Saige and I ride in silence. My hands lace together over the wooden board on my lap. I feel like a child about to be grounded. I don't know which is worse, getting fired from a job or laid off from a friendship.

All things considered, Saige has been pretty good about things since she picked me up in the mall's parking lot. I had parked my car, then walked all the way through the mall to reach the opposite parking lot, where I told Saige to get me. Fortunately, I wasn't panting by the time she arrived, but I'm sure the wild look in my eyes coupled with the facts that I didn't have a car and carried a strange-looking object encased in leather were enough to raise her suspicions. Her lips are pressed tight, and her eyes keep straying to the case.

"I still expect an explanation at some point," Saige says.

"Yeah, sure." Maybe a year from now, after my contract has expired.

The trouble is that even if I wanted to explain, she'd still be mad at me, perhaps even more so than whatever substitute answer I give her. After all, I just broke into a car. How low can I stoop?

Saige sighs, breaking the tension that built since I last spoke. "Look, I just want you to be okay. Are you in some sort of trouble?"

I swallow. "No. I mean, yes, but it's okay. It'll all be fine. Really."

"Is this related to your job?"

My fingers flex, then curl around each other again. "Yes?"

Saige groans. "Cleo, you have to get out. I don't know what just happened, but things have gone too far. It's getting out of hand."

"I know, but—"

"Promise me you'll quit. Just say it wasn't for you."

"I can't," I whisper.

"The money doesn't matter, Cleo."

"It's not about the money. The contract has me locked in for six months."

Saige's jaw drops. "What?"

"I told you before that she can't fire me for six months!" I try to protest.

Her head slumps forward. "Yeah, but I didn't realize it meant you were trapped into working for her." She shakes her head. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know." My voice is barely a whisper.

Saige turns into the Vista Villa parking lot. In daylight, I can truly absorb the complex's extravagance. The exterior stone sparkles in the light, as do the two pillars ascending by the entrance.

"I'll wait for you," Saige says.

I hop out of the car, heading up to Tabitha's apartment. The piano music flowing through the elevator does little to calm my nerves. If anything, my anxiety increases as the floor ascends, as the doors part and I walk through the corridor. I ring the bell outside Tabitha's apartment, and the door swings open moments later.

"You got it!" She reaches long, spindly fingers toward the board. I draw back, unnerved by how pale her skin is. For the first time, I also notice long nails extending from her fingertips, painted a ghostly white to match her hair. Now that I see her in the daylight, she exudes a far more eerie elegance than the wealthy society member I first pegged her for.

"The, uh, car alarm went off." My foot catches on the floor, and I stumble a step before steadying myself.

"Uh-huh." Tabitha flows across the room in a navy pant suit. Satin fabric ripples around her wrists and widens into a puddle at her ankles.

"I think the police are after me."

Tabitha pauses, turning her head sideways so that her eyes aren't quite aligned with me. "Were the police on site?"

"Yes." Worry snakes through me, these slender tendrils emanating from a tightness in my chest and writhing through my limbs. It almost sounds like she knew the police would be there, like she sent me there knowing I'd get caught. My fear morphs into anger. "Why would you send me into that situation? Why force me to break into a car? That wasn't part of our business arrangement."

"I hired you to run errands for me," Tabitha states calmly. "It's not my fault you messed it up the first time. And as for sending you into that situation, well, it'd only get harder to retrieve the board."

"But why?" I burst out. "Who cares about a stupid board?"

Tabitha arches an eyebrow. "Several people, it appears, if someone already stole it from you. As I said before, you were rightfully regaining ownership of an object that belongs to you."

I don't have a reply. I just watch Tabitha cross the room to an end table at the base of a stairwell winding up to the second floor. She places the board on the table while lifting a crisp envelope. Her nail slits open the seal.

"Your next opera is tomorrow night," she said. "Get plenty of rest." She hands me a single, matte ticket.

"I don't get two again?"

Tabitha shakes her head. "You should get used to working alone." She turns, heading back to the table. Then she pauses, not turning around. "You can go."

I scramble out the door, slipping the ticket into my purse. Only one thought plays through my head as I walk through the halls. How am I going to get a ticket for Saige? Because one thing is for certain: I do not want to attend another opera performance with a creepy interlude by myself.

