(Dis)content (Judgement of the Six #5)
Melissa Haag
Prologue
I thrust the key into the lock and shoved open the door for the apartment building. My skin felt too tight from all the crap I’d dealt with at the office. I should have quit like Ethan had said. Who cared if I spent my life tending bar? It would be easier, especially with the setup Ethan had.
Stopping in the entry, I checked my mailbox.
“Hi, Isabelle.”
The sound of my downstairs neighbor’s voice just added to my bad mood. My skin grew tighter with the waves of annoyance that rolled off him and soaked into me.
As a rule, I didn’t socialize with anyone in my building. It didn’t seem right trying to be friends with any of them. After all, I robbed them of any negative emotion they might have, so they didn’t have a choice but to like me.
Quickly grabbing my mail, I turned to give the man a tight smile and fled before he could pull me into a friendly conversation.
As a child, I’d always wanted friends. When Ethan came along and seemed to understand me better than anyone else ever had, I gave up on having friends and settled for having a friend. Singular. Ethan was enough.
I trudged up the stairs to the second floor, opened my apartment, and stepped inside with a sigh. My eyes fell on the bag hanging from the special support the landlord had installed for me. I wanted nothing more than to start hitting it but knew once I started, I wouldn’t stop until I drained everything. First mail, then change, and then dinner. After that, I could have at it.
Kicking off my flats, I sorted through the mail while walking to the kitchen. I didn’t need to pay attention to where I was going. My apartment wasn’t that big. The living room and kitchen flowed together with a tiny island separating them. The living room had my bag dangling from the ceiling and that was it. My bedroom had a TV, bed, and dresser. I didn’t need much.
I stopped mid-sort and stared at an envelope with a handwritten address. No return address. No postage. Weird.
I threw the bills to the side and set the envelope on the counter. The bills I’d write out later. The envelope had me curious, though. I would open it while I waited for food. The freezer had a nice selection of dinners waiting for me. I grabbed one at random and threw it into the microwave. As I listened to the hum of my dinner cooking, I tore open the envelope and pulled out a handwritten letter.
No matter how I write this, you won’t believe it. All I ask is that you don’t throw this away. Just consider it.
There are people looking for you. People who look human but aren’t. They know what you can do. They must not find you. If they do, they will hurt us both, and so many more.
Don’t trust anyone. Run. Stay hidden. Our time’s almost up.
I turned it over and glanced at the blank back. There was no greeting and no closing. Just an unsigned note. My eyes fell on the one sentence that truly concerned me.
“They know what you can do,” I murmured.
The microwave beeped, drawing my attention from the letter to the tension tingling under my skin.
I used a magnet to stick the letter to the refrigerator and drifted to my room to change. Dressed in spandex shorts and a tight exercise tank top, I padded out to the living room and ignored the cooling dinner that waited for me. I slipped on my gloves to protect my knuckles and started exercising my demons.
The idea that someone might know about me didn’t scare me. I found it amusing. No one really knew but Ethan. Even my parents didn’t know, though they did have their own ideas about me; how could they not after raising me? But their suspicions weren’t close. They thought I exuded positive energy. I’d like to blame their hippie thoughts on their habits in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but they weren’t that old. The reality of what I did wasn’t that I released positive anything. It was the exact opposite.
I mostly siphoned negative emotions. But if I wanted, I could pull the positive ones, too. I felt what the people around me felt. Like sampling ice cream, their emotions had different flavors, letting me know their moods. Unfortunately, the siphoning wasn’t voluntary. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t completely turn it off. But, boy, could I turn it on. If I wanted, I could drain a room in two heartbeats. Taking away all that negativity made the people around me happy, but it did the opposite for me. The more I siphoned, the less I felt like myself. I grew agitated, angry even. The more I absorbed, the more my skin tingled, until it felt painfully tight. The only thing that helped relieve it was physical activity.
I hit the bag, timing the backswing, and set a grueling rhythm. Who would even think someone could do what I could do? And, if they did, why would they come after me? Idiots. I’d leave them on the floor with a gap-toothed smile.
Good luck to whoever thought they could take me.
One