Page 10 of Prey

Perhaps I should’ve gone out with him to investigate what he was doing. Something was not right with him. Even though it hurt like hell, I was resigned to believing that his mischievousness and cruelty were just some stupid frat prank to target the shy girl with glasses.

I’ve had boyfriends before, but when they asked too many questions or when I would trip myself up on my lies, I’d have to end the relationship. Several short-lived, dissatisfactory relationships summed up my dating life.

My phone beeped, and a message from Shaun flashed across my screen, reminding me that I needed to delete him from my phone and buy a new one if he was going to continue to harass me like this.

Shaun: Hot girl, come out with me?

Me: Wrong number.

Shaun: Don’t make me beg.

Me: Wrong number and get lost.

My phone fell quiet, and I put it in my bag, hoping I had achieved my objective. A tiny voice in my head urged me totake up his offer for curiosity’s sake, but I was only going to get played. I had enough of heartache for now.

Relaxing into the seat, glad I had rid myself of his pestilence, I fell into my imagination while gazing out the window at the busy streets of students congregating in groups—the normal people.

Gunner’s face always stormed my mind first when I returned to Larsson in my mind. We had so much fun together, and then I’d see Sylvie Kaiser's disappointed face and how badly I hurt her. What I did was unforgivable to her, but they didn’t know the truth, and I doubted that there’d even be a place in time where Gunner and Sylvie would sit down with me to talk it out.

Lastly, Mikael. Even sitting here, a thousand miles away from the prison he’s held in, I still shudder in fear when I think of him. Even when he was helpful and kind, I found him terrifyingly intimidating. He carried an aura that screamed dangerously and was someone, like my foster father, you’d never want to cross.

But I did.

Even though painstaking effort was put into Annika Kaiser vanishing into a new alias, location, and life with meticulous detail, I still couldn’t entirely trust the process or the people who organized my demise. There was always a stone that wasn’t unturned or neglecting to clean up a paper trail or incorrect or misreported information.

My heart was still pounding when the bus pulled up at my stop, thinking of the last time I saw Mikael. That penetrating stare, under those dark eyebrows, as if he could read my mind and knew that he was about to be arrested because the police were breathing down his back. And his arrest and imprisonment were because of me.

I pulled myself back into the present and rolled my shoulders to dispel the prickly nerves traveling down my spine. That was how my body reacted to Mikael Kaiser. Even with him behindbars and out of harm’s way, my body had a visceral reaction as if he were only two feet away.

A blue Student Job Search sign caught my eye, and I gravitated toward the brick building with a wooden planter box out the front blooming in daisies the same orange as the fruit in my bag. The space was crowded with students, and the walls were lined with hundreds of advertised job cards.

I perused the walls, most of which were filled with waitressing, factory, and low-paid jobs. A group of pretty and confident girls gravitated around one particular section I couldn’t see properly until they took the Job Title Number and moved on to the registration desk.

The jobs were for adult dancers in various clubs who must be over 21 years old. Even if I was over 21, I wasn’t confident enough to apply, and let’s face it, they’d never hire a girl like me with the flexibility and gracefulness of an African Rhino.

Shelf stacker, checkout operator, and factory worker were more appropriate jobs for me, maybe a waitress, although I wasn’t overly swift on my feet. A kitchenhand job appealed because I liked the idea of busily working behind the scenes rather than in front of the house.

One particular kitchenhand job stood out to me because it was in a club. It didn’t say what type of club it was, but I liked the idea of working in a dark, seedy place where no one knows your name, and you can be anything you want when the husband or wife isn’t looking.

“Oh,” I gasped aloud when it read that it was for age 21 or over, and my shoulders slumped.

“I can help you with that,” a small voice whispered nearby.

“Cheetos?” I asked in case I was mistaken. The Cheeto-eater girl, my twin, wore glasses like mine, had long, straight brown hair like mine, and a painfully shy expression like mine.

“Yeah, I guess you can call me that,” she stated dryly, not bothered by the name I gave her.

“I’m sorry. My name is Riley.” I held my hand for her to shake, but she refused, leaving me hanging like a doofus.

“I can organize something for you if you want to apply for that job,” cutting to the chase, not interested in being friendly or sociable, which I appreciated.

“Do you know this club?” I pointed to the card.

“No. But I can organize a fake ID for you,” she explained, straight-faced, hugging her books.

“Really?” She didn’t look like the type to commit illegal acts, but maybe her nerdy image was a cover-up.

“I’ve done them before. It’s the line of business I’m in,” she admitted, looking past me to the girls applying for the Adult Dancer jobs and rolling her eyes.

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