*Jonathan Cold*

A high-pitched pop song chimed randomly from somewhere in the Criswell house.

"Oh, that's my cellie." Their daughter, Kelly, appeared suddenly. She pulled a tiny cell phone from her pocket and pressed a button to silence it.

"Cellie?" I repeated mockingly under my breath. Rich people were always using baby-talk, and, because they were rich, no one ever bothered to tell them how stupid they sounded.

Kelly Criswell was my age, which meant that she had also recently met Lillith Eldertree. I wondered if she'd liked what Lillith had told her, but, I knew I hadn't enjoyed my meeting.

Lillith had began assessing me, but her brother Cato had instantly predicted that I was going to die young, so there wasn't really a point to assigning me a career or future spouse. Needless to say, I was a little upset by that.

"Oh," Kelly exclaimed, suddenly dragging me out of my self-pitying dream world. "I didn't know we had company."

"We don't," Mr. Criswell explained smirking condescendingly in my direction. "The Colds are just here to help around the house today."

My mother and I had been hired to clean and do small repairs around the Criswell house as well as doing any other chores they were too lazy to complete themselves. I knew we needed the money, but I couldn't help resenting them for it.

Mom and I had been rich once, before my dad had been arrested, but, because everything we had owned had been under his name, Mom and I had been left with nothing when the government confiscated all of his belongings.

I could handle almost anything, it was Mom I was worried about. I thought she deserved much better, and, despite what she always told me, I felt housework was beneath her.

Mr. Criswell sent me outside to start cleaning their pool. I had been working for about half an hour when I felt someone watching me.

I was used to being watched. Since I'd been caught shoplifting, the authorities hadn't taken their eyes off me. But, whoever was watching me now didn't seem disgusted with me; I didn't feel the usual patronizing glare burning into my skin, only the annoying tingle alerting me of another person's curiousity.

I spun to face whoever it was and growled, "What?"

"Oh!" Kelly Criswell gasped, obviously startled by me. "I'm sor-... I mean, oh, never mind. I was just..."

She trailed off, I could tell that she'd been about to apologize, but then she had remembered the unwritten rule: the wealthy never apologized for anything. They had the world at their feet for a reason: because they never made mistakes.

"No, I'm sorry," I ammended quickly. "I thought you were...I shouldn't have..."

I couldn't think of anything else to say. I sighed as the awkwardness settled between us again.

"You're sixteen right?" Kelly spoke after a minute and I waited a few additional seconds to confirm that the question had been directed at me.

"Yeah," I answered with a nod and turned my attention back to the pool. The water it contained, I noticed, was only a few shades lighter than Kelly's crystal blue eyes.

"So, what kind of car did they give you?" Kelly asked, sweetly.

"Um, they..." I stammered.

There were two things that I would never admit to anyone. One of those was the fact that Lillith Eldertree and the rest of the Central Government had no intentions of providing me with a car or any other survival assets. The other was that I knew absolutely nothing about cars.

I scrambled for a car's description and finally settled for, "Um, a blue one...What'd you get?"

"I didn't."

"What?"

"Well, Lillith said there wasn't really a point, you know, because I'm rich. I don't even have to leave the house, right? I should just stay home and have rich babies or something. It's so boring!" She sighed. "I mean, I'm safe, anyway, and comfortable, but... but I get lonely sometimes."

I snorted unsympathetically, "Everyone does."

I deceided that the pool was clean enough. I gathered up the supplies I'd been using and began walking away, fingering a cigarette in my pocket.

Shaking my head, I turned back to Kelly. "But at least YOU'RE guranteed a tomorrow."