Echo Book 2

37. Free

We land on the space pad and tilt quite sideways.

Tre jumps up and grabs his papers. "ENABLE LANDING GEAR."

I fall over. Then the ship makes a bunch of creaks and we go flat.

Tim and Malax run in. Malax is in his underwear. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?"

"I forgot the landing gear, love. Tre got it." I pull myself off the floor.

Tim rubs his face. "Run a system check for damage. Ax, go put pants on."

Kane comes in. "There are other ways to wake people up."

"My bad." I sit at the table. "I'm home." I look at the brain. "Steal the suppra lab out of daddy's house when he's not there."

"Of course."

Tim winks at me. "Dress for the office, baby."

I run to Malax's apartment and get ready. We look professional by the time we're back in the command room. Then we go to Malax's office.

I sit at my desk outside his office and smile. I love it here.

Kai gives me a hug then takes Malax a stack of papers about 2 feet tall. Then his people walk by my desk. I wave at them. Then I get orange juice. I take a big drink and read the first page of my papers. I spit my juice all over. I laugh so hard I choke.

"YOU OK, WOMAN?"

Eriska runs out and takes the papers. She laughs so hard she screams. "HER EX WANTS A JOB HERE."

"WHO?" Malax is pissed.

"SCOTCH." She holds his door so she doesn't fall.

"Why is it all wet?"

"I SPIT ORANGE JUICE ALL OVER IT." I plop down on my seat. "SORRY." I collect myself and answer the phone. "Phade Enterprise. Center of operations. Malax Phades Office."

"This is security. We have a boy down here asking for you. His name is Ohro."

I jump up and down. "Send him up." I am so excited. I could only hope he made it. The elevator opens and I jump on him. I give him a big hug. "You lived."

"I was worried about you too. But I knew you were ok because of the interviews."

"What happened for you?" The elevator closes with us in it.

"Probably the same thing that happened to you. We had to fight to get out of the city. We gave away the food bags we made. Charged the car where we could. We made it to my mom's family, then waited it out." He hugs me again. "I saw the ship come down and figured you were on it. I put my application in here. I had them send it to you. I was hoping you could help. I don't have any experience anywhere."

"I haven't seen it yet. Of course I will though."

The elevator opens and Tim shakes his head. "Get out of the elevator."

"Sorry. This is Ohro. He works here now."

"Is this the ex?"

"No. This is Ohro."

"Good enough."

I drag Ohro into Malax's office. "Look."

Malax stands up and shakes his hand. "Glad to see you made it. How are your parents?"

"My dad is sick. My mom's job doesn't exist anymore. We came back a couple of weeks ago. I need a job."

"He works here now." I smile.

"I did put in an application. They sent it to Echo."

Malax nods. "She covered them in orange juice. Then I shredded them."

I laugh so hard I choke on air.

Eriska nods. "Her ex applied for a job. Ax found out and shredded the applications."

Ohro crosses his arms. "That's understandable. And I go by Zion, not Ohro."

"You lied about your name?" I cross my arms.

The rest of the table cracks up laughing.

"My name is Ohro Encarnazion Spade. I think my parents didn't like me or something. Everyone calls me Zion. I didn't lie."

"Well, why did you say your name was Ohro?"

"My name is Ohro."

I roll my eyes. "I'm taking the helicopter and going to Kinnik. If you don't have a suppra, come with me."

Tre, Hunter, Mary, Kane, Victor, Tobias, and Ohro come with me.

We get to Kinnik and daddy is waiting for us. "Hello sweetheart."

"You're going to be a vampire, daddy."

"I figured. Come with me. You said 2 of them were electrocuted?"

"Yes."

"Do you have them?"

"Not with me."

"I'll need them when you get them back. We may be able to repair them."

Tre rubs his eyes.

"No problem, daddy."

"Do you know when you'll be able to get them?"

"Not off hand."

Me and Tre connect to our new ones and I send the brains away with them. Then daddy starts everyone elses. "It'll be a couple of days. They're 500k each."

"Bill Phade, daddy."

"Fair enough." He writes me the bill, and we go back to Phade.

Malax gives me a hug and I give him the bill. "Tell your father to give me a damn discount, woman."

Tre laughs. "He wants our electrocuted suppra's back when we recover them."

"Well, that might take a minute." Malax sits at his desk. "Zion, I need some stuff from you, so I can put you on the payroll."

I bounce at Tim. He picks me up. "Pay me too, Malax."

"Bite my ass."

"I have no money here, asshole."

"What the f**k do you even need?"

"A place to live while we're here."

I hug Tim. "You live with me."

Kane perks up. "None of us have any money here."

Malax puts his head down. "Damn it."

