Stolen Fire
Chapter 1
INGRID
“Grassy ass!”
The words were accompanied with a peal of snarling laughter as Heather came up beside Ingrid, a smile on her pretty face. “Just the person I wanted to see.”
It was said with the clear undertone that Heather meant the exact opposite — she never wanted to see Ingrid, except if she wanted something from her. Which she surely did now.
Tell her off.
Ingrid, much to the disgust of the tiny voice in her head she spent so much time ignoring, turned to Heather and smiled. “What can I do for you?”
It was halfway through their shift at the bar. There were very few options for what Ingrid could do for Heather.
Heather’s smile changed, and Ingrid guessed she was about to go with option number 2.
“Cover my shift for me? I just…you know. Lady time.” Heather pouted and gestured to her lower abdomen, as if they were sharing a sisterly secret.
Do I get a prize for guessing correctly? Ingrid felt her smile grow tight. “Sure, Heather. What are friends for?”
Heather didn’t stop smiling, but her eyes went cold and her mouth twisted as if she smelled something nasty. “Right. Friends. Thanks, Grass. You’re the best.”
“It’s pronounced grace, actually,” Ingrid muttered, but Heather was already out the back door, off to party with her friends.
Ingrid sighed and tried to ignore the cramps that were fighting past the pain-killers. It was time to cover twice as many tables for the same amount of pay.
Again.
It wasn’t uncommon for creepers to creep on girls at the bar, but this guy…something about him bothered Ingrid more than usual. Was this why Heather had asked for Ingrid to cover her shift? She felt a twinge of sympathy for the other woman. Dealing with creepers wasn’t something Ingrid would wish on anyone, not even her worst enemy.
Not that Heather was her worst enemy. She was just kind of mean, and took advantage of Ingrid. Ingrid wished she could speak up and say something, ask Heather to be nicer to her — didn’t they have to stick together, as employees, or as women?
But the words dried up in her throat every time she tried.
The creeper stayed till last call. His eyes — an unusual shade of blue, in a face that seemed off-colour, as if he were wearing a badly-matched shade of make-up, with a metallic sheen that could not signal good health — burned into her as he left, walking backwards so he could keep his eyes on her.
She barely suppressed a shudder as she locked the doors and went to clean the tables. No tip from Mr. Creeper. Big surprise.
Ingrid was good at her work, and she did it quickly, even when she had to cover for the other girls. Heather wasn’t the only one who would skip out and leave her to do it all.
She had tables clean, chairs up, and the entire front room mopped within an hour — done a half hour before the end of her shift. The tips were shit, as they usually were on a Monday night. Weekends brought in the more generous customers.
“Grasey.”
Ingrid jumped at the voice mispronouncing her first name. She turned to see her manager, Mr. Singh, looking at her with the same disapproving look he usually had.
She smiled. “You startled me. How can I help? I’m just about done closing.”
He waved a hand at the bar. “Leave it. Come into my office.”
Ingrid’s heart skipped a beat. Why would he need her in his office? She didn’t particularly like being alone in there with him, and especially not late at night when it was only the two of them.
Not…not that Mr. Singh had ever tried anything with Ingrid. But she’d heard…things…from the other girls, even if they did hate her. Enough things to make her nervous.
She swallowed nervously, wiped her hands on her apron, and followed Mr. Singh through the hallway to his dark office.
He was already sitting behind his desk, looking at her impatiently.
“Grasey. Have a seat.”
She cleared her throat and sat. “Grace, Sir.”
“What?”
“My name. It’s spelled with an s instead of a c, but it’s pronounced Grace.”
He waved his hand in the air again. “Whatever. How long have you worked here?”
“Four and a half years, Sir.”
“Four and a half years. Wow.” His tone of voice didn’t match his words. “Who hired you, again?”
“Ms. Lee, Sir.” Ingrid missed Ms. Lee. She had treated the girls far better than Mr. Singh, who had taken over when his father had bought the place two years ago, and fired Ms. Lee. There had been a lot of turnover in staff, then. That’s when Heather and all of Ingrid’s current coworkers had been hired on.
“Well. I don’t know how Ms. Lee trained you girls, but she obviously missed a tick. Didn’t she ever tell you not to take from the till?”
Ingrid sat dumbstruck for a moment, sure she hadn’t heard him correctly. “I’ve never taken from the till, Sir.”
Mr. Singh sat forward, leaning his arms on his desk and steepling his fingers. “Don’t lie. You were seen, by one of the other girls. You took one hundred dollars out last Thursday.”
Someone was playing a prank on Ingrid. She was sure of it. This couldn’t be real.
“Sir?” she asked, hoping that he’d reveal the game and life would go back to normal.
