The Library (The Librarian of Alexandria Book 1) by Casey White (surface ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Daniel chuckled.  “Right.”  His eyes perked up.  Something lay ahead, peeking around the corner of the building he approached.  His car, still parked across from the pub from the night before.  Good.  “Look, mom, I gotta go.  I’ll be there, okay?  Don’t start moving stuff without me.”

“Of course,” his mother said, laughing darkly.  “Who else is going to lift the couch?”

He winced, focusing in on his rapidly-approaching vehicle.  “Okay.  I gotta-”

“Love you, Dan.”

A wry smile pulled at the corners of his lips.  “Love you too, mom.  Say hi to dad for me.”

“I will.”  You could always call him yourself.  The words hung under her sentence, commonly-spoken enough that he no longer needed to hear them vocalized to know she was thinking it.  And he did.  Sometimes.  When he remembered to.  The rest of the time...

If their relationship was dysfunctional, well, it was his fault as much as anyone’s.

Before she could say another word, he pulled the phone from his face, tapping the end call button.  His screen went dark.

The headlights flashed as he approached his sedan.  It didn’t look like much on the outside, which really didn’t help with getting the time of day out of any of his prospective romances, but it was cheap and reliable.  That was all he could ask for, at the end of the day.

The engine roared to life.  Daniel paused a moment, eyeing the bar.  It’d been...fun, last time.  Maybe he could get the guys back out here tonight.  He snorted, shaking his head.  Pester them too often, and they’d start thinking he was desperate.

He wasn’t that needy.  Just a bit.

Shifting into drive, he pulled out of his spot and accelerated away from town.

* * * * *

The road was familiar, and the sun shining down from overhead lulled him into a fugue.  Daniel hardly watched the road, navigating around each corner on automatic.  He had a day - a whole day, with no grand plans.

What would he do this time?

Reality snapped back as he glanced up, realizing the driveway of his house lay straight ahead.  He smiled faintly, pulling closer.  Just like the car, it wasn’t much to look at - just a slightly-aging, freshly-painted slump of a ranch.

Unlike the car, though, the house was more than it looked like.  The warnings he’d been told his whole life had stuck, and he wasn’t about to leave himself unguarded just because of flimsy excuses like “you always wear a mask” and “no one knows your real name”.

The security system he keyed in through was discreet but top-of-the line, freshly upgraded.  Daniel smiled as it cleared him, and pushed through into the room beyond.

As the door slid shut behind him, he exhaled, then dropped his coat to the couch and trudged to the back office.  He should work on the trading he needed to get done.  He knew he should work - and yet, the sun was shining outside.  The sky was blue.  There were birds in the trees.

If he’d spent the night in the house instead of a damn Motel 6, he’d already have gotten his work done.  He’d be running wild by now.

Of course, he’d also be letting some random woman from a bar into his house, and he knew better than that.  And so he winced, stretching his arms out, and nudged the PC to life.

The screen lit up.  Graphs and charts filled every square inch of display.  Daniel groaned again, burying his face in his palm.

Sooner done, sooner over.  Gritting his teeth and forcing his eyes back open, he dropped his hands to the keyboard.

Slowly at first, but accelerating rapidly, he started to type.

* * * * *

Enough.

Daniel sagged, letting his head roll back.  There.  He’d fixed the error in his model, bringing his outside financials up to date with the predictions he’d made inside Alexandria.  He wouldn’t lose any money, now.

It was enough.

The computer shut down with a jab of a key.  He was on his feet before the fans finished whirring down, all but dashing from the room.

Another scant few minutes saw him fleeing out the back door, grabbing the bike propped there and swinging onto its frame.

Only when he was blasting along down a side road did he let his breath slide out, savoring the feeling of the wind in his long, tied-back hair.

Almost imperceptibly, his eyes slid up to the endlessly blue sky overhead.

Your sky, eh?  He smiled faintly, pedaling harder.  He’d put his foot in it.  Lenny had seemed like a good enough type, if you ignored the whole ‘reckless chemist’ aspect.  That didn’t mean Daniel had wanted to lay himself bare like that.

Something flashed down the side of the embankment running alongside the road - a flicker of silver, running amidst the brown and green.  Daniel hit the brakes, leaping from the bike and dropping it into the grass.

One step after another, he slipped down toward the lonely river.

“Anything?” he murmured under his breath, pulling his phone free and giving it another look as he settled against the grass.

But the screen staring up at him was blank and empty, devoid of any messages or pleas for his presence.  It was only fair, his thoughts whispered.  They’re busy.  They’ve got other stuff.  Be patient.

Right then, with the sun on his skin and the breeze ruffling his unhooded, unmasked hair, patient was something he could be.  Daniel stretched out, weaving his fingers through the blades of grass.  The grass was softer here, somehow.  It was real, in a way that Alexandria couldn’t hope to replicate.

Soft grass and warm sunlight couldn’t quash the bewilderment that slowly filled him up, though, the lingering sense of dread.  One day - that was all he’d get before he went back inside for another round.

What the hell was he supposed to do with one day?

“I should find something, huh?” he whispered to himself, letting his eyes slide shut.  But what the hell did he have to offer?  He didn’t