Page 93 of Making Home with You
Once everyone exits the elevator, I ride it back up.It’s déjà vu of yesterday, and I roll my eyes at the fact that I can’t seem to get my shit together.
I grab my phone from the exact place where I always leave it and when I pick it up I notice Finn has texted me and called a few times.I really need to make sure the sound is on, because I’m sure he’s panicking right now.And given the situation with Carla, I don’t blame him.
I press the button for the elevator and text Finn back as I wait.It’s taking exceptionally long, and I hit the button rapidly in succession like that will make the elevator come faster.
I glance around, suddenly overcome with a strange sense of anxiety.The floor is quiet and the lights are now off in every office and just when I decide I’m going to take the stairs, the elevator doors open.
My paranoia is getting a little out of hand lately.Between Carla and Andrew, I can’t seem to shake this feeling that someone is watching me.It’s ridiculous, I know that, because honestly, I’m far from interesting, but I still have this nervousness that simmers in the back of my mind.
I fall back against the elevator wall as the door closes, and I pull my phone from my pocket.I notice that I never sent the text I typed out to Finn, but when I hit send, the steel walls of the elevator make it impossible to follow through with that.
Annoyed, I stuff my phone back in my pocket, reminding myself to send it when I hit the lobby.But I change my plans and press the level for parking instead of the lobby.The garage is covered and I noticed it had started raining when I grabbed my phone off my desk.
I can walk through the garage quite a ways before I have to exit to the street, otherwise I’ll look like a drowned rat since I can’t seem to find the umbrella I usually have stashed in my bag.Again, my disorganization coming back to bite me in the ass.
I step off the elevator and into the parking garage.With each step I take, the motion sensors activate the lights, and my anxiety resurfaces full force.
I’m in the wrong fucking place, because up ahead in this empty parking garage, I see a light illuminated.One single row, one single car in an otherwise empty space and I know I need to turn around.
I recognize the car immediately and wonder why it’s here and why I’m still standing there staring at it.
I turn on my heel and hightail it out of the garage, my heart beating faster than I ever thought possible.The loud beat of it pulsing in my ears, making me deaf to everything else around me.
And that’s when I hear it; my name called, a whisper in the stillness of the garage.It floats through and echoes, making the sound of my heartbeat suddenly silent.
I turn around to run out of the garage and my body slams into a solid figure, and the scream that leaves my mouth is blood curdling.There’s not a chance that anyone within an earshot hasn’t heard me.
“Sarah, Sarah,” the voice says, shaking me a little by the shoulders.
I look up and find myself face to face with Steve, the nighttime security attendant.The relief that washes over me is immense.I feel myself slump against him, and I can feel his heartbeat, rapid and intense.
“What are you doing in here?”he demands, but there’s a shakiness to his tone.“It’s not safe in here after dark.Don’t you know…”
He doesn’t finish his sentence, but he doesn’t need to.I already know what he was going to say.
“Steve, what do you know?”I ask, pushing him to answer me.I need him to say it out loud, and right now I should be calling Joe, telling him to get his ass over here, but I need Steve to answer me.“Is this about Eliza Anderson?”I press, but Steve doesn’t answer.
He clears his throat and shakes his head as if he’s telling me not to ask any more questions.But I don’t give up that easily.I’m in so deep now that there’s no digging my way out.
“Did he pay you off too?”My voice is high and quivery as I begin to piece things together.I knew all along that she wasn’t the only person involved in this mess, but I had no idea Andrew could ruin the life of a man too.
Andrew preys on the weak, the people he knows he can pay off and Steve is exactly that.This job doesn’t pay enough; he has a family to support and the prospect of someone throwing money at him had to have been hard to turn down.
But at what expense?
He’s being eaten alive by guilt, by the lies, and by what he still knows is happening.
“You need to leave now,” Steve says, but I watch his face change.A confused look on his face, as his brows pinch together and he shakes his head slightly.When he opens his mouth to speak his words come out quiet, and he mutters, “What the hell…”
I watch him reach for the TASER on his hip, but he’s slow and the gun blast shatters the silence of the parking garage.It reverberates and echoes back, the sound multiplied in its vast emptiness.
I hear myself scream, and I watch Steve clutch his shoulder and fall to his knees.
I don’t want to turn around because I know who’s standing there; I know who fired the gun and I know what’s about to happen.
Knowing he has a gun doesn’t stop me from doing what I do next.In the quick look I caught of Steve’s injury, I know he won’t die from it, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to leave him here or let Andrew, that sleazy motherfucker, get away with it.
He’s here for me and that’s exactly what he’s going to get.
