by Stella Noir
“Be careful,” I warn her. “With your feet, I mean.”
She makes a sound suggesting that she’s heard me. I hope she takes my warning to heart. This is a filthy hallway that has seen worse than she can imagine.
It’s hard to tell if she’s bothered by it because she doesn’t say a single word. The only thing I hear is her breath growing more rapid and louder with every floor we climb.
“Almost there,” I assure her, casting a quick glance over my shoulder. She’s holding on to the wooden rail with one hand and holding the jacket closed with the other as she drags herself up the stairs behind me. She’s clearly out of shape.
We reach the top floor, and I head for the last door on my left, searching for the keys in my pockets as we get closer. My pulse is racing as well, but not because I’m exhausted from climbing the stairs.
I’m fucking nervous. It isn’t until I’m about to open the apartment door that I realize how big of a deal this really is. How fucking big it is to bring this girl here.
CHAPTER FOUR
Meadow
I’m glad to get out of that cold and dirty hallway and step into a home, a home that gives a surprisingly pleasant first impression.
Kade opens the door for me and steps aside, beckoning for me to follow him inside. I feel more comfortable as soon as my bare feet meet the wooden floor of the apartment. It’s warm in comparison to the concrete I’ve been walking on.
He closes the door behind me, and a sudden flood of fright sweeps through my body when I realize that I’m alone with him, behind closed doors. Whatever he’s planned for me, there’s nothing I can do to prevent it from happening.
Then again, what could a person like me be afraid of? It’s not like I have anything to lose.
I scan the open kitchen area and living room in front of me. The place is small, but not as uninviting as the hallway was. The kitchen is to my left. There’s no food or utensils lying around. It looks like it hasn’t been used in a while. There’s even a thin layer of dust on top of the counters. Still, it looks like it has been remodeled rather recently. The dark wood shows little sign of use and the knobs on the cabinets still shine like they have hardly been touched.
The living room that opens to the right is nothing more than a seating area with a dark red couch and a big armchair in a similar color. The armchair looks like it’s been used a lot, and that it has definitely been here longer than the kitchen cabinets. There’s a dark bookshelf next to it overflowing with books. No TV, no computer, just a tiny radio placed on a side table next to the couch. I also spot an old-fashioned bureau on the left wall that’s next to a narrow archway leading to a dark corridor. A row of framed photos is placed on top of the bureau.
The armchair is located next to a huge window, the only window in the entire room, but it covers most of the wall opposite the door. At second glance, I realize that it’s not a window, but a glass door that leads out to a little balcony, and it’s framed by thick curtains in a used-up beige color.
“Go,” he urges behind me. I feel his strong hand on the small of my back, giving me a gentle push to move forward.
I turn around to him. “My feet. I don’t want to carry all this dirt inside.”
He regards me with an annoyed look, scanning me from head to toe with his hand still on my back.
“All right,” he says, and before I have a chance to react, he leans forward and picks me up, carrying me like a newlywed groom would carry his wife over the threshold into their new home.
I’m too stunned to protest and shyly wrap my arm around his neck to support myself. This is so weird. I can’t get over how strange it is to be where I am.
His proximity is soothing and oddly familiar, as if we have known each other for a long time, when in reality, we don’t know each other at all.
He carries me through the living room and heads for the door on the left, next to the bureau. I try to get a better look at the photos as we walk by, but he turns me around, walking sideways as he carries me through the archway into a tiny, dark hall. It’s no longer than eight feet and there is one door to the left at the far end of it and two doors on the right. All of them are closed.
He heads for the last door on the right and turns the knob by bending forward with me still in his arms.
It opens up to a little bathroom painted in light gray colors. It’s not super dingy, I have definitely seen worse, but it’s also not very pretty.
I yelp in surprise when Kade lets go of me and places me on the cold floor next to the bathtub.
“Shower,” he orders. “There are towels in the cabinet.”
He points to a white cabinet under the sink.
“Thank you,” I whisper, my eyes following his gesture.
“I need my jacket back,” he adds.
The harsh tone in his voice sends a cold shiver down my spine. As comforting as his touch feels, every time he speaks to me like that, I feel lost and scared and begin to doubt my decision to come with him.
But what was my alternative? I don’t know how long I had been standing at that bridge before he showed up, but it’s become quite obvious that I don’t have the guts to end my life. If I couldn’t bring myself to jump until then, I never would have found the courage later.
I take off his jacket and hand it to him.
“Are you leaving?” I ask, when he puts it on. The way the jacket hugs his big frame emphasizes how small I am compared to him.
“Yes,” he says. “I’ve got something to do.”
“Will you be back?”
He looks at me, once again gnashing his teeth as he searches for a reply.
“Possibly,” he says.
“When?”
“You’ll see.”
And with that, he leaves the bathroom and shuts the door behind him. I remain where I am, staring at the closed door of the bathroom. I can hear him moving around in the living room and the kitchen for a few moments before he leaves the apartment, closing the door with a loud bang.
