Chapter 25

Deli Land

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Like a well-trained pack of dogs, everyone in the Orchestra leapt out of their seats and darted into the hallway, the final bell bringing us one day closer to Thanksgiving break. I was the first one out of the clarinet section. After the clusterfuck at lunch that day, the last place I wanted to be was in the same room as Emily.

It felt weird going to detention that day. Dylan didn't have detention anymore, but Liz hung on me the entire walk from the music wing to the detention hall.

As I made my way down the corridor, I looked around for signs of the battle that had taken place just a few days before, but everything looked normal again. The lockers were perfectly restored, and Darth Saeleth's lightsaber gouges in the floor were gone. Whoever had come in over the weekend to clean up the mess had done a perfect job of masking the fact that it had ever happened.

But Liz and I knew better.

I spent the entire detention in an anxious daze, half expecting Darth Saeleth to burst through the window behind Mr. Jay and pick up the fight where he had left off. Liz kept herself busy by cramming for her driver's ed final, and I attempted to work on my Chemistry homework. There was no mysterious early bell today, and after two agonizing hours, we were finally dismissed. I didn't even bother stopping at my locker. After what happened last time, I was eager just to get the hell out of the building.

It was another cold, overcast day, and I tightened the hood of my sweatshirt and zipped up my jacket. Luckily the freezing rain had let up, but the studded tires were on my bike and ready for any inclement weather. I quickly made my way downtown, suddenly conscious of the fact that I was alone and vulnerable.

Was I going to have to always look over my shoulder now?

Eventually, a colorful orange and yellow awning came into view, with the words "Deli Land" painted in navy blue ink on the front. My heart filled with dread as I approached, and after locking my bike on the light pole outside, I looked into the window and saw my boss Ryan on the phone behind the counter.

What fresh hell did he have in store for me today?

I took advantage of his occupied attention and slipped into the break room. I removed my sweatshirt to reveal the Deli Land polo shirt I had worn concealed all day. I threw my book bag into my cubby and swapped my sneakers for my non-slip shoes. After tying my hair back into a pony tail, I emerged from the break room and nearly collided with Ryan, who was holding a broom and looking a new level of furious.

"Behind the counter needs sweeping," he ordered, shoving the broom toward me, "and make sure the dining area is wiped and mopped before the dinner rush."

"Yes sir," I grumbled back, snatching the broom out of his hands.

"And you have a strike against you," he snapped.

I scowled. "What?! Why?" I protested.

"For an unexcused call-out." He said bluntly.

I groaned. "I was hurt!" I insisted.

"I don't care MacIntosh," he said dismissively, turning around to resume his phone call.

My upper lip curled into a scowl as I trudged out of the break room, my head fuming. No "welcome back", no "I hope you're feeling better". Nope. Just a reprimand and a list of tasks that never ended. My job was simply to make the place clean and presentable for the customers, and greet the customers as they walked in. I felt like a combination of a custodian and a Walmart greeter.

The floor behind the sandwich counter was an absolute disaster. There were shreds of lettuce all over the place, covering the tile like a rug. Within the lettuce rug was sprinkled bits of lunch meat, a few dribbles of mustard, a couple blobs of cheese, and a few squashed tomatoes. With a loud groan I grabbed the dust pan out of the corner and started cleaning up after whoever had made this mess. I rolled my eyes when I found out who it was.

Jim, my fellow co-worker on the dinner shift, emerged from freezer in the back room carrying loaves of frozen bread. A balding man in his mid-thirties, he was one of the messiest people I had ever met. Making a sandwich was not exactly hard, but he was a tornado in the kitchen. Every time he worked bits of vegetables would go flying. He couldn't make a sandwich without what seemed like half of the ingredients falling on the floor. Frankly, I was shocked that Ryan didn't fire him for so much wasted product.

I gave Jim a side-eye as I swept up his mess. He either didn't notice or didn't care and proceeded to load the bread into the warmer in preparation for the impending crowds. After filling the dust pan three times with his discarded product, I made my way out onto the dining floor.

It had been a couple hours since the lunch rush, so the dining area wasn't too much of a disaster anymore. But there were some discarded sandwich wrappers lying around, the floor needed mopping, and the trash was overflowing. As I worked on gathering up all the trash for my trip to the dumpster, the bell on the door rang, and an older couple strolled in and gazed up at the menu.

"Hello," I said in a depressed monotone, "welcome to Deli Land."

"A LITTLE MORE ENTHUSIASM, MACINTOSH!" I heard Ryan shout from the back room.

