I gave his shoulder a playful slap.
“It’s important you drink your cocoa.” He pinched my cheek like he did when we were kids. “You get nightmares if you don’t.”
I shoved his hand away. “I edit your work and write your speeches. Stop making me cocoa Magnus, it’s embarrassing.”
He let out a laugh. “You’ll always be my little sister, Duck.”
“Speaking of which, you’ll need to start addressing me by my actual name if you want to keep up the De Astor professionalism.”
“It makes us seem relatable. Agoodfamily.”
“And when I am declared Soulless and sent into the Execution Battle? Then what kind of ‘good’ family will we appear to be?”
He dropped his smile. “I’m not going to let that happen to you.”
Night came knocking on evening’s door and I drove into the city looking into the rearview mirror when the hairs on the back of my neck told me too.
I skated around the outskirts of the city where urine sprinkled over the pavements more than rain and takeaway shops stunk with MSG. Not my usual outing, unless my brother was cutting ribbons to a new community housing block he had built with our family money.
The paper laid neat on my lap like a comforting pet. I already knew the address by heart, but still, tonight, I needed the touch of it like I needed a friend.
I parked in an alleyway and knocked on a rusted door in the dark.
Mindy let me in.
Big glasses, white coat. Her fingers were steady. That was all I cared about. I found Mindy a year ago when hope was beginning to dwindle and I needed a new venture to save my life. I told myself I was not going to use her. But that was when I had a year, not three days.
“Payment?” she asked.
I pulled out the package from my bag and gifted her enough money for a high-rise in the city.
“Ah, that De Astor wealth.” She slapped it on a table, satisfied without counting. “I’m a little jealous of the one who becomes your Soulmate and lives forever in that manor over in Birming.”
“And who will they be exactly?”
She gestured to a door.
The room was stark white like bleached teeth. Two hospital beds mirrored each other. A table of surgical tools glinted.
There was a young man close to my age wearing a hospital gown sitting up in the bed, bored-like. Upon seeing me he hoped off with a kick of glee and extended out his hand to me. “Charlie.”
“You are aware of who I am?” I shook his hand in turn.
“My Soulmate.”
I had not specified to Mindy who they should be. I did not care for their gender, their appearance or background.
As long as they were willing.
And could shut their mouth.
Mindy was a saviour of the Soulless. Common in the underbelly world. Not a virtuous profession, a highly illegal profession that promised wicked toprevail. I should have reported and assisted in throwing her into prison once I discovered the practice.
However, there was an ache in my heart where a thumping should be, and I stored her away in the crook of my mind, wondering if one day I would need her to save my life.
She engraved imitation insignia. The Soulless attempted to have a “fake” connection usually done by well-trained doctor who could mimic a Soul insignia over a heart. A tricky thing to master. Like a tattoo but with blood seeping through the layers of the skin. It did not make the connection real, only appear real.
“You’re Soulless,” I said to Charlie without hiding my disappointment. It was only natural. From the moment we opened our eyes out of the womb we were taught to despise them.
