Chess had gone… interestingly. They hadn’t had much more conversation, but Albert had beaten Amy at least twice more after Hope left. After that, though, Amy had gone on a winning streak. Albert accepted it as luck only going so far. Before long, though, Amy had indicated the time and that Albert needed to head home. He had completely forgotten about what it would be like if he arrived home late and his mother was waiting for him. She was already definitely nervous and Albert sincerely hoped that she wasn’t notified when the rest of his teachers realized that he skipped class.

If they realized he had skipped at all.

So, it was with cautious optimism that Albert made his way through the door of his apartment at almost exactly the same time he did every day after walking home from school. He had timed it out with Amy when she dropped him off down the street. Hopefully it would be normal enough to convince his paranoid mother, but Albert was still nervous.

“How was school?”

Albert’s mom was cleaning dishes at the kitchen sink just to his left as he entered the apartment. She wasn’t looking at him.

“Eh, it was school.” Albert tried his best to be nonchalant, but he wasn’t sure if he was pulling it off. “So, normal, I guess. Which is nice…”

“So, you’re going to skip school and lie to me.” Albert’s mom hissed as she looked up from the sink and towards Albert. “The school resource officer called me today to tell me that you skipped out after first period. A policeman called me. Because truancy is a crime. And while the worst they can do to you is expel you, I could get in serious trouble too.”

“Okay. I left school early. I was having a really hard time, everyone was looking at me like I was a freak. I couldn’t focus.”

“Why didn’t you come home, then?”

Albert paused. He hadn’t thought about that. He had hoped she wouldn’t find out at all, so any sort of backup explanation had slipped his mind. He didn’t have a good reason he could give her as to why he didn’t come back home once he’d left school. It was in walking distance, and she might have even been fine with it if he had told her what had happened then.

“Amy… caught me freaking out in the hallway between classes and helped me calm down and clear my head.” Albert couldn’t think of a better way to phrase it, even though he fully knew that his mother would read into the phrasing and draw a completely incorrect conclusion.

“Has this all just been an elaborate setup then? You get injured, Amy comes over to help you so that I can meet her and get to know her a little, so that when I find out you're meeting up in private and skipping school I’ll be nicer to you and your girlfriend?” She was furious. Albert thought he heard something break when she threw whatever dish she had been holding back into the sink.

“No. We aren’t dating. She isn’t my girlfriend. I don’t even like her like that. She’s just a nice friend… and… and it’s nice to talk to someone my own age instead of relying on my mom for everything.” Albert was being honest, but was trying very hard to change the subject to an argument he could win. Hopefully she would be distracted by the emotional nature of the argument and wouldn’t notice.

“How am I supposed to believe you?” His mother was exasperated now. “You’ve already lied to me about skipping school, and I know you’re hiding something else with Amy.”

“She’s…” Albert didn’t know what to tell his mother, or how to phrase it so that he could leave her in the dark about arbitration and contracting. “She’s helping me with something. Something important. But I can’t talk to you about it.”

“Is it drugs? Are you involved in something illegal?” Her voice had softened into a more fearful tone. Clearly she wasn’t eager to confront whatever was happening, but she wasn’t backing down.

“It’s not illegal.” Albert was pretty sure there was no law on earth that could prevent someone from doing what Death did and had asked him to do. Normally laws weren’t equipped to deal with the implications that magic or souls were real things that caused problems.

“Okay, why can’t I know about it then?”

That was a harder question for Albert, and he had to stop and think of how to answer it properly. The pause wasn’t reassuring to his mother, he could tell, but he didn’t know what else to do.

“It involves other people… that I don’t want you to meet.” Albert wasn’t entirely sure where he was going with his explanation, but he was going somewhere. “To be honest, I didn’t really want you to meet Amy either, but I can’t really stop her from doing things. She’s intimidating.”

Throwing truth in with the lies and half truths made the whole story slightly more reasonable. At least from Albert’s perspective. He knew he wasn’t being straightforward, and he knew his mom wasn’t buying most of it, but he couldn’t think of a better way to handle the situation. Albert wished, at that moment, that he could sit down with his mother at Death’s arbitration desk so that she could be reassured that he wasn’t lying to her without having to tell her the whole truth. But that situation obviously involved exposing her to the very things he was trying to keep her away from.