“Get your stuff, get out. Leave your name-tag and apron. You’ll get your last cheque, minus the hundred you stole, in the mail.” He leaned back in his chair again and pulled up his phone, ignoring her.
Ingrid sat frozen in the chair, her mouth slightly open, wondering what on earth had just happened.
“Did you just fire me?” The question came out before she could think better of it.
Mr. Singh looked up at her and glared, actually looking angry now. “That’s what happens when you steal from your employer, Grasey.”
Ingrid dug her nails into her palms. “I have never stolen a dime from this place.”
“Stop lying. Petra saw you.”
Petra. The one who often sported jewelry their paycheques wouldn’t afford. The one who flirted with Mr. Singh to avoid punishment for her shoddy work. The one who had lied before, about her fellow coworkers, about Mr. Singh…about whatever occurred to her to lie about.
“Sir,” she started, her voice meek and tremulous, “isn’t it possible that Petra might be lying?”
Now he did look angry. “She knew you’d do this. She was so afraid to come and tell me, because she knew you’d lash out at her. I wasn’t even going to fire you, but then she told me how scared she was of you, and I knew I had to protect her. Get out, and if you ever come here again I’ll call the police.”
Ingrid didn’t need to be told again. She got up so fast the chair scraped on the ground, and left the office before he could see her tears.
Through blurry eyes she threw her belongings into her purse, tossed her apron and name tag in the break room, and left the only job she’d been able to get when her father had first fallen ill.
Fifteen minutes walking helped her clear the tears from her system, if only because it was hard to walk home and sob at the same time, especially with the cold November air freezing the tears to her face.
She’d forgotten her winter coat when she’d left for work — it had been warm and sunny then. Now it was frigid, and Ingrid was kicking herself for her forgetfulness.
She’d been fired. She couldn’t believe it. Not only had she been fired, but fired for something she hadn’t done. Something she would NEVER do. She was far too honest for that.
Now that she was fifteen minutes, several sobbing breaths, and twenty ounces of tears away from it, she wished she’d been bolder. She wished she’d decried her innocence more strongly, or told the truth about Petra — that it was likely she who had stolen from the till, and if Mr. Singh hadn’t cheaped out on security he’d have footage to prove it.
Hell, she wished she’d dared him to call the cops right then and there. She wasn’t so naive to think that her innocence would be enough to protect her from police overreach, and if she were working in any other part of town she’d never consider it.
But the cops in this area? Well. The last name Spijker meant something to them. They’d pause before taking her manager’s word over hers.
She hadn’t been bold, and now, walking home, she realized it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Nothing she could have said would have made a dent in Mr. Singh’s desire to fire her — the reason he gave was just a convenient excuse. One he’d no doubt been looking for for a while.
Ingrid knew she wasn’t his favourite employee. She may have been a little too nice to people, but she wasn’t stupid. She’d noticed that when the turnover happened two years before, the girls he’d fired had all been like Ingrid. Overweight. Chunky. Fat. Or even if they weren’t, just not pretty enough.
She didn’t know why she’d escaped the axe back then. Within two months of the changeover in the bar, she was the only original employee. Ms. Lee had been fired first, then a number of girls who weren’t attractive enough for Mr. Singh. Then some girls quit — they had been attractive enough for him, and Ingrid could guess what drove them out the door.
The churn had been pretty steady for two years. Heather was the most senior employee, after Ingrid. Girls who couldn’t hack Mr. Singh’s attentions quit. The rest stayed for the perks — Ingrid was the only one who had gone without a raise in two years.
She didn’t know why she hadn’t been fired sooner, and now she was wondering why she hadn’t quit sooner. Surely there were other jobs out there? Just because it was the only one she could find that worked for her four years ago didn’t mean it was the only one that would work for her now, after all.
So much had changed in the past year.
A cold wind ripped down the street, nearly knocking her over. She jammed her hands under her arms and hugged herself tightly, trying to keep warm.
Two minutes later, and still ten minutes walk from her front door, the heavens opened up and it began to downpour.
Ingrid was soaked to the bone by the time she made it inside her building. She stood and shivered, dripping, in the front hall for a few minutes, enjoying the meagre warmth the lobby contained. Even if it did smell like hot dogs.
The elevator still had tape over its door. It had been broken for three months, and she was beginning to doubt the slum lord would ever fix it. She sighed and headed to the stairs.
Honestly, with all the walking and climbing she had to do it was a miracle she hadn’t lost more weight in the past six months since she’d sold her car. Maybe God wanted her fat. Or the Devil.
She held herself close as she headed down her hallway, focusing on the worn carpet running the length of it. She was so cold her body wanted to fold in on itself. As soon as she got her in front door she could strip her clothes off and take a hot shower. Well. A lukewarm shower. Better than nothing.