I grumbled to myself and practically dragged the trash bag out the back door.

For the rest of the evening, no one seemed to feel like putting their trash in the proper containers. I spent hours picking up other people's messes. While I played janitor, I stepped on freshly chewed gum, spilled soda on myself, got splattered with soap in the dish room, and stuck my hand in a huge puddle of barbeque sauce someone had left under their sandwich wrapper as a nice surprise for me.

The dinner hours were exceptionally busy. From about 5:00 pm to 7:30 pm, there must have been at least thirty people in the restaurant at any one time. And guess who got stuck cleaning up after all of them? Little old me, the underpaid teenager who could have been doing better things with her time. I swept up after them, cleared their trash, wiped down their tables, and practically kissed their asses on their way out the door, telling them to have a good night in the most cheerful tone I could muster.

Ryan was exceptionally bitchy as well. He nit-picked everything I was doing and bitched me out whenever a table was left uncleaned for more than a couple of minutes. He repeatedly called me useless, threatened another strike against me, and ordered me around with a list of tasks that were impossible to complete in the time constraints he set. While I was slaving away at the tables, he was barking at the two people making sandwiches, and was even bitching at the vendor stocking the shelves with potato chips. So I just kept my distance from him, did everything he told me to do, and didn't ask any questions. It was safer that way.

As the dinner crowd started to thin, I was released from table cleaning duty and given the joyous job of re-mopping the floors. Trying to scrub off the filth created by over two hours' worth of people tramping around in their filthy street shoes was always something I took great pride and joy in doing. It didn't help that the tile floor was a light beige color, and thus showed every speck of dirt and mud and was impossible to totally get clean. It also didn't help that the mop itself was so dirty and gross that it could hardly be called a cleaning tool anymore. When I picked it up, I saw about fifty strands of hair dangling from the grey tendrils. I almost threw up when I saw it. But I just clenched my jaw, sucked it up, and began mopping the stupid floor, knowing full well it would never be clean enough to Ryan's satisfaction.

While I mopped, I heard the bell on the door tinkle again. I didn't even turn my back at first to see who had walked in, but out of instinct began my usual greeting.

"Hello, welcome to Del-"

I stopped dead when I saw that Kabea and Bryce had walked in. I scowled and grumbled a "fucking hell" under my breath as I continued to scrub the floor. I immediately drifted over to a distant corner as far away from them as possible. I knew they were here to make sure that I was all right and that the Sith Lord had not kidnapped or killed me, but they were still the last people I wanted to see tonight.

Kabea and Bryce went up to the counter, glanced at me and my mop, and ordered their food. I hoped that they would just get their sandwiches to go, but as usual, they stuck around to keep an annoyingly close eye on me. When their sandwiches were prepared, they sat down at a table in the middle of the dining area and proceeded to take off their coats. I grumbled and gave them the cold shoulder as I mopped the floor. I hoped that they would leave soon so I could get on with my job in peace.

They took their sweet time eating, so I had no choice but to mop the floor near them or risk Ryan yelling at me for doing an incomplete job. I mopped as fast as I could, but still felt uneasy being near them at all. While I mopped, I caught a snippet of their conversation.

"Any news on Saeleth's whereabouts?" Bryce asked in between potato chips.

"No," Kabea replied in a whisper, "according to Master Seia there's been no trace of him since Friday. He's gone and hid his presence again. We've been forced to search for him without the aid of the Force."

"Damn him," Bryce cursed, "any other updates on what we should be doing?"

Kabea shook her head. "Nothing," she replied, "Master Seia is purposely keeping us out of the loop to prevent another information leak." She shot a quick glare at me, and I pretended to solely focus on the stain I was scrubbing so they would continue talking.

"I'm almost afraid to ask," Bryce mumbled, "but is anything the Council is doing working?"

Kabea shook her head again. "It doesn't appear to be," she answered. "From what little I could glean from the last meeting, his Master is working hard to keep us blind and scattered. He creates disturbances in the Force that serve as diversions, and the Dark Side has clouded the visions of everyone on the Council. We don't know what leads to follow anymore. There's nothing we can do now except physical protection, and hope that the last of the original defenses continue to hold."

"So they're both just biding their time," said Bryce, "prying at our defenses until they can make their move and strike against the Jedi?"

"It appears so," Kabea sighed.

I noticed that I had lingered in the same spot for far too long and decided to mop elsewhere before they noticed that I was eavesdropping.

