Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Lark watched Ebony walk down the street, seething. But it wasn't anger that was boiling his blood and prickling his skin.

Lust, unlike anything he'd ever experienced in his life, and all because of that spark, that fucking spark that never should have been there. How the hell could she be his soulmate? He rubbed his hands together furiously, trying to get rid of the remaining tingle. He didn't want a soulmate; it had never been a part of his dream.

"What's up, boss?" Stone asked carefully as he walked back into the room.

Lark glared at the window as thoughts of punching Stone's pretty face for laying a hand on Ebony filled him. It's what Stone was supposed to do. he was Lark's main muscle when Lark didn't feel like doing it himself. And he had clearly indicated that the meeting was over, so Stone had done his job.

So why did he want to break a bone in Stone's face for having laid a finger on the woman?

Because she was his.

"Follow her, make sure she gets on a bus safely, then contact any other searchers in town, make sure they know that if she knocks on their doors, they are not to take her business."

Stone looked at him with surprise but didn't question him. Lark was sure he would later, but for now Stone had been given an order and he'd see it done. They owned the business as partners, the three of them, but Lark was the official face and the unofficial boss. Stone didn't have the practical discipline to be in charge and Granger didn't have the patience. Stone turned and left the room.

Lark went back to his desk confident in the knowledge that Ebony would safely make it back to her part of town. Somehow the thought wasn't as comforting as it should have been. Anywhere but by his side felt wrong.

And yet he'd sent her away.

"Fuck," he growled and swiped a hand over his desk, crashing everything onto the ground, then he fell back into his chair and stared at the spot where she'd stood. He had too many questions and no answers. He pulled out his laptop and quickly typed in the passwords needed to access the government-run database that listed the halflings and everything on record about them.

Ebony Landry, no birthplace listed, no registered anything until the age of five. She'd been implanted then with a tracking chip that usually went in at birth, registered to a fullsoul mother, Henrietta Landry. No father listed, no living family listed for Ebony or Henrietta. Henrietta died of breast cancer five years ago.

It was a little odd that Henrietta had been able to survive with a halfling for five years without registering her and taking the half rations for the child. It wasn't unheard of, though, for a fullsoul to hide their halfling child from the government for a time, it just usually meant they came from a wealthy family or had a decent job or home they didn't want to lose.

In Ebony's original email inquiry about hiring him, she had said that she worked at a hotel, but according to the government database, she was unemployed. Ebony claimed she had been cleaning rooms there since she was sixteen and was still employed. Lark clicked on the link to pull up a fuzzy employee badge image. It looked like it was a few years old but it was definitely her. It didn't prove that she was still working at the hotel though.

Was Ebony lying about her employment and how she had made that money? Knowing how some women were forced to make money hadn't bothered him much in the past and when she'd walked into his office he hadn't judged her for what she might have had to do, even if he had teased her about it. But now it was all different. Now he wanted to murder anyone who might have taken advantage of her while she was desperately trying to survive.

Unfamiliar feelings of anger flowed through him as he pulled up the hotel's database. After a few minutes he'd easily hacked into their employee files. Ebony was listed there as a current employee but the badge image was the same old one on the government database but less fuzzy.

"Why are you hiding Ebony from the government?" Lark wondered aloud as he pulled up a picture of her boss. He looked like the usual born-fullsoul idiot. Fat and lonely. Edward Glick had been the manager of the hotel's restaurant and housekeeping for the last thirty years, it said. He would have hired Ebony's mother as well as Ebony.

Something wasn't adding up and it just increased his frustration. He clicked back to the image of Ebony.

"How can she be a halfling and spark with me?" Lark mumbled to himself as he eyed the picture critically, trying to find anything that would hint at deception. But it was her, same beautiful eyes, same smooth skin, dark hair and proud chin. He stared at her lips and licked his own, thinking about how they must taste. So soft and supple, so inviting. Had she ever pressed them to anyone in lust? Did she have a halfling lover? The thought sent a jolt of jealousy through him so strong he nearly threw his laptop off the desk.

