I heard the voices again. Not the kitchen voices—the back doors were closed—but I could still hear the staff inside their workplace. A muffled groan had my head raise slightly as I glanced furtively around the alley. I heard the sounds of a scuffle and then more murmuring, only now that I was awake, it was more like whispered shouting. Where was it coming from? A muffled scream had me on my feet in an instant. I stooped quickly, grabbing my backpack, and hastily flung it on. Pressing hard up against the recess to keep out of sight, I waited for more noise.
Another whimper and I inched forward. The huge industrial waste bins were further up the alley. I saw light breaking through the gaps and realised a vehicle must be parked around the corner. Biting my lip, I hesitated. There was obviously someone down there, someones, I would think. I bounced lightly on my feet as uncertainty swept through me.
What if it was Jimmy?
My eyes swung to his spot again. Were the boxes scattered like normal, or had he been pulled from his cardboard fort? I heard another muffled thump and realised the person groaning was being hit.
Tilting my head back, I stared at the dark sky. What do I do? What do I do? If it were Jimmy here and me down there, he wouldn’t come for me. You looked out for only yourself on the street. My foot stepped away from the sounds. I hesitated. I knew the rule, but Jimmy had let me share his alley. He’d let me sleep outside at night and feel safer than I would had I been alone. My body turned to the sounds. I would take a peek. I could blend into the shadows and just make sure it wasn’t Jimmy.
Inching along the alley, hugging the wall as if my life depended on it—because it probably did—I edged carefully up the alley. The vehicle’s headlights were going to give me away; I had no way of getting closer without alerting whoever it was to the fact that I was here.
I heard a barked order and suddenly the lights were switched off. It made me hesitate more than it should. Hearing sounds of a struggle, and throwing caution to the wind, I covered the short distance between me and whoever quickly. The voices were louder now, and I cast a cautious glance behind me, ensuring my path was clear in case I had to run.
Slowly, so slowly that I felt I wasn’t actually moving, I looked around the corner. I almost broke my neck with the speed I drew my head back.
Breathe, Devon, breathe. Dropping low, I inched out behind one of the bins, and cautiously I peered through the small space to the scene in front of me.
A man was on his knees in a puddle of water, his hands behind his back at an angle suggesting that they were tied or handcuffed. A faint light from the car interior illuminated the man slightly, his once white dress shirt now scattered with darker staining that I knew instantly was blood. I took it all in while my brain was screaming at me to recognise that this man was not Jimmy. However, my feet were rooted to the ground. The kneeling man’s head hung listlessly to the side as another man stood over him. The standing man struck the one kneeling again, and he fell over with the blow. It confirmed that was the muffled thumping I had heard.
Cursing lowly, the guy doing the hitting pulled the beaten man to his knees again. I saw him look over his shoulder towards the car, and leaning slightly to the left, I tried to see past them both to see who he looked at.
“Just finish it,” the man on his knees said tiredly. He shook his head as if to clear it, and the effort made him sway on his knees.
“Shut it,” the man standing over him growled. He looked back over his shoulder again and seemed to wait. It was the slight movement to the side as the standing guy looked towards the car, that led me to notice there was another person in the alley. The soft red glow of a cigarette caught my eye as whoever it was smoked in the shadows.
Why are you still watching? My internal screaming suddenly penetrated the weird haze that my brain had been lost in. They’re going to kill this man, you need to run!
Realising the gravity of the situation, I would have stumbled had sheer terror not taken control of my body when the angry guy drew a gun from the back of his pants. My mouth was dry, my eyes wider than they ever had been, and I wasn’t sure if my heart was still beating. Almost negligently the guy pulled the trigger, once, twice, three times. Kneeling guy was now lying in his own blood. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t close my eyes, the scene so gruesome and so utterly horrifying I was rendered immobile.
“You gonna help me pick this fucker up or just stand there and smoke?” the killer asked Smoking Guy in a low terse voice.