I’m still where he left me, almost as if I have been turned into a pillar of salt, as I process what just happened. He left. I have no idea if and when he’s coming back, and I still don’t know who’s living in this apartment. Maybe he lied to me and this isn’t really his place, but someone else’s? What do I do if that person shows up and finds me taking a shower in his bathroom?
But he did have a key for the place.
I really feel filthy and yearn to get rid of the dirt covering my feet, my legs and even my dress. A first glance around the tiny bathroom doesn’t reveal much in the way of any toiletries like shampoo or shower gel that I could use, but when I turn the shower curtain aside, I do find some in the shower itself.
A shower is the best way to get rid of not only physical filth but bad feelings as well. When I step out of the bathroom, freshly showered and surrounded by the strong smell of lavender and wrapped in a huge towel, I feel like a different person.
And I feel strangely at home.
The place was rather cold when we first stepped inside, but it seems that he must have turned the heat on before leaving. I pause for a few moments in the dark corridor that connects to the bathroom, before I dare to open the other two doors.
The first door I try is the one opposite the bathroom, but it’s locked. I expect the other one to be locked as well, but when I turn the knob, it opens up right away, revealing a small bedroom decorated in old-fashioned decor. The queen-size bed is covered with light sheets in a floral pattern that is too garish for my personal taste. Next to the bed is a night stand. There is a lamp sitting on top of it that has fringes on its shade and there is a book with reading glasses lying next to it.
There’s another bookshelf in here, one that looks very similar to the one in the living room, and it is equally stuffed with books. There are so many of them that there was no way to present them in an orderly fashion, and instead they’re cramped inside the shelf haphazardly. The top of the dresser positioned next to the books
helf also serves as a shelf for even more reading material.
Although I feel like an intruder, I step inside the room to have a closer look at the books. They’re mostly novels by authors I’ve never heard of before. Most of them are romance classics.
The bedroom gives off enough clues for me to conclude that this is the home of a female bookworm, possibly a middle-aged or elderly woman based on the vintage decor.
I leave the bedroom and walk back into the living room. The first thing I notice are the missing pictures on the bureau next to the archway. I could have sworn that there were like a dozen of them when I first got here, but now there are only two frames left. Both of them are black and white pictures and show the same woman at different stages of her life. One is a portrait that must have been taken around the time she was my age. She has dark hair and eyes, and her smile is kind of timid and forced, as it often is in portraits such as these. In the other one, she’s with two other women who could be friends or sisters. All of them are smiling into the camera, each holding an open book in their hands. She is standing in the middle, towering above the other two women by at least three inches. She could be the woman who’s living here, or a good friend of that person.
But who is she? A relative of Kade? An aunt? Or even his mother? And where is she right now?
I won’t get an answer to those questions until he returns, and even then, I can’t count on it. His unwillingness to talk about himself was apparent. But who am I to judge him?
The circumstances under which we met and that brought me here are so messed up. I have no idea where any of this is going, but for some reason, I’m not scared. Confused, yes. Worried, maybe. But I’m not scared of him, even though he does radiate a dangerous and dark vibe. If I had anything to lose, anyone waiting for me at home, anything that still draws me back to the life I tried to leave behind, I wouldn’t be standing here. He asked several times if there was anywhere he could take me, to anyone who’d wait for me. Why he decided to bring me here still baffles me.
Is he not afraid I could just rob the place and take off?
Then again, this home doesn’t exactly provide a lot of loot. I could be searching for money or jewelry, but I don’t expect to find much of that in here.
Besides, I have no interest in robbing him or the person who lives here. But he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know anything about me, except that I wanted to end my life. But he stopped me.
I move over to the kitchen and search the cabinets, hoping to find something edible, but there’s nothing there. No fresh produce and no ready-made oven meals, not even bread or cereal. The fridge is completely empty, as well.
So, whoever lives here, either doesn’t eat or cook here, despite the newly installed kitchen, or is on vacation.
That must be it. He is house-sitting this place for a relative because she’s on vacation! I want to stick to that theory, even though I don’t see any plants around that may require watering. It could just be about emptying her mail once in a while. Maybe she’s gone for a long period of time.
I’m unsure what to do. Essentially, all I can do is wait. Wait for him to return, and…whatever happens then.
I’m tired, but it feels wrong to use the bedroom of this stranger. Moreover, I’d feel more comfortable if I could guard the apartment door so I’m aware of anyone entering the place as soon as they do. So I retreat to the sofa in the living room. I find a soft blanket in an ugly dark brown color to wrap myself in, in addition to the towel I’m wearing. My dirty clothes are still in the bathroom, and not even the smallest part of me wants to put them on right now.
Despite my tension and the odd feeling that comes from being in a total stranger’s home, it doesn’t take long for sleep to claim me.
CHAPTER FIVE
Kade
A huge weight is lifted off of my shoulders now that this motherfucker is rotting at the bottom of the canyon. I can’t believe I had to make the trip twice today, but luck was on my side when I returned to the bridge.
