Page 39 of A Whirlwind of Color (The Light to My Darkness 2)

“They’re watching us right now? Are they listening to us too?” I looked over at the camera.

“I don’t know. You get used to it though. I forgot the cameras were even there until you just mentioned it.”

It was like I was living in one of those books that I had to read during one summer for a high school English class: 1984 and Brave New World. I don’t know why they made us read them at the same time. Ever since then, I always got them confused. But I knew in one of them someone was always watching you. Or maybe it was both of them. Either way, those were terrible dystopian worlds. How had my life turned out so wrong?

“One of the security guards told me that I was in danger,” I said, still looking at the camera. “That someone tried to hurt me. So despite them and all thi

s fancy equipment, I still got hurt. Which means I’m still in danger.”

“You’re safe here. Trust me, if you leave, you’re putting yourself at a much greater risk.”

“Of what?” Tell me. Someone fucking tell me what’s going on.

“I promised James I wouldn’t say anything, but keeping you in the dark is clearly not helping anyone. Someone tried to kill you. We know who did it, and there’s a warrant out for his arrest, but the police haven’t caught him yet. Everyone’s worried he’s going to come after you again. That’s why you have to stay here, where it’s safe.”

Safe? If I stayed here, I was a sitting duck. If I was a murderer, the first place I’d look for a victim was her home. How naïve was everyone?

“Trust me, Penny.”

I stared at her. And suddenly all I saw were all the things that were different from the Melissa I remembered. She was a complete stranger. Trust her? I didn’t know her.

Chapter 16

Friday

“There are a ton of cameras in this apartment,” I said as I stared at one of the two that were mounted in the kitchen. I had walked around searching for them, despite Melissa trying to distract me. “How many do you think there are total?”

“I don’t know,” Melissa said. “I don’t live here.”

“But if you could guess. How many do you think are in each room?”

“At least one.” She shrugged. “Maybe two or three depending on how big the room is and if there are any weird angles I guess.”

“Are there more than just two in here?”

“Penny, I really have no idea. I only see two.”

She was being very unhelpful. I wasn’t trying to hang out with her right now. This was no time for a girls’ night. I was in a life or death situation. Couldn’t she see that? I was busy planning an escape, which now seemed impossible thanks to all these stupid cameras. “Do you think James watches me all the time? Like when he’s at work and stuff?”

“No. I told you, they’re for security reasons. I doubt he ever watches you. At least not without your permission.” She winked at me.

Gross. “He just has other people look at me?” I lowered my voice. “There’s a camera in my freaking bathroom. You can get arrested for shit like that.”

“That’s only if you put a camera in a public bathroom…”

“That’s beside the point.”

Melissa sighed. “If you tripped and fell in the bathroom, you’d be happy there were cameras so you wouldn’t bleed out. Bathrooms can be very dangerous places. Just think of everything that could go wrong. Razor accidents, drowning, accidental choking by toothbrush.” She laughed, but I was no longer paying attention to her.

I bit the inside of my lip. She was right. Bathrooms could be dangerous. And she had just given me a brilliant idea. Or an awful one. Really it was just brilliantly awful. An accident would definitely draw the two security guards away from the front door and give me time to escape. Their sole purpose was apparently to protect me. It was devious and perfect and…impossible. But now that the thought was in my head, it wouldn’t go away.

I looked back up at the camera. I wasn’t even really upset about the cameras monitoring me at all times. It wasn’t like anyone was going to be watching me for much longer. I was upset because the cameras were an issue for my escape. The security guards were most likely watching me right now. I looked away from the camera.

My plan was already running wild in my mind. When I was little, I played an epic April Fool’s Day prank on my dad. The toilet in the downstairs bathroom had an issue with overflowing. So I poured a cup of water on the floor outside of the bathroom and then locked myself inside. I screamed about the toilet overflowing and pretended to panic instead of letting my dad come in and fix it. He almost broke the door down. Needless to say, I never played a prank ever again because of how upset he got.

Melissa’s idea about bleeding out in the bathroom had given me a similar idea. I could pretend to lock myself in the bathroom and cause some kind of distraction that would draw the security guards away from the front door. If I hid downstairs, maybe it would give me enough time to slip out undetected. There was just one issue. The stupid bathroom camera. And all the other cameras. They’d see me walking around prepping everything and they’d also know for a fact that I wasn’t in the bathroom. Unless…

“I need to pee,” I said.

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