere to be seen from where I was standing near the entrance. In fact, there was nothing about the sunny, bright day to give any indication of the stakes that were riding on whether or not I could get on the grounds.

I cleared my throat, quickly checking my skin and dress for any signs of blood, which I rubbed off as discreetly as possible. Then I approached the guard.

"You're not gonna believe this," I began, and I was immediately relieved to see that the guard was a young man, handsome if a bit skinny, with the beginnings of what I'm sure he hoped would soon be a moustache tickling his upper lip.

"What's that, honey?"

"I left my ID at my station yesterday and I'm just going to be in a heap of trouble if I don't get to work on time."

The young man shook his head, a discouraging sign, but I couldn't help but notice that a slight smile never left his face. I was admittedly very inexperienced at flirting, but if there was ever a time to figure it out, it was now.

"Oh, please," I begged, leaning forward onto the little shelf of the half-door between us in a way that I hoped was sexy and not just klutzy, my eyes landing on his nametag. "Please, Edwin, I wouldn't even ask but my supervisor's been riding me lately, and this would just be the last straw."

Young Edwin turned the shade of a pomegranate when I said his name, so I decided to double down. "I don't know if I've even met you yet, have I? How long have you been here?"

"Two weeks," he answered, still shaking his head, unable to make eye contact with me.

"And I didn't even notice," I smiled.

He chuckled then, his face ripening to an even darker shade of red, and he started looking through what seemed to be a directory before him. "What's your name?"

My mind went completely blank for a moment, when suddenly, by the grace of whoever it is that supposed to be looking out for us up there, the name popped into my head clear as day: "Golda. Golda Wexler."

He found the name on his list somewhere, looked up at me, and blushed again. Then he nodded for me to go in, and I was so excited I actually leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek before I did so.

Once on the grounds, I didn't have a clear plan of what to do next, as there would be another guard stationed at any of the building entrances, and I couldn't expect to flirt my way past all of them. It wasn't until my eyes landed on a small building off to the side of the main road with two Mexican women coming out of it with cleaning carts that I knew what I had to do.

I approached the building tentatively, steadying my breath and praying silently that this would work. Knocking gently on the open door, I stepped inside the small structure—almost a shack, really—and squinted to adjust to the darkened room.

"¿Sí?, asked a short, squarely-built woman before me, and it took me a moment of focusing on her stern face and wrinkled forehead to realize she was the same woman I had met yesterday. "¿Qué quieres esta vez?"

What do you want this time? It was a good question, and one that I didn't quite know how to answer. But I knew this woman was my only hope.