Page 6 of Breaking the Dark

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Amber throws her a small hard smile, then lowers her reading glasses onto her nose, lifts the lid of her laptop, and pours herself another cup of tea from the big white pot. Jessica closes the door behind her.

Jessica still feels a little nauseous as she walks back to her office. She stops to buy a bottle of water from a fancy Kips Bay grocery store and downs it in a few gulps. This helps a little, but not entirely. In truth she could happily go back to bed for an hour or two, but she has work to do.

Back at her desk in Hell’s Kitchen, she’s just opened the lid of her laptop when she sees movement through the glass panel of her apartment door. She can hear breathing too, and then the sound of knuckles knocking uncertainly against the wood.

“Yo. Jessica.”

A small voice. A familiar voice.

She pulls open the door. It’s Malcolm Powder, her very own bespectacled seventeen-year-old wannabe-private-eye-slash-stan who follows everything she does.

She sighs. “Yes.”

“Whoa,” he says, recoiling slightly. “What happened to your face?”

She puts her fingertips to her skin. “A cat happened. What do you want, Malcolm?”

“It’s been four days.”

“Four days since what?”

“Four days since you said I could come work for you.”

“I did not say you could come work for me.”

“You gave me your word, Jessica. You said if I found someone who knew where the Spider-Woman-Girl chick was, I could have a part-time job—and I did find her and literally helped you save her life, and you said—”

“I said if you had permission from your parents.”

Malcolm turns and beckons to someone lurking to his left. A small woman appears. She looks like Malcolm, even wears the same style of glasses.

“Mom,” Malcolm grunts. “Can you just tell her?”

The woman smiles. “I give Malcolm my permission to work for you.”

Jessica sighs loudly. “Great,” she says under her breath. She fixes the mother with a hard stare. “It can be dangerous work.”

“Malcolm is a sensible boy. It will be a good experience for him, before college. Get him off the street.”

Jessica turns the question around onto Malcolm. “You’re going to college, huh?”

“Yeah. Next fall.”

“Fine. Okay. I might have to be out of the country for a while with my current job. It could be good to have someone based here, keeping the office running.”

Malcolm’s face bursts open in a hundred different directions. “Oh my God,” he says. “Oh my God. Seriously. You want me to run the office?”

“No! Geez! Not run it.” Jessica gestures at her desk. “Just sit in it. That is all.”

“Yes! Totally! I can totally sit in your office! Absolutely!”

“And not touch anything.”

“No. Nothing. Definitely not. When can I start?”

Jessica closes her eyes and sighs again. “Not yet, okay. I’ll message you.”