Chapter 1: Back Room Afterglow
The hum of the broken vending machine was a flat, persistent note in the stagnant air. It cast a sickly green light over Jonah’s shoulder, glinting off the sweat at his temple. Amy’s hand was still pressed against his chest, her palm absorbing the frantic, rhythmic knocking of his heart through the cheap polyester of his Cloud 9 vest.
She pulled her mouth from his, the separation making a soft, damp sound. Her lipstick was a crime scene across his lower lip.
“We have to be more careful,” she whispered, her voice rough. It wasn’t guilt. It was logistics.
Jonah’s breath hitched, his hands still anchored on her hips, thumbs pressing into the spaces just above her belt. “I know. I know, it’s just… you were looking at me during the huddle meeting. By the biodegradable cutlery display. You did that thing with your pen.”
“I was taking an inventory note.” She swiped her thumb over his lip, smearing the red further. The act was strangely intimate, more than the kiss had been. It felt wifely. The thought made her stomach clench.
“That was not an inventory look,” he breathed, leaning in again, chasing her mouth.
She turned her head, his lips landing on her cheek. “Jonah. Seriously.” She pushed firmly against his chest, and he finally released her, stepping back into a tower of empty cardboard Gaylord boxes. They swayed.
The fluorescent tube above them flickered, buzzing like an angry insect. In its stuttering light, she saw the full picture: his flushed face, his hopelessly mussed hair, the open, wanting expression he wore so easily. He was thirty-one and looked like a teenager who’d just unlocked a major achievement. She was thirty-three and felt every minute of it, a fine powder of flour dust from the bakery section settled into the lines around her eyes.
She turned to the stainless steel door of the break room refrigerator, using her distorted reflection to fix herself. She rubbed at the corners of her mouth, smoothed her frizzing brown hair back into its ponytail. Her uniform was wrinkled where his hands had been.
“Your top button,” she said, not looking at him.
He fumbled with it, his long fingers clumsy. “Right. Yeah.”
A shadow passed under the gap at the bottom of the door.
It was just a darkness, blocking the light from the hallway for two solid heartbeats. Then it was gone. Amy froze, her eyes locking onto the thin line of space between the linoleum and the door. The scent of stale coffee and industrial cleaner suddenly felt suffocating.
Jonah saw her face. “What?”
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Footsteps. Stopping.”
They stood in silence, listening to the vending machine’s dying hum and the distant, muted thump of mall music from the store floor. Nothing.
“Probably just Garrett going to the bathroom,” Jonah said, but his voice had lost its breathy quality. It was tight now.
“Garrett rolls. He doesn’t walk. You hear the wheels.” Amy’s mind was sharp, slicing through the post-hookup fog. It was a supervisor’s mind. A mind that noticed when shelf tags were crooked from twenty feet away. “That was a walk. A pause.”
She moved to the door, putting her ear against the cold metal. Nothing. Cautiously, she pulled it open a crack. The hallway was empty, lit by the same unforgiving fluorescents, leading past the manager’s office to the floor.
But on the grey linoleum, directly in front of their door, was a single, freshly fallen yellow feather.
Amy stared at it. It could have come from anywhere. A down vest from Seasonal. A decorative pillow from Home Goods. It was innocuous.
But Dina Fox, Assistant Store Manager, was a champion bird-watcher. She wore a goose-down vest every day, year-round. And she moved through Cloud 9 with the silent, predatory grace of a hawk. Amy had never seen her drop anything, ever.
“Shit,” Amy breathed.
“What is it?” Jonah crowded behind her, peering over her shoulder. His warmth was suddenly irritating.
“Nothing.” She kicked the feather aside with her sneaker toe, a casual, destructive flick. “It’s nothing. Go back to the floor. Take the long way through Receiving. I’ll go out front in five.”
“Amy—”
“Now, Jonah.”
He flinched at the tone. It was her floor supervisor voice, the one that brooked no argument from part-time cashiers caught vaping in the parking lot. The sparkle in his eyes dimmed. He adjusted his vest, gave her one last, confused look, and slipped out the door, turning left toward the loading docks.
Amy waited, counting in her head. She pulled her phone from her pocket. A text from her daughter, Emma: can u get more of those pretzel nuggets on the way home? A text from her husband, Adam: Working late. Don’t wait up.
The normalcy of it was a dull weight in her hand. She put the phone away.
After a full minute, she exited the break room, turning right toward the sales floor. She passed the manager’s office. The blinds were open. Inside, Dina was at her desk, her posture ramrod straight. She wasn’t typing. She wasn’t looking at the monitor. She was staring directly at the door, at Amy passing by. Her hands were folded neatly in front of her. On the desk, beside a pristine file labeled “Incident Reports,” lay a small, spiral-bound notebook.
Dina’s eyes followed Amy without a flicker of recognition. She didn’t smile. She didn’t nod. She just watched.
Amy forced a nod, a tight jerk of her chin. “Dina.”
“Sosa.” Dina’s voice was flat. Her gaze dropped to Amy’s collar, then back to her eyes. A microscope slide being examined. “Tag in the garden center is malfunctioning. Again. The one for the ceramic gnomes. See to it.”
“On it,” Amy said, her voice miraculously steady.
She walked onto the floor, the assault of color and sound and canned music washing over her. She passed a pyramid of soup cans, a toddler screaming for a balloon, a display of discount patio heaters. Normalcy. The grating, tedious normalcy of her life.
Her hand rose unconsciously to her collar, fingers checking the buttons. The top one was fastened. But as she passed a convex security mirror, she saw it. A faint, red smudge, just below her ear. A trace of Jonah’s misplaced kiss. A mark his lips had left on her skin.
She rubbed at it with a furious thumb until the skin burned, watching in the distorted mirror as Dina Fox emerged from the hallway. Dina didn’t look at Amy. Instead, she walked with deliberate steps to the break room door, stooped with a bizarre, athletic grace, and plucked something from the floor where Amy had kicked it. She held the small yellow feather up to the light, studying it, before slipping it carefully into the breast pocket of her vest. Then she turned, her hawk-like eyes scanning the fluorescent horizon of Cloud 9, and began to walk, with silent purpose, toward the garden center.