🕸 ✩⋆｡°🕸｡°⋆✩🕸

Excited chatter buzzes through the auditorium. Seats fill up around Saige and me, with guests in dresses and tuxedos. Saige and I seem to be the only ones without smiles. We don't talk much, mainly reading the program that describes the tragedy we're about to watch. But I didn't pay two-hundred dollars to buy her a ticket.

An elderly couple hobbles over, standing in the aisle right beside me. The woman puts her reading glasses on, staring at the ticket in her hand. She compares it with the row and seat numbers.

"Excuse me," she says. "I believe those are our seats." She motions to where Saige is seated and the space beside it.

Of course someone would be sitting right next to me. The ticket I bought for Saige had been way in the back, row NN instead of M in the front. I gave Saige my ticket tonight so that she wouldn't ask questions about the seating discrepancy. But the one thing that could go wrong, someone having bought a ticket with Saige's seat number on it, went wrong.

My brow furrows as I feign confusion. "Really? Let me take a look."

Saige's eyes narrow. I step into the aisle, my heart picking up the tempo in my chest. I look down at the ticket in the woman's hand, then compare it with my own. A forced chuckle escapes me.

"Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry. I thought that this was for row M, not NN."

"It's alright," the elderly woman says. "Mistakes happen."

She waits patiently by the aisle. I exchange glances with Saige. If not for the conversation around us, an awkward silence would've descended between the four of us.

"You know what?" Saige says, snatching her purse up from the seat. "I'll sit in row NN."

My heart cracks. My face twists, trying to suppress the wave of tears forming in my eyes. "I-I'll join you."

"No, you just stay here," Saige says. "I don't want you taking anyone else's seats. We'll meet up after the opera." Her black stilettos click angrily away.

The elderly couple file into their seats. A scowl hardens on my face, I try my best not to point it at them.

It's not their fault. It's yours. I repeat this in my head when I sit down. My fingers slip into my purse, retrieving my phone. The performance begins in four minutes, so I slide the earpieces in my ears, turning one on like last time.

Soon, the lights flash and fade, darkness settling over the crowd. The opera 'Die Ernte' commences. It opens with a farmer walking out on stage, tending the fields he will soon harvest. The opening song is exuberant, full of excitement and energy as the opera singers dance around crop props. The tone quickly darkens, though, as do the bright stage lights.

The music takes on a pitter-pattering tone, resembling rain. Violins strike high-pitched notes, first short and sweet, then lowering in pitch and growing faster, more intense. White lights sprinkle across the stage to give the illusion of rain. The farmer steps out, holding his hands out. He starts out unconcerned, singing that a little rain is good for crops.

As the rain heightens into a roaring storm, the farmer becomes more frantic. Lights flash to resemble lightning, and the instruments fast chromatic notes that sound like angry thunder. The farmer grows increasingly concerned about his harvest as crops fall over and are dragged off-stage, probably by invisible ropes. His singing becomes frantic as he begs the sky to stop pouring out its wrath, but the storm closes its ears and continues to rage. Soon, the farmer's harvest is destroyed.

The music cuts out. The farmer releases a tremendous, ear-splitting wail, his arms splayed out to the spotlight overhead. A mournful tune plays through the air, and the chorus steps slowly onto the stage, forming a line behind the farmer, whose face is turned upward.

In unison, the chorus sings a minor chord in harmony. The male actor on stage paces back and forth, raises his fist to the flickering lights. He doesn't sing with the chorus. As operatic words pour from the stage, a dissonant note rises in the air, sending chills down my spine. It's not exactly out of character for the piece, but it adds a ghostly undercurrent to the already sorrowful song.

"Singing loud, singing proud. Singing for an empty crowd."

I startle. My fingers fly to my earpiece, and I turn the right one on. The chorus falls silent, and all I can hear are eerie notes clashing and clanging together. The melodic lines ascend, jumping between unresolved intervals and leaving a sense of incompleteness at the end of each line before dropping to low notes again.

"Listen up, I only sing once. Shipment Friday to Friendly Scales. Angel 257 is quite a catch."