“Are you ever going to tell me the truth?” His mother sighed. He couldn’t tell if she was defeated, or if she was too disappointed to continue. If she felt she was only being lied to, Albert could see why she wouldn’t want to keep the interrogation going.

“If everything goes right, I could tell you. But if it doesn’t… I don’t think so.”

“Okay.” She sighed again and turned back to the sink with a grumble.

Albert wasn’t sure what to do at that point. Staying in the apartment was already feeling awkward, but leaving would just strengthen the divide that he had just made between himself and his mom. Going to his room and shutting himself away wouldn’t do much good either. There was nothing for him to do there and he’d just be trapped there with his thoughts.

“I’m… going to go for a walk.” Albert muttered just loud enough for his mother to hear. “I’ll try and be back before you leave for work.”

His mom didn’t respond, or even look up, she just gave him an absent waving gesture, as if to say ‘clearly, I can’t stop you.’ It was sad, but Albert didn’t know what else to do. There weren’t any good options. As he turned to open the door, he paused, contemplating what would happen if he didn’t leave, but all the conclusions he reached in his head felt just a little worse than what would happen if he left.

Albert didn’t know where he was going as he walked. He wasn’t spaced out, but he wasn’t focusing either. Without paying attention, he found himself at the same strip mall where he contracted Arnie. When he noticed where he was standing, he began to panic. He didn’t exactly feel bad that he had done what he had done, but he still wasn’t okay with what had happened either. There was no crime scene tape or evidence that anyone else had been their either. His body was probably still in the store he had slipped and fallen. That thought sent a wave of nausea through Albert and he had to cover his mouth to prevent himself from heaving as he quickly walked away.

Albert didn’t go out on casual walks, mainly just from home to school and back. So he didn’t know where to go after experiencing the tension at his apartment and the trauma at the strip mall. Before long, however, Albert found himself back at the park where he had played chess with Amy earlier that day. Now that school had gotten out, there were more people there, including a few other kids that looked his age. The whole area had a completely different look and feel to it than it had before when it was empty.

For lack of a better option, Albert sat down on one of the wooden park benches by the side of the walking path and looked up into the tree branches overhead. It wasn’t particularly interesting, but it was something that he could focus on outside of his head that wasn’t a person or empty space. It was almost entrancing to watch the wind move the branches and the leaves, to see the sun filter through the green in a gentle sort of strobe. It was almost like watching TV static.

Albert wasn’t sure how long he had sat there and stared up into space, but when he caught hold of reality again, it had grown darker. The sun was still up, but it was closer to twilight hours. His mother had probably already gone to work, giving her even more reason to be disappointed in him.

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There was a creek in the wood as the bench shifted beneath Albert. Someone else had sat down just a little to his left.

“I have good news, neutral news, and I’m guessing you have bad news.” Amy announced.

Albert didn’t look down from the trees as he responded.

“My mom got a call from the school resource officer that I skipped classes. So I tried to tell her enough to get her to calm down and it kind of made things worse…”

“Did you tell her anything about your situation?”

“Just that we aren’t an item, I’m not doing anything illegal, but I am doing something and that it involves other people I don’t want her to meet.”

“All true.” Amy muttered with a defeated sigh. “But not very clever. She definitely won’t let me visit again. I knocked a little bit ago at your apartment and I heard your mom check the peep hole in the door, but she didn’t answer. I’m honestly surprised I found you, by the way. But that’s probably just your luck.”

“Yeah. I don’t really want to talk about that, not unless you’ve got a better cover story for me. What’s your news?”

“I’ll start with the neutral news.”

Albert finally looked down to glance at Amy, but she was looking up into the trees as well.

“Remember the nurse you almost got to sign a contract the other day?”

“Yeah. That was… awful.”