His voice broke my spell, and I raised carefully to my feet, backing away slowly. When I was sure I was out of their line of sight, I turned, ready to run, and screamed—Mean Dick from the restaurant was behind me. Some part of me registered that I startled him as much as he startled me, but the overriding trigger in my brain was shouting run.
Shoving Mean Dick, I bolted past him and took off down the alley, flying past the open restaurant door and cursing the fact that the light from the kitchen illuminated me as I ran full speed down the alley. I didn’t look back. I ran like my life depended on it, because I was pretty sure that it did.
I ran straight onto the sidewalk. Turning blindly, I ran as fast as I could away from the alley, away from death, and I hoped fervently that I ran away from whoever was behind me. Dodging and ducking people on the sidewalk unseeingly, I ran until I couldn’t run anymore. My legs gave out a few seconds before I thought my lungs would have. Staggering to the side and half falling up a darkened alley, I vomited. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs were trying so desperately to get air into them, as my retching was forcing what little air I had left in them out.
Blackness took me as I passed out.
My foot being kicked jarred me awake, and I scrambled to my feet, looking around me wildly. An older woman glared back at me in the brightness of daylight. Squinting against the harsh glare of morning, I took in her many layers of ratty clothes, her tangled hair, with weirdly, a battered top hat sitting on top of her head. I didn’t need to see the shopping cart to know I was face-to-face with a fellow homeless person.
“You’re in my spot,” she shrieked at me.
Slowly, I backed away from her, looking around to see where I was. I had run so frantically last night I hadn’t even known which direction I was running in or for how long. I was on East Virginia Avenue? I blinked in shock. That was over four miles from Sixteenth Street. I didn’t know I could still run that far. I looked at the dried vomit beside where I had passed out. I obviously couldn’t run that far and stay standing.
“I said you’re in my spot.”
“Yeah, right, um, I’m moving, okay.” I didn’t meet her hostile gaze. I was doing an internal body check. My legs felt wooden, I had tight abdominal pains, my whole body felt battered and bruised. A four-mile run wasn’t to be recommended when you weren’t exactly healthy.
“You have puke in your hair,” she told me matter-of-factly. “You forget where your campus was?”
I looked at her in surprise, she thought I was a student? Ha! It was the sheer ridiculousness of it all that broke me, and I lost myself in laughter. A small, minute part of my brain knew I was hysterical, and the tears running down my face let her know that I was also losing it. I ended up choking on huge shuddering sobs that rocked my whole body. As I slid down the wall and cried out my terror from last night, the crazy hat lady decided I was too batshit even for her and walked off muttering about crazies and telling me that I had better have moved on when she got back.
Eventually, I calmed down and spent a long time with my head on my knees, trying to calm my heart, my breathing, my thoughts.
I watched someone get killed last night.
The thought sobered me enough that I leapt to my feet, the panic rising within me again. I couldn’t go back to the alley…they knew that I saw them. They would come for me. Wouldn’t they? I was just a random homeless person, there were too many of us on the streets, would they know what I looked like? Would they find me? Could they find me? If I kept my head down and said nothing, would they e
ven know who I was?
I could go to the police. My mind instantly rejected that idea. There was keeping your head down, and then there was painting a target on your back and declaring it open season.
What had I really seen? Instantly my brain threw image after image of the guy on his knees, beaten, bloody, asking for them to finish it. Tears welled in my eyes again as I remembered how incredibly defeated he had been, kneeling there in a dirty puddle of God knows what, resigned to the fact that he was going to die. My hand covered my mouth, suppressing the sob.
I vividly remembered the flash of the gun as it unleashed its killing power, three shots and he was gone. Away from this life and whoever he left behind. Shaking my head to clear the imagery, I stopped pacing, and grabbing hold of my rucksack straps, I tilted my head back and looked at the stormy Denver sky. It looked like rain was coming, and I needed to leave this unknown alley before Top Hat came back and hit me with her stick. I needed to get to the shelter. I could shower, clean my hair, take refuge for the night as I tried to figure out what to do. It was obvious I had to move spots, but where could I go? I’d figure it out, I just needed to get to the shelter first.
