Page 3 of The Night Shift
My phone is fucking dead.
Brilliant.
My head starts to ache and a dry sort of itch forms at the back of my throat. It’s been a long day, and I realize that I haven’t had any water all day. No food either. Just martinis. Three at the internship mixer and four afterwards at two different bars. I think I’m already getting hungover. My eyes feel heavy. I’m not usually like this. Getting drunk all by myself on a Saturday night. I don’t know what’s gotten into me tonight.
Reluctantly, I storm back into the bar and ask the bartender if she could charge my phone for me.
“Sure,” she says and then asks me to come behind the bar so that I don’t have to deal with the creep from before, who’s still sitting where I left him. Eyeing me like a lion would a wounded gazelle.
The bartender plugs in my phone next to a stack of wine glasses and I walk behind the long wooden countertop with purple lights underneath.
“I’m Camille, by the way,” she says. “What’s your name?”
“Holly.”
“Holly what?”
“Why? Are you going to look me up online?”
“I don’t know, should I?”
I point to the espresso martini she’s currently making. “Are those hard to make?”
“Not really. Take some coffee liqueur, vodka, espresso, and simple syrup. Shake it all up and —” she pours the brown liquid into a chilled martini glass, “voilà. The world’s greatest fucking espresso martini.”
“My sister is addicted to them,” I say.
“Drinking problem?”
“Or a caffeine addiction.”
Camille smiles. She asks what I do for a living. I give her the short-story (true) version by telling her that I’m a surgeon and that my internship starts in two days.
“Well, shit. A doctor, huh? Saving lives. That must be exciting.”
“Very.”
She makes me a bright blue drink with hints of red. I ask her what’s in it.
“Grenadine, lemonade, vodka, and blue curacao. It’s one of my own concoctions. I call it The Night Shift.” It looks a bit messy, but for whatever reason she seems quite proud of it.
She tells me she likes the color pink. I tell her I like green. She tells me she just moved to the city a few weeks back. I tell her I’ve been here a few years now. She tells me she’s a Taurus. I tell her I’m a Scorpio. She tells me her favorite show isOne Tree Hill. I tell her mine is BBC’sFlowers. Especially the first season.
An hour of small talk later, Camille hands me my phone — partially charged, but enough to get me home.
“Thanks.”
“Of course.” She gives me a long, up-and-down look like she’s assessing me for something and deeming me fit. “Maybe I’ll see you again?”
My smile is forced and strained. I grab my coat and head out the door. It’s almost midnight and with the exception of a few homeless people asleep on the sidewalk, there’s no one around. I check my phone and the nearest Uber is fifteen minutes away. Not left with much of a choice, I request the cab and start walking towards the pick-up point.
I reach the same alleyway as before when I hear someone call out a name. “Ashley!”
I keep walking.
“Ashley!”
I turn around. It’s the same asshole from the bar. He takes a step forward and a deep unsettling feeling sinks into my stomach. Like something bad is about to happen. Instant fear locks my muscles together. My grip around my phone tightens. My brain screams at me to run.Run, it demands.RUN! I turn back around, but he’s faster. Stronger too.
