Unfinished Muse Read Online Free

through my purse as quietly as I could
so as not to attract further attention. Fortunately, I’d gone
through a stage where I thought I wanted to write poetry, so I had
a pen and mini notebook with me. I flipped past several
half-finished sonnets to a blank page.
    “Now that we’re all here,” the small lady
said, “we’ll begin.” She cleared her throat. “I’m Mrs. Moros, and
you’ll be spending the next few days with me. At the end of the
week, you’ll get your work assignments, provided you make it
through orientation and testing.”
    Ah. So there is a test. I knew it.
    She rested her hands on her hips and paced
while she spoke. “You’re all here for the same reason: you’ve hit
bottom. Every last one of you has managed to screw up your
life.”
    A rumble went through the crowd, and people
gave each other sideways glances.
    “No,” she said, raising her voice. “Don’t go
looking at your neighbor to see who’s the bigger loser. You’re all
losers in my book.”
    Somewhere in the back row—which honestly was
only five rows back—someone sniffled. Part of me wanted to object,
but the rest of me had to stifle a laugh. Yes, I’d quit my job, but
that didn’t make me a loser. For one thing, I didn’t get fired. I
left on my own terms.
    This wrinkled, bossy little stick figure
doesn’t know anything about me.
    She swung around and stared at me. “That’s
one,” she said.
    “What?” She couldn’t have heard me. I didn’t
say anything out loud.
    “Guard your thoughts, Wynter. You’ll want to
have more self-control than that if you’re ever going to make
anything of your wasted life.” She spun around and marched off to
say something probably equally chilling to a bald guy at the end of
the row.
    I sat dumbfounded, my arms prickling with
raised hairs. Mrs. Moros knew my name.
    And she’d heard exactly what I’d been
thinking.

Chapter 3
    Over the course of that week, I had several
opportunities to regret having quit my crappy call-center job.
    The rest of that first morning, I sat as
still as I could in my chair while Mrs. Moros droned on about the
company, its heritage, and more times than I cared to count, how
pathetic we all were.
    The second time she said it, my gut clenched
and my jaw tightened, but I did my best not to think anything that
might get me into trouble. The woman was seriously scary, despite
her tiny size and wrinkled exterior. The fact that I had to guard
my thoughts was scary all by itself. What kind of place was
this?
    The kind of place with a gorgon for a
receptionist, that’s what.
    By lunch, my head hurt, my stomach gurgled,
and my ass felt like I’d been riding a horse cross-country. Sitting
still wasn’t really my thing, but every time I’d squirmed, she
nailed me back in place with her beady little eyes.
    Of course, I didn’t think about it that way
as she did it. She’d have heard me with her wicked mind-reading
skills. Seriously scary-ass woman.
    She let us go at noon with the admonishment
that we needed to be back by one. I had no idea where we were
going, but I followed the crowd out the door and down the hallway.
We took a winding path through the building, past columns, across a
rotunda, and through a pair of glass double doors marked
Ambrosia.
    I knew ambrosia was supposed to be the food
of the gods from Greek mythology. I got it. I also thought it was a
mean joke. No matter where you were, cafeteria food should never be
referred to as ambrosia. Not even in jest.
    I grabbed an orange tray and placed a fruit
cup on it. I watched as a redhead with short, bouncy curls ordered
the brown stuff in the back row of silver containers. The cafeteria
worker scratched underneath her hairnet and plopped a spoonful of
mystery meat on a plate.
    “Next.” She eyed me with suspicion, as if
she thought I might try to custom order something.
    I pointed at a container of chunky orange
stuff. “Is that macaroni and cheese?”
    She grunted. “Yes. You want