My brow furrows. I could swear this voice is identical to the one of the actor on stage. While retrieving a notepad for the message, I steal glances at the stage. The actor's mouth doesn't move, though it is parted slightly like he's breathing heavily.

I transcribe the slew of numbers that comes. His voice drops to nothing. A ringing pierces my eardrums, and I turn both earpieces off, rubbing my ear.

The farmer jumps onto a rock, flinging his arm forward. German words pour from him again. It's the same voice that sang in english. But if he was singing in english just now, why wasn't his mouth moving more?

Unease crawls over me for the rest of the performance. Even during the intermission, I don't stand to hunt down Saige. I can't bear another altercation with her, especially if there isn't enough time to properly explain.

The final musical number is a dramatic scene, full of more thunder and lightning effects. The chorus members, dressed in ragged clothes, writhe on the stage floor from hunger. With every clash of symbols, another member of the chorus succumbs to starvation. At last, the farmer raises out his arm one last time before it falls limp. Symbols clash together, and the opera is over, as are the lives of every village member.

Applause erupts throughout the room. Some audience members even stand, and the word "encore" ripples through the seats.

Oh, gosh. Please, no more death. I don't understand how people can find this entertaining. It is macabre and dark, quite the opposite of what I need right now.

Light pours over the audience hall once more. I bolt up the aisle to row NN, where I find Saige crawling over guests to reach the end. She wears a bored scowl that screams "I'm just so done with you." I gulp, trailing behind her in the crowd pushing through the doors and into the foyer.

"What the heck was that all about?" Saige hisses in my ear once we're back in the wide open lobby. Fluorescent lights reflect off the white floor, blinding me.

My lick my red-stained lips. "You mean the opera? It was pretty weird..."

"You know what I mean. About the tickets."

"Oh." I shrug. "I guess Tabitha ordered the wrong ticket. I mean, NN looks very similar to M."

"I find it difficult to believe she'd mess up that badly. Normally when buying tickets, you click to select the seats you want. She'd be pretty far off to click seats in totally different locations. It's like she didn't want me sitting next to you."

"Well, maybe all the seats were bought up in that row."

"And she couldn't get one closer?"

"Maybe that was one of the last seats left."

Saige rolls her eyes, glimmering with hurt. "Yeah, sure. Whatever you say. Let's just get you home."

Saige stalks toward the entrance. I trail behind her, hurt pressing in my chest. Of course I feel guilty for what happened. I caused her pain.

I need to make it up to her some way. But how?

Tell her the truth. No more white lies.

Somehow, I can't quite bring myself to do that, not now, not yet.

As I'm mulling over my situation, there's a clattering sound beside me. I turn in time to see a little round object skipping across the floor. It reminds me of a marble or a pebble, not something I'd expect in an opera theater. Perhaps someone's necklace just broke?

A man brushes past me, racing after the object. He has black hair combed to one side, slicked down with hairgel, and he wears a black tuxedo tailored to his medium-sized build. His hand reaches out, snatching the round item in mid-air.

He whirls around. The lines in his dark-tanned face deepen as he smiles.

"Sorry, ladies."

"Oh, it's alright," Saige says.

The man gives a polite nod before his hand dips into his pocket, removing a small case. When he pops the lid, there's another round object inside, a white, smooth piece of metal.

I freeze. My eyes can't peel themselves away from the case, from the round electronic pieces inside the case.

Earpieces. This man brought earpieces to the opera, too.

The man zips the rogue earpiece away, looking up once more. His smile falters when he catches my stare.

"Is everything okay?" he asks.

"Y-yeah. Yeah, of course."

He nods. "That's good. Well, good night." He strides off, casting a single glance over his shoulder directly at me.

I turn around and force my limbs to continue walking, to follow Saige from the theater. But my head spins a million miles a minute.

It could be a hearing aid. It could be any-old generic earbud.

I don't believe that. They are identical, same size and shape, same silver button on the side. They may look generic, but my earpieces are anything but that. And I have a feeling his may transmit the same, strange messages as mine.

The question is why. Why are we both here for the same message that no one else can hear?

What hidden significance lies in those eerie words and numbers?