Page 8 of Run From Me

We were outside, and I breathed in a lungful of fresh air. Fuck, death smelled real bad when it wasn’t fresh.

She stayed quiet even as we crossed the street, and I had to just guess where she lived. I’d thought about stalking her before, but with all the shit that had happened recently, when did I have time? Just kidding, I knew her address. I just wasn’t letting her know that.

“This is me,” she said, quieter than I’d have expected. Her tone didn’t match the confidence that had been running through that tiny little body of hers a moment ago.

“K? You want me to wait in the lobby?”

It was more like a dark stairwell than a lobby. It looked like no one had bothered fixing up the place since the turn of the century. One more red flag. I shouldn’t care where she lived.

She shook her head slowly at first, like she wasn’t really sure what she wanted. She started toward the keyed door and paused.

I watched her shoulders rise and fall before she turned to me.

“Don’t say anything. Up there. In my apartment. Just don’t say anything.”

My eyes narrowed.

“Why?” I asked.

She shook her head again.

“I’ll explain later. At the party.”

I put my hands in my pockets before they could reach out and either punch something or pull her into a hug. Fuck. A hug? I didn’t hug.

“Right. Well, let’s get you dressed,” was what I ended up saying even though it wasn’t even half of what I’d been thinking. Why couldn’t we talk in her apartment?

She was moving again, turning her key in the lock. It wasn’t what I would call the most secure place. I’d have been able to pick that lock in seconds. So far, I didn’t like how she lived.

The carpet in the entrance?

“I think this matches the pattern of my grandma’s couch,” I said.

The stairs creaked with each footstep. They seemed to groan under my weight. I supposed at least that served as some kind of home security.

“Your grandma has a couch like this?”

She gave me a little smile over her shoulder.

I couldn’t read this woman. One minute, I swear I could see something like fear, or at least a weakness. The next, she’s flashing me a smile like she has the upper hand.

“Yeah. I don’t know. I imagine she’d have a couch like this, though. She moved, like, twenty years ago to Florida or something. No idea if she’s even still alive.”

She stopped on the landing of the second floor.

“Sorry.”

She put a key into the deadbolt of the door to her apartment. This looked marginally more secure, and I’d know because this lock was harder to pick. Still. She was living with a false sense of security.

“No reason to be. I’ve got all the family I need right here. Is that the only lock on this door?”

She looked at where her hand turned the key and back at me.

“Yeah. Sorry I don’t live in Fort Knox like Rylee did. I can’t exactly afford what she could.”

The door seemed to stick as she rammed her hip into it before it opened.

“You can’t tell me that you can’t afford something better than this? The city pays decently, doesn’t it? Fuck—” I stopped as she walked in. Her eyes went blank the second I mentioned that. What the hell was going on here?

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