This time, I found it completely deserted. The fact that dusk is setting in and it is about to get dark just serves as a plus. After all, the only reason for me to throw him down there during the daytime was my impatience to get it done and over with. Not the smartest choice, now that I think about it.
I stopped at about the same spot I found her and waited for a few moments, double checking my surroundings with the help of my binoculars, before I stepped out of the vehicle. I checked my surroundings again, more thoroughly this time, and then opened the trunk. The smell that greeted me proved that I had no time to lose. I needed to get the scumbag out of there as soon as possible. After one last look around, I hoisted the body wrapped in a plastic sheet over the ledge of the bridge, letting it hang there like a forgotten piece of trash, while I returned to the car to get the weights to attach to the corpse with a long rope. Just added protection to guarantee he doesn’t decide to float around in plain sight too soon.
Getting the weights up and over the ledge requires more than bodily strength, but as soon as I managed to throw them over there, he followed them down into the darkness — and I was out of there a moment later.
With every mile between me and that canyon, and with every minute that passes without me encountering another car on the drive back to Albany, I become more and more relaxed. Fuck this shit. I know it was the right thing to do. Someone had to do it, we all knew that. We couldn’t wait for police to handle this asshole because they had proven useless in the past. If they had done their job right the first time, there would have been no need for me to do this, not to mention less pain for the victims and their relatives whose lives he destroyed after getting out of jail too early.
Fuck it. It’s done.
For now, I only have her to worry about. I didn’t lock the door so she might not even be there anymore, but something tells me she will be. The innocent beauty I left behind at a place that used to belong to no one but my mother and me. I couldn’t help myself. A girl like her can’t be left out on her own, especially not with all the shit that seems to be going through that pretty head.
She calls right upon my protective nature, and when I walk back into the apartment, I’m reminded that that is not the only part of me that’s drawn to her.
She’s lying on the sofa, lost in a deep sleep, with a bath towel and my mother’s favorite blanket wrapped around her naked body.
Partly wrapped, I should say. She has turned and moved in her sleep, causing the towel and the blanket to be swept aside, exposing some of the most sinful parts of her body.
I freeze mid-motion as I take in the beautiful sight of her lying there, on my mother’s couch, hugging the same blanket that she and I have used for comfort so many times. This is the first time that blanket is protecting an alluring girl like her.
I carefully close the door, trying to make as little noise as possible so as not to wake her up, and I quietly place the big paper bags with food and groceries I bought on the kitchen counter.
My eyes never leave her for one second. It’s not like I haven’t seen tits before, quite the contrary, as I’ve probably seen and touched more than most men my age, but hers are extraordinarily tempting. They’re firm and bigger than expected, but not overly so. With the way she’s lying right now, they’re squeezed in between her arms, which probably makes them appear a little larger than they really are. One of her slim legs is peeking out from beneath the blanket, half hanging over the edge of the sofa, as is one of her arms. Her hair is damp and long enough to hug her entire upper body in a sea of ash blond strands. There’s something angelic about her, lying there in that pose, her appearance, everything.
So fucking innocent.
I approach her and get down on my knees next to the couch, withstanding the urge to touch her skin. My cock twitches at the thought of burying myself deeply between her legs.
Fuck. I should have done something about this, instead of returning to her with blue balls.
The moment
I touch the blanket with the intention of covering her up, she flinches and opens her eyes.
I freeze, my hands hovering above her, as she sleepily turns her head up to me and looks straight into my eyes. Her mouth is partly opened and her eyes are fogged with confusion.
“Cover yourself,” I say, my hands retreating.
She blinks twice, still processing where she is and what’s happening.
“Huh?”
“The blanket,” I explain. “There’s hardly anything protecting your sweet little body from me.”
She blushes at my words, but doesn’t move.
“You better fix that,” I add. “Or so help me God…”
She looks at me with that same drowsy disorientation as before. Instead of wrapping the blanket around herself, she struggles to sit up, not minding the fact that both the towel and the blanket come loose and her upper body is now completely exposed, except for the wild hair that is falling down her shoulders and partly covering her.
“Or so God help you… what?” she asks, fixating on my eyes with a sudden clarity.
She raises her chin defiantly.
“You don’t want to find out,” I say, narrowing my eyes.
She reciprocates my gaze for a few moments, her chest heaving with deep breaths. Her cheeks are still flushed, and the way she looks at me almost suggests the same craving that’s torturing me. Usually, I’m pretty good at reading a woman’s face. I wasn’t lying when I told her that they come to me. I know I can have most of them. I still work my ass off every damn day to maintain the kind of body that gets you laid, and I can see that this is not lost on her.
But she’s not in a place that doesn’t allow for such thoughts. She grasps the blanket and covers herself up then, lowering her eyes in defeat.
“I have no clothes,” she whispers without looking at me. “And I’m hungry.”
“I brought food,” I announce, gesturing over to the kitchen counter.
She lazily turns her head toward the kitchen, following my gesture.