With determination, I set off to walk back the way I ran. I didn’t know if I followed the exact path as I didn’t remember running past anything last night. I had no recollection of crossing the main traffic thoroughfare on Colfax, and I didn’t even try to establish what route I had taken from my alley behind the restaurant. I had a fleeting thought of Mean Dick from the restaurant and wondered if he was alright. Had they hurt him? I felt guilty. He would have seen me crouched behind the trash bins, obviously watching something, and he would have come to see what it was. If I hadn’t gone looking…would he have? I hoped he was alright, I didn’t need him on my conscience being hurt or worse because of me.
It took me a while to walk back, especially as I avoided anything where I was maybe familiar. My usual spots I couldn’t go past in case they were looking. I needed to get word to Jimmy. Oh my God, what if they got Jimmy? I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, my steps suddenly uncertain. Jimmy would tell them I was a regular at the shelter. There was a shelter off of Lawrence Street, I’d been there a few times when I first came onto the streets. It wasn’t as good as the one I went to now. I’d heard some people complain about the volunteers, about them being mean and unwilling to help. When one of the volunteers looked at me too closely and told me he liked what he saw, I didn’t go back. But now? Now, I was desperate, and more importantly, I needed to change my pattern. My legs ached, my bones hurt. I would go there tonight, and in the morning, I would plan my relocation.
I needed to be away from my regular patch and set up again. As I walked, I hoped whoever was watching over me from above sent me another Jimmy. The older man had made me feel safe. Even when he was being a pain in the ass, I knew that he wouldn’t hurt me, and on the streets, that was worth more than money, more than food.
After the most nerve-wracking walk in the daylight that I had ever experienced, I got to the shelter. An older man was closing the door. I didn’t know what time it was, but I couldn’t possibly be too late to get in.
“Hey,” I greeted as I looked at him.
“Food or bed?” he demanded as he looked me over.
“Both?”
“No more beds,” he said as he continued to close the door.
“I can pay!” I blurted desperately.
He hesitated as he looked at me before he glanced over his shoulder. “You clean?”
“I don’t do drugs or drink.” I told him solemnly as I took in his average height, his heavyset frame and greying black hair.
“Tricks?” he asked me impassively. His eyes were narrowed and shrewd, but he asked the question indifferently, and I guessed he was as jaded with this life as much as me.
“Not had to yet.” My own weariness must have been evident as he opened the door a fraction wider.
“What you got?” his voice lowered, and suspicion stirred within my belly.
“Twenty dollars,” I lied. “I just need the bed and a shower, I won’t eat.”
“Got a spare room upstairs, away from the bunks, used for staff.” He ran a speculative look over me. “Show me your arms.”
Quickly I pushed my shirt sleeves up, showing that there were no track marks on my skin. “You want me to take my shoes off?”
“No. Thirty dollars for one night,” he said grimly.
“Okay.” I stepped forward eagerly. It would almost clean me out, but I was desperate.
The guy held a hand up to ward me off. “You tell no one,” he whispered harshly.
“Not a word,” I agreed as my fists tightened on my backpack straps. He wouldn’t want anyone to know he took money for the charity he provided me.
“Come on then.” He opened the door enough for me to slip through, and then I was following him down a corridor and up a back staircase. I could hear the sounds of the downstairs kitchen and the low steady thrumming of activity. The aroma of food reached me, and my stomach grumbled its need. Ignoring it, I kept my head down as he led me into a narrow single room. The room held a single bed with grey bedding. A single nightstand with a lamp and a chair at the window, resting against the heavy-looking drapes. The room looked worn and tired, but clean. I saw the door to the side and almost wept when he told me there was a toilet and a shower cubicle.
“Money,” he demanded as he held his hand out.
“Um, one minute,” I shrugged off my backpack and turned away.