“She didn’t dissipate. She was resuscitate. I checked back with the hospital staff saying I was a journalist for some local paper and I’d heard a story about a dead nurse. Turns out it was an attempted suicide and a coworker found her in time to revive her. I got to speak to her too, she was still recovering in a room and being closely monitored. But she didn't recognize me and she seemed to have a renewed vigor for life... for some reason.”

“That’s…” Albert thought about that. “That’s actually nice to hear. Not the suicide part. I’m glad she’s not dead. I feel a little less bad now.”

“Good. I’m glad I found out what was up too. I’ve never actually witnessed a spirit get sucked back to it’s body before, so now I know what that looks like… at least, if you weren’t lying to me.”

“Nope.”

“Good news then?”

“If it’s actually good news. Kinda feels like I don’t have space for good news in my head, but why not.”

“There was a bodega robbery downtown today.”

“I don’t see how that’s good news.”

“One of the robbers was shot by the clerk and died at the scene.”

“You’re trying to say that there’s a soul there that I can contract?”

“Yes. They’re fresh, and criminals actually make for pretty good arbitration. Something about being at the point where you’re tipped over the edge and choose violence or mischief over the normal way of doing things makes your soul more… vibrant, I guess. I would say sturdier, but it isn’t quite right either.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that. But, take into account that I’m a teenager. I’m a pasty shut-in kid that doesn’t talk to people.”

“I dunno, Albert. You’ve been doing just fine up till now. Luck might have a lot to do with it, but there’s some skill too. Not much. But some… probably.”

“That’s very reassuring, Amy. Thank you.”

“Look, luck can only get you so far. That’s why you stopped winning chess matches. After a while, you need to rely on some skill too. After three mostly successful arbitrations, I think I can safely say that you haven’t been scraping by on just luck.”

“Three?” Albert was confused. He would only say one, maybe two if he was being generous with the what happened when he was trying to get the nurse to sign.

“I’m counting your contract too. Death doesn’t bend, Albert. But he took a step to the side for you.” Amy looked down and took a more careful look at the world around them. “That doesn’t happen. He'll still come for your soul again some day, but when you bought yourself some time you did something I don't think I've ever seen someone do. You must have said the right things, at the right time, in the right way. That or whatever spiritual property you have is just so valuable that Death isn’t going to let you fail. Either way, you made it out of that room successfully.”

“Whatever. I don’t really believe that. But, whatever.” Albert sighed and took a look around for Amy’s car. “Shouldn’t we be going to that bodega?”

“It’s not that big of a rush. But sure. I didn’t know if you wanted to talk about anything or not, so I thought I’d give you a chance.” Amy shrugged as she got up and started walking over to the rental car.

Albert followed her quietly, slightly regretting the lost opportunity to talk about his frustrations. But as he sat in the passenger seat of the car and let Amy drive to the other side of town, he realized that a lot of what had bothered him earlier that day didn’t seem as bad now. The half measures, the unfortunate circumstance of his death, the pain, the lying—it felt… relaxed. Albert thought back to try and figure out how long it had been since any of it had really bothered him, but the last time he felt overwhelmed by it all was just before Amy had started playing chess with him. There was still some confusion as he had gone through his questions, though. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he had stopped feeling so bad when he had lashed out at Hope. Venting, even in anger, had actually let out a lot of what was bothering him. Someone else knew what it was like to be him for just a moment, and that was nice. Even if it was Hope.

Albert almost felt bad that he had had such a purely negative interaction with Amy’s boss… and Death’s daughter. But he was still more worried about the consequences of his actions than resentful of them.

When Amy pulled the car to the side of the road and put it in park, Albert had to snap back to reality to take in where they actually were. He wasn’t particularly familiar with the downtown area, but the street seemed vaguely familiar to him. There was still a police car parked outside of the bodega, and there was police tape over a broken window pane, but it looked like the area was mostly deserted. At least, no one was crowded around the store and it looked like the business was closed for the day.