My head swam as I mopped the floor near the bathrooms. From the way they were talking it sounded like there were two Sith lords! Saeleth was obviously one, but who was the other one? And which was the Master and which was the Apprentice?

My mind reverted back to the Jedi Council meeting I crashed a couple months ago. They had been hung up on Saeleth and never so much as mentioned the possibility of a second Sith! Thinking it over, it made sense. Where there was one there was always another. They never operated alone. If I wasn't mistaken they usually operated in pairs, but that wasn't how it always was. I had thought the Sith died out after Palpatine and Vader's deaths, but then again, that hypothesis was based on the movies. Who knows what actually happened.

I grunted in frustration as I rung out the mop. This whole disaster was becoming more and more complicated by the day. Now there were two Sith Lords no one told me about, one of which was hellbent after me for god knows what reason. My now former best friend was being shunned by everyone, Schlater was going to kick my ass at practice tomorrow, my mom was about to find out that I was failing at least two classes, I now had to find a Homecoming dress, and here I was stuck mopping the floors at Deli Land!

"Something has got to give!" I muttered to myself as I wheeled the mop bucket back into the closet.

By the time I emerged from the broom closet, Kabea and Bryce had stood up and were donning their coats again. I looked at them sharply, praying that they threw away their own trash like normal people. I swore if I had to pick up after these two…

Luckily, unlike virtually every other patron who had come in that night, they figured out the system that trash goes in the bins and the baskets go on the shelf above. I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled smugly at them.

"Have a good night!" I said in a tone that was deliberately fake.

Kabea turned around and shot me a glare. She stopped at the door for a moment and looked like she was about to say something to me. I gave her a daring look and crossed my arms. Instead, she turned around and stormed out without a word.

Working til close was always a drag because I had to work long after we officially "closed". As soon as those outer doors locked I had to scrub everything once again in preparation for the breakfast rush. I also had to help clean behind the sandwich counter while everyone else prepped the food to be stored for the night. It was a long and tedious process, and by the time I was done it was almost 10:00 pm. So much for getting any more homework done tonight.

I trudged back out into the street and over to my bike. The deep cold had started to settle in for the night, and the air was damp and threatened freezing mist. I looked around nervously, hesitant to be out this late on a bike by myself. But my house was not that far, and it was not that late yet. If I hurried, I could be home and back in the safety of my warm bed quickly.

I kicked off the sidewalk and sped down the street, the traffic lights blinking red and yellow for the night. It was Monday, so the streets were relatively deserted. A few homeless people had set up camp for the night in the alleyways, and a few drunkards milled around a couple of the dive bars. Other than that, downtown was eerily empty.

The sound of my bike chain working hard echoed through the deserted streets as I turned onto the road that would lead to my house. I didn't even bother stopping at the red light as I sped across the empty intersection. Soon I was out of downtown and back on the mostly deserted main road that would lead me back to my house. I was about halfway there.

Lei'na…

I nearly crashed my bike at the sound of that name again, carried in a whisper on the frigid air. I gripped the hand breaks and brought my bike to a squealing halt. Panting, I stood with one foot on the sidewalk and the other on the pedal, ready to leap up and get out of there on a moment's notice. My breath was overly loud and billowing around me. I searched the area, but the street was deserted. There was no one who could have so much as shouted that name within earshot, let alone whisper it.

"Who's there?" I called out, my own voice sounding idiotic even to me.

I was met with silence. Only the sound of the wind shaking the bare tree limbs greeted me. I huffed in frustration, ready to get back on my bike and get the hell out of there before this got any weirder. As I prepared to mount, though, I stopped when a crazy thought popped unbidden into my head.

"…Master?" I called into the empty air, my voice meek and shaking.

I didn't even know to whom I was talking. I wasn't even sure what I was saying, and the word sounded crazy as it left my lips. But that seemed to work, and I gasped when a hooded and cloaked shadow appeared about ten feet away. But it wasn't Darth Saeleth. I had no idea how I knew, but my gut knew that this was someone else. Someone I wanted to see much more than Saeleth. But this person wasn't really there. They cast no shadow in the street light, and their cloak didn't move in the breeze. They felt more like a ghost than an actual person. A shadow. A figment of my imagination.

"Who are you?" I asked, fear beginning to hold me in its grip.

Look at me and remember…

I shuddered as that same icy voice sounded in my head. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the cloaked figure was gone.

Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who has read my story up to this point! And another giant thank you for your continued patience with me and my crazy life and inconsistent upload schedule. I have written a bit ahead, and I think you guys will love the twist at the end of the next chapter. So stay tuned!