He had to get ahold of himself.

He closed the picture and started searching medical facilities in the area he knew dealt with halflings often. It was easy enough to find one that she'd been to. It said she didn't take suppressants, but that didn't mean she slept around, he reminded himself as his body tensed again to kill anyone who might have touched what was his.

What he read next was like being doused with ice water, his body going from fight to fear in seconds. He didn't move, just stared at the screen in disbelief.

She was dying. That must be why she'd come to him, she needed the other half of her soul to survive the cancer.

"She's on the bus back to the district and no one in town will even think about helping her," Stone said as he walked into the room. "Her friend was hot."

Lark wasn't sure how long he'd been staring at his screen, but he quickly closed it, wanting to hide what he'd just found; from Stone and himself. "Forget her," he said.

"Want to tell me what's going on?" Stone asked, sitting in the chair opposite him.

Stone was one of his oldest friends. They'd been through everything together, they helped each other deal with the guilt of murder and survival afterward, but somehow, he didn't know if he could share this with him, didn't know if he could face this with him.

"No," Lark said simply and stood, grabbing his computer and coat. He strode from the room, leaving Stone to follow and think what he'd like about the situation.

He'd tell his friend when he figured it out for himself.

Ebony settled into the bus seat beside Taylor and breathed a sigh of relief when no one got on behind them. She hadn't been able to shake the feeling of being followed as they'd made their way to the bus stop. Of course every time she'd looked back, she'd seen only shadows.

"Okay, well if you aren't going to blow your money on finding your soulsister, what are you going to do with it?" Taylor whispered excitedly. She'd been pushing Ebony to splurge on herself for years and now it would seem to Taylor like no reason not to.

Ebony had always known she should save up for an emergency, her mother had instilled that in her. She hadn't ever thought this would be that emergency. She didn't need to keep saving for the future though, so she knew exactly what she was going to do with the money if she couldn't hire a searcher. "Donate it to the halfling orphanage, those kids never have what they need."

"You are too sweet," Taylor crooned. "I'd go on a shopping spree!"

"That is a close second, but where would I wear new clothes? Certainly not to clean toilets all day."

"Ugh, yeah they'd probably disintegrate in your closet waiting to be worn," Taylor agreed. "But still, a few nice things, just in case you wanted to feel pretty sometime, that would be fun."

Ebony didn't disagree, and if she had more time, she might do just that.

Taylor was Ebony's best friend and the only person who knew that Ebony was interested in finding her soulsister. Taylor didn't have a soulsister. Her mother had actually found her soulmate when she was a young teen, but he'd died before they could grow up and have children together. When she'd sought comfort in the arms of his brother, she'd gotten pregnant with Taylor. Taylor's father had enlisted in the army immediately to try and save face, it was one of the only respectable places for a halfling parent to make money. His plan was to send home support for his daughter.

Unfortunately, Taylor's father had also died shortly after enlisting, never meeting his daughter. Taylor's mother had moved to the halfling village after that, her family disowning her, she had no other options. Taylor had grown up next to Ebony and her mother.

They'd all been great friends and really it could have been worse. They had both seen worse, growing up; kids abandoned by their desperate mothers, adults who had lost all hope. It wasn't the sort of place anyone would want to live, but they'd been able to make a life of it. Against the odds they were given, they had grown up and gotten jobs. They had survived despite the government's best efforts at neglecting them.

Ebony smiled at her best friend as she chattered on about all the things she would buy if she had a chance. Taylor had bright red hair she kept short that curled around her face, pale skin, and green eyes. She had freckles she hated and slightly crooked front teeth. There was no fixing that sort of thing on a halfling salary. She was a bright spirit, and whenever Ebony had let the weight of the world bring her down, Taylor had been there to lift her up.

