Page 2 of Babydoll

Keeping my head down, I hike them up and walk around the side of the apartment. The decrepit four-story doesn’t have anelevator, but it does have a windowed stairwell, so I watch the blonde climbing the steps. Now that she's away from the smoker, she once again looks hesitant. Every slow step tells me so. I do a quick check on my phone searching Gage’s family tree, recalling in an instant he doesn’t have one. Gage was a foster kid with years of bouncing home to home. A few of them brutal enough to put him in the hospital.

I might feel sorry for him, but I can’t afford to. He’s an adult now and chose to sell dope and get involved with Satan’s Ransom. A small voice in my head tells me my sister chose to involve herself with the one-percent club too, and she had a good start in life, but I ignore the thoughts and swallow hard.

The blonde disappears down the hall of the fourth floor, Gage’s floor, so I go back to the cramped car to look through my notes on who else lives on that floor.

If the blonde works for the Ransom, had she also been enticed by a bad boy in a leather jacket with a rumbling chopper between his thighs? If those bastards had kept their sights off my sister, she’d be alive today. I growl under my breath and look at the brown bag on the passenger seat.

And Reece would have her mother.

The lunch bag has colorful scribbles of crayon on it and my mood instantly softens. I open it and smile as I feel the pudding inside. Pulling it out, I see it’s butterscotch. I must have been good today. Reece only gives me the butterscotch when she’s happy with me.

I remind myself I’m doing this for her, that taking down the Ransom isn’t just my vengeance. It’s for the little girl that has to grow up without a mom.

Tossing the pudding cup up, I catch it in my hand. “I’ll get them, Reece. If it’s the last thing I do.”

Sharp wailing pierces through the neighborhood yanking my thoughts from my niece. But it’s the deep vibrating rumble of a Harley that has my mind focusing back on the blonde.

As the bike drives by, pulling into the back lot, I see the Satan’s Ransom emblem emblazoned on the biker’s top rocker.

I grit my teeth.

Lu

When I knock on Gage’s door, he doesn’t answer. For a moment, I consider bolting back down the hall the way I came, getting as far away from this door as possible. But when I remember the creepy guy outside, and how his lascivious look makes my skin crawl, I’m also reminded of how much I owe Gage. So instead of leaving, I give the stairway one longing glance, gather a breath, and knock again. This time only slightly less timidly.

My stomach starts to clench a little tighter as I wait and become more aware of my surroundings. The carpet looks as if it hasn’t seen a vacuum cleaner in thirty years, and the walls are a grimy gray, similar in color to the carpet and I’m confident neither are meant to be. I glance up at the lights buzzing and flickering above me.

This feels like a nightmare. No, it feels like my past. Which was worse than a nightmare.

“You can do this,” I coach myself in a whisper. And not for the first time since I entered this neighborhood, I straighten my spine.

My shoulders back, my jaw tight, I press my ear as close to the door as possible without actually touching it. I hear nothing but the droning television, a bloody Lysol commercial. I coulduse some Lysol right now. In fact, when I get out of here, I might just bathe in it.

I wrap my knuckles harder against number 405 and a wheezing cough from somewhere echoes through the hall as the door to 406 opens. I deliberately steel my expression as a ghostly pale woman with hollowed-out cheeks and dull, bruised-looking eyes blinks at me.

“He’s there. I just left his place ten minutes ago.” She wipes her nose with the back of her hand and sniffs. “He was pretty out of it, but I wouldn’t knock any louder.” Her chin motions toward the door across from her.

“Donny’s an asshole.” Her voice rises as if she wants nothing more than to irritate him. “Works nights. Fuckin’ pimp dickhead. And he’ll slap a bitch silly for fucking with his sleep.”

“Got it,” I murmur, sounding unconcerned when in reality my knees almost buckle. I’ve been away from this shit for too long and I’ve apparently gone soft.

The woman flicks her stringy hair back off her bare shoulder. Her t-shirt hangs on her, the neckline low enough to show off her collarbones like a PSA against crack. She absently scratches her head. “Door ain’t locked.”

I look back at Gage’s door and try the handle, although I’m loath to touch the knob. It turns.

“Gage?” I swallow hard and push the door open wider, wishing for that Lysol.

He was the one that asked me to come see him, not the other way around. And if I didn’t owe him, I wouldn’t be here. God, I’d rather be anywhere else.

“Gage? I’m here.” I take one tentative step inside and slam the hand that didn’t touch that nasty door handle over my mouth and nose. The stench is enough to make me gag.

There’s a mix of smells and all of them are bad. Smoke, tobacco, cannabis, something yeasty like stale beer, and rotten food. All of it mingles together with… is that cat piss?

And then the worst hits, onions, or body odor, and human rot hit me like a wall with my next step.

“Oh, god. Gage, it reeks in here.”

A cat curls around my legs, meowing as I further enter the apartment. Its fur is matted and its eyes are weepy. I scoop it up, scratching it behind the ears. As I pass the kitchen, I ignore the horror of old pizza boxes, dirty dishes with food so old it’s moldy, and glasses of brown liquid with floating cigarette butts.

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