Her door was open and she was halfway in her apartment when she saw the big red sticker on her door. Ingrid paused, reading it, then stepped out and finally looked down the hallway she’d just walked, and saw what she’d missed. Red notices on every door.
They were being reno-victed.
Her apartment was tiny, and shitty, but it was hers. Had been hers for four years — since she’d quit school, taken the job she’d just been fired from, and moved here to be closer to her dad and the hospital where he was getting his treatments.
Ingrid had done the best she could to make the tiny shitty place livable, brightening it up with fabrics to cover stains on the walls, throw pillows to make her cheap futon couch comfier, and the slightly more unsightly silver insulation along the draftier areas of the walls where they met the glass sliding door to her tiny, not-even-truly-a-balcony balcony, to make sure she didn’t freeze to death in the winter.
The apartment was a one-bedroom with a tiny bathroom and barely functional kitchen, though she still slept on the couch. The bedroom was almost empty at this point — she’d sold the furniture a few months ago, finally driven to desperation. All her father’s belongings had been collected in a small box and put under the futon on which she slept.
She paid way too much for the tiny place — thanks to the one bedroom and the “balcony” a cat couldn’t perch on — but it was the best priced rental in the area.
Not the best place she’d ever lived in. Not the worst, either.
And now it wasn’t hers. She had two weeks to leave so the slum lord who ran this building could renovate the whole thing and then get new tenants who would pay three, four times as much as what Ingrid and her neighbours were paying.
Where could she go after this? Her mother’s?
No. Not there.
“I suppose there’s always under a bridge. We have lots of those.”
The words were spoken into the empty air of her apartment, and the only answer was the whistle of wind through the invisible cracks in the wall and the patter of rain on the balcony. There was no one here but her, now. If she’d actually sought out a roommate months ago, like she’d been telling herself to do so she could afford the place, maybe things wouldn’t be quite so dire right now.
Ok, no, they’d both be renovicted. But at least she wouldn’t be alone.
She frowned and looked at her phone. She didn’t have to be alone tonight….
Mind made up, she took her phone into the bathroom to plug it in and charge it while she showered, then sent off a quick text before hopping in the water. It was slightly hotter than warm, but not for long. She hopped out far too soon to actually warm up, and checked her phone for a response. Nothing yet.
She tried not to read into it. It was late, after all, and he could have been asleep, or out already. And it wasn’t like they were exclusive. They’d only been on three dates — scheduled for whenever she could get time off work. Anyway, didn’t he have class in the morning? It was probably ridiculous for her to assume he’d be free to come over when….
Buzz.
Her phone vibrated. She checked it so quickly she almost dropped it, her wet hands sliding across the screen to unlock it and read the text.
I don’t think we should see each other anymore. We want different things. Wish u the best.
The pit in her stomach that kept showing up tonight made a reappearance. Different things? What on earth did that mean? That hadn’t been the case on their last date, during which she really thought they were clicking. In fact, they were getting along so well she’d slept with him, even though she’d been trying to wait a bit longer this time round….
Oh. The penny dropped.
“Mom was right,” she sighed, then felt she should wash her mouth out with soap. But in this case, maybe she was. A stopped clock had to be right at least twice a day, anyway.
Another abdominal cramp seized her, reminding her that there was yet another shitty thing she had to deal with this week. If not tonight, then tomorrow.
She stood staring at her phone for another few minutes, dripping shower water onto the floor. Normally she’d avoid that, clean it up right away, but right now she didn’t care. It wasn’t her place anymore, anyway. She had no job, no house, no car, no prospects, and now no…whatever the guy who just dumped her had been. Not a boyfriend. Something on the road to a boyfriend, maybe.
Did anything matter anymore?
Probably not. Not tonight, at least. Tomorrow she’d pick herself back up and figure out what she was going to do.
Tonight she was going to get hammered.
Halfway through the bottle she’d finally busted open — the one she’d been saving for an occasion that would never come, now — Ingrid was feeling light and loose, and if not happy, then certainly not as depressed as she had been.
She was also full of ideas. One idea was — why didn’t she dye her hair?
She’d bought hair dye months back, thinking she’d dye it a crazy colour for the first time on her birthday. Then her birthday had come and she’d chickened out, afraid she might get fired if she came in with pink hair.
She couldn’t get fired twice.
Some smaller voice in her head said it was going to hurt her job search if she went ahead and did it, but she brushed it aside. She’d cross that bridge when she came to it. Drunk Ingrid didn’t care about consequences. Drunk Ingrid was brave enough to see what she looked like with pink hair.
