Free The Other Side of Life (Book #1, Cyberpunk Elven Trilogy) by Jess C Scott Page A

envelopes from the “A :
Mizuno” bag. But she decided to doublecheck that they were indeed,
as she had left them.
    Anya opened the cabinet in her room, moved
aside a pile of books on the floor, and removed a light switch box
on the wall. It hid a cubbyhole where she and Leticia stashed their
earnings. She realized it was a little bit like Nin’s safe, apart
from the fact that his was hidden in plain sight.
    The stash was still there. Anya headed over
to the chin-up bar on her room door, to do some pull-ups. She gazed
out through a crack in the curtains at the police guarding the
vicinity of their apartment. She’d spent so many mornings, dressed
in the black sleeveless tank top she slept in, looking out at the
police with her arms folded across her chest. The police traveled
in saucer-like land vehicle machines on stilts, which kept watch
over the city and its inhabitants. Anya was always on guard when
she gazed upon the police. She’d wonder when she would get
caught.
    Anya checked the front door next—Julius’s
tennis shoes weren’t at the entrance. He was no longer in the
apartment. She hadn’t heard him leave, though he’d spent the night
with Leticia in her room. They’d kept Anya awake for a certain
portion of the night.
    “ I’m not going to the
rehearsal tonight,” Anya let a blurry-eyed Leticia know, who had
just rolled out of bed and sauntered into the living
room.
    Leticia blinked a few times. “Did Nin say
when we’re supposed to meet?”
    A text came in on Anya’s cell phone:
    Greetings—we’re planning on striking at
midnight :-) Can you & Leticia be @ the stone church earlier?
For a quick rundown :-)
    “ They wanna enter The
Gilbreth Institute at midnight,” Anya replied Leticia, flipping the
phone between her palm and fingers. Midnight was fourteen hours
away. “Meeting earlier to go through the details.”
    Leticia sat across Anya at the table,
resting her face in her hands. “I thought the rehearsal was on
Thursday.”
    It was currently a Tuesday morning.
    “ Just tell Julius we had
something at the last minute,” Anya replied, as if the matter was
settled. “Your little brother is in the hospital for,
something-something.”
    At the same time, she messaged Nin:
    Midnight’s cool :) What time at stone
church?
    “ Remember when we did say
that, the other time? When we couldn’t meet Julius and his buddy
for a movie?”
    “ Yeah…” Anya thought back
to the incident. “February twenty-fifth. We stole, I mean”—Anya
corrected herself—“returned, a Mayan amulet.” She could still
picture it clearly. The amulet of the ancient civilization was
forged in the shape of a sun, and inlaid with four gems of jade,
sapphire, obsidian, and turquoise.
    Leticia nodded. “And Julius bought a huge
teddy-bear, and get-well-soon card, and wanted to visit
Rafael?”
    Anya remembered. Julius was very concerned,
and proactive, that way. She wondered if it had anything to do with
the fact that it involved hospitals and medicine. That was his
family business after all.
    “ It’s a full dress
rehearsal…” Leticia trailed off. “Does Nin…need me,
there?”
    Anya gave a sigh. “Julius needs you
more?”
    Leticia raked her fingers through her
tangled, bed head hair. “He’s so excited about it…he likes me there
for support. He’s such a good actor—I keep telling him that.”
    Anya thought that Julius would need less
encouragement if he really was a great actor, but she held her
tongue.
    “ Julius wanted some help
with translating a Spanish website too, for a charity project. I
don’t know where he finds the time to juggle so much at once.”
Leticia was getting dewy-eyed and lovey-dovey.
    Another Tavia, Anya thought for a moment, before a reply came in
from Nin:
    Stone church, 9pm.
    Ten hours feels like ten
years, Anya said to herself. She felt she
had to wait that long for another possible touch of
Nin’s.
    “ I’ll go.” Anya stretched
out her arms. “Nin wants to meet at