His hand caught my arm, and he spun me back to face him. “What’re you doing?” he asked me suspiciously.
“I keep my money on me,” I told him simply.
“Money,” he demanded again and waited. Realising he wasn’t going to allow me privacy, I quickly reached into my bra, ignoring the fact I was giving him a good view of my chest. I tried not to see the interested gleam in his eye as I removed the money from under my breasts. I quickly counted out the thirty dollars, holding it for him to take. “All of it,” he said expectantly.
“This is all I have,” I whispered as I clutched onto the remaining six dollars in hand.
“All or out,” he said harshly.
“Fine,” I snapped as I thrust the money into his calloused hand. “But you keep everyone away from this room while I’m in it, understood? I paid you my money, I’m not offering anything else.”
“Door locks,” he told me casually as he pocketed my money and headed to the door. “Be out by seven tomorrow morning.” He left me there, closing the door behind him.
Surging forward, I locked the simple lock, but as soon as I did, I felt the weight lift off me. Leaning forward, my head rested on the door, and closing my eyes, I let my backpack slip to the floor.
I stayed like that for a long moment before I slowly backed away from the door and started to strip out of my clothes. Walking into the small bathroom, I regarded the simple hand towel with a rueful laugh. It would do, and really, I was lucky there was a towel at all. Leaning forward into the cubicle, I ignored the blackened edges of the shower tray, a tell-tale sign of poor cleaning and worn use, and ran the water. Soon I was under the spray and using the sliver of soap in the soap dish, scrubbing myself and my hair clean.
When I was finished cleaning me, I then scrubbed my clothes and laid them out, knowing they probably wouldn’t be dry by morning, but they would at least be cleaner.
As I lay on the bed and looked at the peeling paint on the ceiling, tracing the different water stains from whatever had leaked above the room, I drifted off to sleep, exhaustion taking me under into a deep sleep.
My eyes flew open in alarm, I couldn’t breathe. My body thrashed in panic, but the hand covering my mouth and nose pressed firmly against me.
“Easy,” the low voice whispered in the dark of the room, and my legs flailed as I tried to escape. “I said easy.” The pressure on my airways increased, and I stilled reluctantly.
The room was pitch dark. I couldn’
t see anything, I couldn’t even make out the shape of the person leaning over me. I knew it was a man; the hand across my face was large, and I could feel the strength in his hand alone. Tears filled my eyes as the crashing realisation swept through my body that something bad was probably about to happen to me.
“I’m going to let up. You scream, I slit your throat, understood?”
With what little movement I had with his hand on my face, I managed to nod. Slowly, carefully, the hand was removed, and then I was clambering up the small bed, pressing myself against the wall in terror.
The room was silent. I couldn’t see where he was or how close to me he stood. Glancing quickly at the window, I saw the heavy curtains had been drawn, eliminating any light. That explained the heavy darkness of the room. I wet my dry lips as I thought about the layout of the room. I was in my spare pair of underwear and a long-sleeved T-shirt that I kept at the bottom of my backpack for winter. Irrespective of my attire, I would make a run for it if I could get to the door. It should be nothing but a quick straight run and then a break for freedom. However, I didn’t think I would make it as far as the door. Even in the darkness, with my unknown assailant, I could feel the danger exuding around the room.
“What do you want?” I asked hoarsely.
“Nothing.”
I wasn’t sure I heard him properly. The blood pumping through my veins was throbbing in my head, and it was making it difficult to hear. “Wha…what?” I stammered as I pressed harder into the wall. His almost casual response threw me.
“You’ll stay here,” he told me, his voice still low and gruff. Was he disguising it?
I would? Why?
“Why? Who are you? What do you want?” The questions flowed out of me, and now that my panic was lessening as I spoke, I could make the darker shape out in the black room.
“Stop talking. I know you were there, I know who you are, I will always find you.” His voice was so low I strained to hear him, but the threat was very clear. “You will stay here, don’t go back onto the streets.”
Beautifully Broken (The Denver Series Book 2) Page 2