In Total Surrender by Anne Mallory Page A

fucker.
    The silence grew on the other side of his desk. He kept his gaze on the ink stuttering from his new pen as he moved it in what he hoped was the start of an actual number.
    “You are dismissed, Miss Pace,” he said without looking up.
    “Very well.” Her voice was full of verve. Of course it was. He could hear her reattaching that ridiculous thing to her hair and gathering her things. “I’ll see you by the week’s end. I wish you a wonderful afternoon, Mr. Merrick!”
    He peered up as she walked to the door with soft, swaying movements. She turned at the door, catching him staring, and gave him a bright, soft smile, then shut the door behind her.
    He stared at the door for a long, long time, ink pooling around the nib stuck to his page.

Chapter 4
     
    T here was a small woven basket waiting on his desk the next day, still smelling like warmed-from-the-oven sin. A note was attached written with the words “Have a good day!” A drawing of a tiny dog chasing a butterfly completed the absurdity.
    He stood in front of his desk, just staring at it and the basket for a full minute. Asps didn’t smell like baked items, but the latter were no less dangerous. He tented the edge of the cloth cover with his smallest finger. Three fruit tarts lay inside.
    Poisoned most likely.
    He never ate anything that was delivered. Sometimes he didn’t even eat the items brought from the kitchen downstairs. It depended on who cooked and who delivered. He had plenty of experience with an empty belly both before and after he had been dumped on the streets, so it mattered little most days if he survived on salt and water.
    The basket sat untouched on the far corner of his desk until one of the boys swept it away at midday. He felt an absurd amount of relief when it was gone.
    The next day the note said, “Wishing you good luck with your day’s agenda!” and the drawing showed a man playing chess. There was a dog in that one too. Cinnamon and honey wafted through the room.
    The third day it said, “Hard work is beautiful, and you work hard!” with a picture of a grinning dog, tongue out. Andreas’s lips twisted in distaste, and he gingerly pushed the note away from him, so it was facing the other direction from his chair.
    And still he could see the curves of the letters in his head. The hand-drawn figures made for him.
    He was slowly going insane.
    O n the fourth day, he drummed his fingers looking at the top of the newest basket on his desk. At the linen covering the rich-smelling bread beneath.
    Sticky, honey-fingered scent trails finding cracks in the barrier, drifting upward, straight to his brain.
    Each day the baked goods smelled better than the day before. Like she was putting in extra effort each day. Trying to break down a wall that was unassailable.
    He pushed it away.
    Five minutes later, he pushed it farther away.
    Ten minutes later he threw his pen across the room, grabbed the handle of the basket, and strode toward the door. He swung it back in order to chuck it down the hall. Even as it swung past him, the scent trail lifted, and his arm stopped the forward momentum.
    He hadn’t screamed in a very, very long time. But his throat tightened, remembering how.
    He took a deep breath, eyes closed, then triple-locked his door and strode downstairs.
    He tossed the basket to a boy at the door, who barely caught it, stupid surprise painting his features. If the boy was smart, he would get rid of the basket and not open it to find the savory cobras inside. Andreas brushed past him roughly and walked down the alley. The clean alley. Hell, a prostitute would be hard-pressed to choose between the street and her sheets at the moment.
    And he could still smell those fucking biscuits, like they had lodged themselves permanently into the space between his lips and nose. Into his consciousness.
    Standing near a three-day-old hanged man would be preferable, if only to freshen the tainted air.
    Three streets over the shadows behind