"We have that wing in the house. It's empty. They can live there."

"That works."

Kane looks at Victor. "Does Kehlani pay you?"

"No."

"How the hell?"

"Nadine pays you?"

"Yes."

They look at me.

"Damn it." I shrug my shoulders. "The throne is broke. We can't expect Phade Enterprise to pay everyone."

Malax nods. "Where is Nadine paying from? Is it the throne?"

"Village table."

"Yea, I pay my table and employees too. We supply ships and suppras. The ships supply food, clothes, travel, and housing. That's enough."

"Kehlani lets us use the brains for mining, but we have to pay her a percentage."

Malax shakes his head. "Bring me all the paperwork on that."

"Yes, sir."

I stretch. "I'm going home. I miss home."

Tim hugs me and grabs my ass. "We'll see you soon, baby."

I lay by my amazing pool and think about money. Am I supposed to pay people? That doesn't seem right. Unless they work directly for me. And everyone is capable of making their own money.

I go down the slides a few times. There are very few people who work for me. Only those on the ship could be considered my employees. Those who work at Phade are not. Nadine and Kehlani are not my employees. They have their own ships and people working for them. And by the looks of them, they are making money just fine.

I call Dipak and talk to him about money for a while. They pay the people on their table for the village. Nothing for the throne. Tim shows up while we're discussing it. It sounds like the same thing Kehlani does.

I hang up and stretch on my chair. "I guess everyone works for me for free."

"Probably going to have to fix that woman. Alden gave up Kehlani's mining planet. He told us to deal with it. We have all the ships. War ships, king ships, medical ships, all of them. They are concentrating on their people. I think they just need a break from being at the top of the throne."

"Probably. They went about it wrong. They made amazing progress though."

"They really did. After this round of ships, the mining planet pauses. There are so many. We have something like 300 ships of different kinds."

"What kind?"

"War, king, medical, transporter, evacuation, trade."

"They are doing it differently as well. Nadine has planets submitted to her. Does Kehlani have planets submitted to her?"

"Yes. The difference is, Nadine has her planets submitted to her and her mates. Kehlani has planets submitted to her, and also the kings below her. They are all her planets though."

"With Thora having a planet now, I guess they are doing the same thing."

"I didn't think about that. Dracul has a planet too. They are doing the same thing."

"We need a planet where we can hide things. Put our ships on it. Hide our ores, especially the black ore."

"Yea, something we can keep defended and close."

"Can we keep them on Corix? We have that whole other continent."

"I wouldn't. In the future, we don't know how valuable that black ore will be. It may put people in danger of attacks."

I stretch. "This isn't helping the pay issue. I need Eriska and Malax to argue about it."

"Why?" He chuckles.

"They're good at business."

Kane and Mary walk out with Ohro. "Your single servant let us in."

"Cleome is her name. I was supposed to hire help for her."

"You might want to do that. She tried to lint roll us before we came in." Ohro plops on the chair beside me. "Malax told me to come with Kane. I don't think he knows what to do with me."

"You can work for me. It's fine. What are you doing here?"

Kane rubs his eyes. "We need to know who you want turned into a vampire."

"CLEOME."

"What, child?"

"Do you want to be a vampire? You'll be immortal and get a soulmate eventually."

"Will you hire me some help?"

"Yes."

"Yes. At least 10." She runs away so fast.

"Fine. Cleome, my parents, Eriska's parents."

"Me and my parents."

I nod. "Ohro and his parents. Whoever Malax wants. He has parents and a sibling that I know of. Maybe the guys at his table. You'll have to ask him. Then ask Rye. He probably has parents. You can ask Hunter."

Kane feels Ohro's head. "He's not an adult yet. But we can get his parents."

"I'm 18."

"That's not how vampire age works." Kane sits back down. "It'll be a couple of months. It won't be long. If you don't change to an adult first, you'll never get your soulmate. We won't turn you early."

"Fine."

Cleome comes back. "I got the 10 I want picked out. Where should I send them to sign the contracts?"

"Phade. Tell them to tell Malax it's for our house help."

"Ok." She roams off on her phone.

Mary glances at me. "I need to go meet your parents and the kids' servants."

"CLEOME."

"WHAT?"

"WE NEED TO GO TO MY DAD'S. YOU TOO."

"FINE."

"TELL THE NEW HELP TO GO THERE TOO."

She says something, but I can't hear her over the Phade helicopter landing. We watch Eriska get out of it and fall in the pool. The helicopter leaves and I guess she sinks.

Kane shakes his head. "I guess she needs some space from the boys again."

"I guess so." I call for the Kinnik helicopter. Then I change into a summer dress.

I get everyone on the helicopter, and we go to my dad's.