Amy handed over the glasses case that held her spirit seeing glasses over to Albert and took out her own contact lenses case. As Albert donned the glasses, he wondered how many of those lenses she had. Or if they were even different lenses each time. She had plenty of time to do things while they weren’t together, so she probably stopped by whatever headquarters Death had and picked up supplies… or at least that was Albert’s guess. He was still curious though.

With the glasses on, Albert immediately saw a spirit pacing the sidewalk just outside the bodega. It was a taller man, wider shoulders, short trimmed hair, strong yellow tint to his whole body. They were oddly very defined against the world around them, something Albert hadn’t picked up on with any other spirit. Though that could have just been a color contrast effect. After the comparison with the other colors of spirit Albert had seen at the hospital, he wondered what color tint he’d had when he was dead. Albert had to shake his head to refocus on the task at hand.

The man’s spirit paced the sidewalk, occasionally looking up around him as if waiting for something to happen. But when nothing did, he went back to pacing. He looked oddly calm for a dead man. Moreover, a dead man that probably new he was dead.

Once Amy had her contracts in she looked to Albert with a questioning gesture.

“I don’t know how to handle this. You usually do the capturing thing.” Albert hissed at her.

Amy rolled down the passenger window of the car to better see the spirit and it noticed. The man made eye contact with Albert immediately, and before Albert could react properly he was talking.

“You can see me, can’t you. You Death’s collectors?”

Albert was taken aback, and when he looked to Amy for help he was surprised to see that she looked just as shocked as he did.

“Yeah. I’m an arbitrator. Were you expecting us?” Albert tried not to sound too clueless as he asked the spirit, but there was no avoid it. They were clearly caught off guard.

“I was expecting the creepy guy in the suit, he makes deals around here sometimes. I never talked with him, but I hear things. Some of the guys that bit it a couple days ago would talk about him, and I thought them turning up dead was a good sign that it was some kind of serious business.”

Albert thought back to his own arbitration to try and dig up the names of the men that had killed him and alerted Death.

“Dickie?” Albert remembered the more unfortunate name first, but bringing it back up made the other follow. “… and Austin, right?”

“Yeah. That’s them.”

“I’m familiar with them.” Albert had to try very hard not to mention that they’d killed him. “And I presume you don’t have a contract with Death? I don’t think your spirit would be lingering like it is if you did.”

“I don’t mess with dark magic and voodoo and spirit boards and that nonsense. Guess I’m dead now, so I could probably use a friend that does that stuff.”

“We’re not so much into the magic stuff. We just collect souls.” Albert was being more forward with this man than he expected. It was like every time he opened his mouth, he didn’t know what was going to come out.

“How’s that work then?”

Albert turned to Amy and received a reassuring nod to go ahead.

“It’s pretty simple, I just need you to sign your soul over. In exchange, we can arrange a couple different things to ease your passing. If you want. But it’s easier to do in a more private space. If you step in here my driver can take you to our arbitration room.”

The man shrugged and went to open the door to the backseat of the car. It took him a moment before he realized that his hand was going through the door itself. But once that clicked in his head, he stepped awkwardly through the car door itself and stooped into the interior space. Albert had no idea if the car would take him with it if it started moving, but he didn’t have to worry about it.

As soon as the man was in the car, Amy closed the window and leaned back into the backseat with the pen in her hand. With a quick jab of the tip against the man’s leg, he was gone.

“That was… easier than I expected.” Albert bit his lip, still slightly confused and worried that this was going too smoothly.

“You seem to know more than I do, or at least you know his friends. A natural arbitration isn’t unheard of, though. I usually just force people into the room because it’s faster and intimidating.”

“Well, I think I’m not going to be getting much readier than I already am.”

Albert scooped the file folder of contracts off the back seat of the car, looked around for the ink well before Amy handed it to him, and then held out his hand for the pen.

Amy gave him a look as he held his hand out, deliberately withholding what he was after. It took a moment for Albert to remember the mantra.

"Right. This is going to suck."

With the mantra repeated, Amy held the pen out and dropped it into Albert's hand. As soon as it touched his skin, he was sent out of the car and into the arbitration room. The transition was familiar this time, and he was completely prepared to be sent away.

Albert was determined to do everything right this time.