Ebony had returned the favor the only time Taylor had needed it, when her steady halfling boyfriend had lost a battle with his soulbrother. Though Taylor couldn't have been the guy's soulmate, it was still a hard thing for her to get over. She'd seen an out with him, a way to step above the station she'd been born into. Ebony never told Taylor what she really thought would have happened if he'd won the battle; the guy would have taken his full soul and left Taylor and the halfling camp as soon as he could. Maybe because it was too depressing to look back at all the people you couldn't possibly help, or maybe because the pressure to conform as a fullsoul was just too much to ignore. Either way, she didn't think anyone with a full soul would stick around for long if they didn't have to.

Taylor got over it eventually and found comfort in friendships and the occasional one-night stand. Ebony took strength from her friend's ability to accept what the fates had dealt her. She supposed she did too, in a way. But unlike Taylor, she didn't try and cheat the system.

She also wasn't a big fan of going along with the system. Ebony tried to imagine a scenario where she had a full soul and found her soulmate, only to bring a child into this mess of a world. It seemed selfish and insane, what kind of punishment would that be for a child? Forced into a world where they may never be able to have a real life with a spouse because their soulmate might never be born or only half their soulmate's soul might be born. It was a torturous life they all lived, fullsoul or not and she didn't agree with perpetuating it.

The bus took them to the outskirts of the city, it wouldn't go beyond the fence that separated the halfling district from the rest of the city regardless of the fact that no halfling could afford a car. Ebony and Taylor had to walk half a block to the entrance, which wasn't the safest thing this time of night, but they weren't worried as long as they weren't alone and neither of them went around completely unarmed. Both had a bottle of pepper spray close at hand, it was something every halfling girl got used to from a young age. The world wasn't kind to the less fortunate and if you were also a female, it thought you were made for the taking. More female halflings were missing and murdered than any other demographic, orphan children were a close second.

"Do you think you'll try someone else?" Taylor asked as they walked. Her tone serious after all the shopping talk.

Ebony sighed heavily, "I suppose so, though if they all charge eight now there's nothing I can do."

Taylor nodded sympathetically.

The fence that stood between the halfling district and the rest of the city wasn't a real barrier, just a chain-link marker. Los Angeles had such a large population of halflings without support of fullsoul families that it needed to dedicate an affordable housing area to it. From what Ebony had heard, some cities merely dedicated neighborhoods loosely marked to their halfling population. And some small cities and towns around the country had chased out all the halflings with high priced homes and unaffordable food so they didn't concern themselves with making a space available at all. These were places that the halflings in her district told her about, places they'd come from, been kicked out of when they were children, or their mother's had been forced to leave, pregnant and alone.

Las Vegas was the last completely open city in the country with no designated barriers and from what she'd heard, freely-interacting individuals of all status. Ebony wasn't sure how she felt about that. A few countries in Africa and Asia hadn't regulated their populations at all after the cursing and their halfling populations had exploded, now it was considered a humanitarian nightmare and it was what the most recent war was being fought about.

The U.S. claimed to be so fair and reasonable with their separation solution, yet by looking at the dark dirty street beyond the fence, Ebony couldn't understand how anyone could really think that this was an equal and deserved way to live based on who their parents were. No one asked to be born, no one chose to come into this world with half a soul, yet they were punished for it. Of course, the ones in charge were all fullsouls and they paid high prices to find their soulmates and breed lots of fullsoul children and find them their soulmates and on and on. They were working hard to keep other countries' halflings from seeking refuge in the U.S. too. If the U.S. government couldn't convince the government of the foreign country to regulate their population to the U.S. standard, they were trying to invade on the basis of doing god's work.

Of course she had her own theory about it all, and it had a little more to do with the rise in halfling populations that weren't regulated and them breeding massive amounts of nosouls who could take out large populations of people in the middle of the night. The U.S. government knew about it, and they were going in there bombing large sections of cities to try and kill them off.

Ebony couldn't even be sure that wasn't a good thing. Nosouls were more demon than human, from what she'd heard.