Story code: ST-000553
Part 2: Company Property
Riley’s hand hovered over the tarnished silver pocket watch. The braided leather lanyard was frayed at the exact spot where a thumb would naturally rub against it. The scent of Old Spice and harsh cutting fluid didn’t just linger in the rusted metal box; it rushed out, punching the frozen air straight out of Riley’s lungs. The phone inside the heavy canvas jacket pocket vibrated again, the frantic buzzing cutting through the heavy, dead silence of the empty locker room.
Riley reached out. The silver casing was freezing, but the cracked glass face felt jagged and intimately familiar.
“Are you admiring the garbage now?” Marcus’s voice cracked like a whip down the narrow aisle of lockers. His polished leather shoes clicked rapidly against the cracked tile as he closed the distance. “I told you to bag it, Riley. We have buyers arriving in twenty minutes. Time is quite literally money.”
Riley didn’t move. The fingers of their left hand closed tight around the watch, the sharp edge of the broken glass biting into the numb skin of their palm. With their right hand, Riley finally reached deep into the canvas jacket and pulled out the vibrating phone.
The screen was blinding in the dim, jaundiced light of the failing fluorescent bulbs. Seven missed calls. Fourteen unread messages.
*Mom.*
The notifications stacked down the cracked glass of the phone screen, bright and demanding.
*Where are you?*
*You promised you’d go to the plant today.*
*He’s getting worse, Riley.*
*The nurses say it won’t be long.*
*Did you find locker G-414? He won’t stop talking about his watch.*
Riley swallowed hard, the bitter cold tasting metallic and dry in the back of their throat. The phone vibrated violently right there in Riley’s palm, the screen flashing with a brand-new incoming call from *Mom*.
“Turn that off,” Marcus snapped, stopping just behind Riley’s shoulder. The liquidator leaned in, the pristine hem of his cashmere coat brushing against Riley’s dirt-stained jacket. Marcus’s eyes darted from the heavy plastic trash bag hanging limply in Riley’s hand, to the empty top shelf of the locker, and then down to Riley’s tightly clenched fist.
“Is that silver?” Marcus asked, his tone dropping its theatrical exhaustion and sharpening into genuine, predatory interest.
Riley pressed the side button on the phone, silencing the ringer, and slipped the device quickly back into the pocket. The watch remained hidden inside Riley’s closed fist. “It’s personal effects. You told me to bag it all.”
“I said to bag the trash,” Marcus corrected, holding out a gloved hand. “Any valuables left on the premises after a bankruptcy auction are legally considered abandoned. They belong to the estate. My estate. Open your hand.”
Riley took a step back, the heel of their heavy work boot scraping loudly against the tile. “It’s a broken pocket watch. The glass is shattered. It’s not worth anything to you.”
“Then you won’t mind handing it over,” Marcus said smoothly. He didn’t raise his voice, but the casual cruelty in his posture hardened into something immovable. “I paid for this building and everything inside it. The copper wire in the walls, the hydraulic presses on the floor, and whatever shiny trinket you just pried out of that rusted box. Give it here.”
Riley’s jaw clenched. The temp agency paid exactly twelve dollars an hour. It was barely enough to cover the week’s gas, let alone the mounting pile of medical bills and past-due notices stacked on the kitchen counter at home. But losing this job meant losing the only incoming cash they had left. If Marcus fired them right here on the floor, the agency would withhold the week’s pay entirely for breach of contract.
“It belonged to a worker,” Riley said, the words slipping out tight and defensive. “A man who worked this line.”
“And now it belongs to me,” Marcus replied, taking a deliberate step forward. “I will not ask you again, Riley. Put the item in my hand right now, or I will call the temp agency, terminate your contract for theft, and have my security detail escort you off the property in handcuffs.”
The phone in the canvas pocket started up again. A long, sustained vibration against Riley’s thigh. Time was running out in more ways than one, the frantic buzzing mirroring the rapid, panicked beating in Riley’s chest.
Riley looked at the worn leather gloves still sitting on the top shelf of G-414. They were permanently molded to the shape of heavy, calloused hands-hands that had worked double shifts in this freezing, miserable plant to keep a family afloat. Hands that had carefully braided the leather lanyard on the watch now hidden in Riley’s fist.
“I’ll buy it from you,” Riley blurted out, the freezing air stinging their throat. “You dock it from my pay today. Twenty dollars. You said yourself it’s just salvage.”
Marcus let out a short, hollow laugh. “You want to negotiate? With my property? I don’t run a charity flea market. You are a temporary worker hired to clean up a mess. You do not dictate terms.” He stepped into Riley’s personal space, towering over them in the cramped, shadowy aisle between the rows of metal lockers. “Hand me the stolen property immediately.”
Riley squeezed the watch tighter. The jagged crack in the glass dug deeper, and a thin, warm line of blood began to seep into the freezing creases of Riley’s palm. The phone buzzed relentlessly against their leg.
Marcus reached out, his soft, cashmere-lined leather fingers wrapping aggressively around Riley’s wrist. “Let it go,” he ordered, his voice dropping to a dangerous hiss.
At that exact moment, the heavy double doors at the far end of the locker room slammed open, the booming echo vibrating violently off the rusted metal walls.
“Mr. Vance?” a deep, unfamiliar voice called out through the gloom. “The scrap buyers are here. They want to walk the floor right now.”
Marcus didn’t turn his head. His grip on Riley’s wrist tightened painfully, squeezing the bones together. “Last chance, temp,” he murmured, his eyes locked dead on Riley’s closed fist. “Drop it in my hand, or I ruin you.”
The phone in Riley’s pocket vibrated one more time, a sharp, stuttering burst, and then went completely, terrifyingly still.