She made a complete hash of it, of course, and the bathroom looked like a unicorn murder scene. But in the end, she had mostly bright pink hair, from roots to tips, and she thought it looked…different. Not like Grase Ingrid Spijker anymore, that was for sure.
A small smile curved her lips as she regarded her reflection, and something lightened in her chest. She wasn’t sure if she looked good, but that seemed to matter less than the fact that she’d been brave enough to try it out.
That certainly wasn’t like the old Ingrid.
She glanced at the messy bathroom, said a soft apology to her dad, and left it alone. She didn’t care tonight about keeping this place neat and tidy.
It was time for more drinking and TV.
Ingrid had a small cheap laptop on which she could watch certain things — namely things she’d already seen many times over, because getting new media was expensive…or legally dubious, and she couldn’t afford streaming apps. When she’d opened the bottle she’d thrown on an old episode of her dad’s favourite show, Have Gun—Will Travel, and sort of vaguely paid attention to it while drinking her cares away.
She plopped down on the futon and hit play, and as the familiar, comforting storyline resumed, she grabbed the box out from under her bed and began to rifle through it.
There wasn’t much. Dad had been downright Spartan in his belongings, keeping only a very few items. Among his treasured possessions were a few childhood drawings Ingrid had done of him, a picture of the two of them, and his badge, which they’d let him keep when he left the force.
She didn’t know if that was standard, or if they’d made an exception — he was well-loved, after all — but she was glad they had. It was a small piece she got to keep of him that was only him. Not a drawing she’d made or a picture of her, but something that was just…Dad.
She unfurled the chain and put the badge around her neck, wearing it as a necklace like she did when she was depressed. It felt like he was watching over her.
Not that he was, probably. If he were, she doubted today would have gone so spectacularly horrid. Especially not considering what day it was.
She’d tried to put it outside her head when she got up this morning, tried to ignore it, but now the tears came again. It had been one year to the day — one year since the worst day of her life.
She sniffled and wiped her face with her hand, and then let out a small chuckle, though there was certainly nothing really to laugh about. It just seemed so ridiculous that despite everything that had happened today, it still wasn’t the worst day of her life.
Nothing would top the day she’d lost her dad.
Ingrid must have fallen asleep. She woke to a loud banging noise, at first thinking it was on the show that had kept playing on her laptop. But no, the screen was dark. The machine had fallen asleep. Or died.
Actually, the whole apartment was dark, and much colder than it had been. She raised her head from where it rested on the back of the futon, wincing at a crick in her neck, and looked around. Yep. Another power outage.
The wind howled outside; at some point between her getting home and now it had turned into a proper West Coast wind storm. A tree had probably fallen on a line nearby.
Her hand was clutching her father’s badge painfully and she forced her fingers to loosen. The loud banging came again and she jumped in her seat.
Was that someone knocking on her door? Who the hell would be banging on her door at…she felt around for her phone, hoping it wasn’t dead yet. 10% battery, and it was three in the morning.
Her head was fuzzy and her mouth was fuzzier. She stumbled to her feet, and realized she really needed to pee. She almost made it to the bathroom before the pounding on the door came again, more insistent.
“Fine, fine, I’m coming,” she muttered, heading to the door. A tendril of ice crept down her spine, and she started to wonder if she wasn’t better off just ignoring the pounding. If it were police or firefighters they’d announce themselves. No one had any good reason for banging on her door at three in the morning.
But no, she remembered — old Mrs. Wong down the hall. She often came over to Ingrid’s when the power went out. The lady had no family, and Ingrid had been nice to her enough that she trusted her with the secret that she was scared of the dark, even though she was well into her eighties.
“Coming Mrs. Wong,” she said, a little louder than her muttering. It was strange it had taken her so long to come over; the power had been out long enough for the battery charge on Ingrid’s laptop to drain. Maybe Mrs. Wong had been asleep, and waked in the dark, just as Ingrid had.
The ill-feeling down her spine increased as she unlocked the door. She shrugged it off and continued, knowing Mrs. Wong would be even more stressed. It was just her imagination.
“Hey, Mrs. Wong,” she said as she opened the door, and stopped dead.
It was not Mrs. Wong.
It was the creeper from the bar, awash in the glow of the emergency lights in the hallway.
He towered over her and his eyes, that unnatural blue, glowed in the dark. The rest of him looked even odder than before, his skin that same strange shade of mis-matched make-up, but with an ethereal luminescence over it. Combined with the emergency lights’ red glow, he looked like a creature from Hell.
Ingrid took half a step back, her mind stuttering over itself in her fear. This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening.
The stranger raised his hand to her. There was a bright flash, then all Ingrid knew was darkness.