Page 61 of Cruel Games

“Hey, earth to Coyote.”

I blinked away from the inner thought spiral I was trapped in, glancing over to the doorway. Jackal peeked out of the frame, his knuckles turning white from the force he was using on the poor wood.

“Maybe you could clean your ears and listen sometime? I’ve been yelling for you for a while now.”

“Sorry,” I muttered, ducking my head. I waited to see what he needed me for, but he didn’t continue, instead looking at Dingo. “If I have to spend one more minute alone with her, I’m gonna lose my mind. Come be a buffer. I’m sure her little lap dog can handle the door on his own.”

Dingo shrugged and followed him into the apartment, leaving me on my own out here in the hallway. I decided to count the tiles on the floor to keep myself occupied, thoughts scattered to the wind.

One. Two. Three—fuck, the pattern was atrocious. Who picked this shit? Was it on sale?

Four, five. Six, seven, eight—did the cracked one count as a whole tile?

Time crept by as I paced the length of the hallway, studying the flooring choice like my life depended on it. Jackal, Dingo, and Ivy still hadn’t emerged from the apartment when another person emerged from the nearby stairwell and headed in my direction. I froze, hoping they kept going or went into an apartment between them and us.

Of course, life rarely did things to the benefit of killers and liars, so of course the girl kept walking, only stoppingwhen she came to the door I stood in front of.

Her eyes traveled up my body from my feet to my head, and she let out a low whistle. “Uh, hi. Are you lost or something?”

I shook my head, jerking my thumb toward the apartment. I tried to speak, but my sudden social anxiety kicked into high gear, stealing all the language I possessed, making me all kinds of irate and unapproachable, none of which seemed to deter the woman in front of me.

“That’s my apartment,” she said finally, pointing over my shoulder. “So, uh, it’d be real nice if you could maybe get out of the way so I could go inside?”

I shrugged, stepping to the side. Who was I to determine who did and didn’t live here? Ivy hadn’t mentioned a roommate might show up, and besides, Jackal and Dingo were in there with her. Nothing would happen to her while they were there?—

“Fuck.”

I turned and followed the roommate into the apartment, feeling disoriented as I struggled to get the lay of the place. There were doors everywhere, not a hallway to be seen. Everything was open floor plan style, two doors on opposite sides of the living room, a third door at the far end, possibly a bathroom.

So this was how normal people lived.

Clothes were strewn over the back of the couch: jackets and pants and a flannel shirt that looked well-worn, along with a blanket and a knit afghan. On the floor were discarded shoes, strewn everywhere from the front door to the windows, not a single one a matching set. Cups and plates stacked on the coffee table, pizza boxes on the floor by the garbage can, even a stack of dishes in the sink that looked like they might be attracting flies.

Who lived in this kind of squalor?

“I’m gone for like three days, and you already trashed this place in my absence. Really, Hilary, it’s like you never learned how to be an adult, I swear!”

Ivy came marching out the door to the left, hands tugging ather hair in exasperation. Behind her trailed the woman from the corridor, hands on her hips, a scowl on her lips as she plunked herself down on the couch amongst the chaos.

Her hands ran through her messy blonde hair, and she rolled her eyes and sighed as Ivy marched back across the room, clearly fuming.

“Listen, don’t come in here after being gone a week and act like you own the place. I thought you were jumping rent. Hell, I was three days from renting out your room.”

Ivy stopped pacing in front of her, the look in her eyes one of pure rage and implied threat of murder. “If you set foot in my room while I was gone, you’d have woken up in the city dump, missing a limb or two.”

“Good god, you fucking psycho, it was a joke.” Another eye roll, accompanied by an exaggerated sigh. “And what’s with the entourage? Aren’t we supposed to let each other know when we’re bringing someone home with us?”

Ivy’s face twisted as she laughed, tossing her head back to mask the red flush creeping into her cheeks. “Oh yeah, like you call me up every time you bring that sleazeball boyfriend of yours over.”

Dingo peeked his head out from the open doorway they’d all come from and held up a duffel bag with a questioning grin. “Uh, do you want all your shoes in this? Cause I hate to break it to you, but there’s no way in hell they’ll fit.”

She crossed her arms and stormed back into what must be her room, grumbling aboutmenandincompetenceandshoe Tetrisor something like that. Jackal’s laughter echoed from inside that room, and I wondered if he found the whole situation amusing or if he’d stumbled across something he shouldn’t have.

“Oh, hey, look, IknewI didn’t fucking lose this thing!”

“Hey, give that back, you asshole!” Ivy shouted, and a loud crash emerged from the room as Dingo came stumbling out witha stuffed duffel bag in his arm and a purse slung over his shoulder.

He eyed the roommate, whose name I assumed was Hilary, and then winked, shooting her a playful grin. “She’s crazy. How did you ever put up with her as a roommate?”

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