After Shay left to open the store, Sydney got out her laptop. She managed to make herself answer messages and process orders for The Bark and Meow before getting distracted by Google. Fifteen minutes later she was sure she didn’t have a brain tumor, but she was pretty sure she had Crohn’s disease and internal parasites. She rolled her eyes at herself. Stupid internet—it was never a good idea to self-diagnose off websites.
Giving up figuring out a medical reason for her nosebleeds and memory loss, she returned to Pandaren87’s blog page and found a new entry:
I woke up I had another nosebleed this morning. It was a bad one. And I had a migraine. By the time I got the bleeding to stop my head felt better. But it’s so weird. I’ve never had nosebleeds before. My girlfriend is really worried. And I feel bad. I keep trying to hide stuff from her because I don’t want her to freak out. I keep trying to tell myself that it is just a nosebleed and no big deal. But with the weird dreams and the fact that other people have had the same dreams. Well, it doesn’t feel like just a nosebleed. I hope you guys know what I mean. I hope there is someone else who knows what I’m going through. Comment if you have experienced anything similar.
Sydney checked the comments. There were only a couple and they seemed to be from people who were regulars to Pandaren87’s blog. They offered encouragement and humorous answers to his dilemma, but no real solution. She clicked in the box, considering responding, but in the end she didn’t. Still torn between hiding and seeking answers, Sydney hesitated. Self-preservation first.
Using the table of contents on the page, Syd navigated back to his post from yesterday. Reading the comments proved mostly worthless. No one had anything helpful to say and the stupid theories only aggravated her enough to make her head hurt again. She was mainly looking for anyone mentioning memory loss. A couple of people whose links Pandaren87 had shared had commented on the post but they only mentioned the weirdness of their shared dreams. Sydney wondered if there were others like her, ones who had similar experiences but were too afraid and paranoid to connect with others.
Chapter Ten
Sighing, Syd closed the laptop and dumped out the cold remains of her coffee. She took a shower and left the apartment. Since Syd didn’t need to relieve Shay at the store until two and she felt too antsy to sit around all day, so she decided to walk. That was the best way to explore Chicago, just walking wherever the whim took you. You could find the best stores, see the most interesting architecture and find the coolest art installations just by exploring the city randomly. And it was a distraction she needed. So many thoughts swirled through her mind that she couldn’t get a clear picture of what she should do about anything. Xander, weird dreams, nose bleeds, amnesia. Her head pounded just tallying her troubles.
When two o’clock rolled around she made her way back to the Bark and Meow. Shay, her normal ecstatic self, bounced out the door leaving Sydney in charge. She was straightening the dog toys when she heard the bell over the door announce another customer’s arrival. The way that the isles were arranged, she didn’t have a good view of the door and the only thing she could see was the top of a baseball cap. It was dark blue and bounced along with each step the person took.
“Hi,” she called as pleasantly as she could muster considering her mood. The lingering eeriness from the nosebleeds and everything else caused her to feel unsettled and off-kilter. She kept expecting something to happen—what that thing was she couldn’t explain or predict. But that didn’t stop her from jumping at random noises and seeing movements in shadows.
The dude, and she assumed it was a guy, who just came in was the perfect example. There were plenty of reasons why he didn’t respond to her greeting. He probably didn’t hear her. Or maybe he was just an asshole. Sydney rehung the last toy and dusted her hands off on her jeans as she made her way toward the end of the isle. “Can I help—” Sydney’s words caught in her throat as she nearly collided with the customer. She hadn’t even realized he had turned the corner until she was face to face with him.
“Shit! I mean—sorry.” Syd stopped apologizing and wrinkled her brow. The guy was weird and she couldn’t figure out what to say. He stared at her without blinking and she was at a loss for words. Taking a step back she narrowed her eyes at him. “Can—can I help you?”
The guy immediately gave her the creeps. He just oozed a bad vibe and Syd found herself backing away from him. As she stepped back again, he stepped forward and her spine went stiff. Holy shit...red alert. He continued to stare at her without blinking. Nothing about him stood out as devious, because nothing about him stood out at all, other than his dark brown, watery eyes. They were so brown they were almost black. Syd wasn’t tall, barely five feet six inches but this guy was maybe five foot. His blue baseball cap added a couple of inches to his height as it was just perched on his head and that in itself was weird.
The man’s hair was short and brown and his face was unremarkable. Square, but not angular. He wasn’t fat and he wasn’t skinny. He wore a medium blue button up shirt and black trousers with black loafers. His hands hung at his sides limply but he stared at her with an intensity that belied his boring clothes.
The alarm that caused Syd to step back from the man passed quickly. It was replaced with cautious annoyance. “Can I help you?” she finally managed to ask, sounding more confident than she felt.
The man tilted his head at her. Does this fucker ever blink? she wondered. “Perhaps.”
Sydney raised an eyebrow at him. She wanted to step back again but was determined not to. He was in her personal bubble but she refused to acknowledge it. “Yes?” She knew she sounded angry, but she didn’t care. This guy was being weird and if he didn’t realize that, that was his problem. A tiny voice tried to remind her that Shay would want her to be nice to customers but she brushed it aside.
“I am looking for…” the man turned his head slowly to the side. “Dog bowls.”
Syd narrowed her eyes at him. The fact that he didn’t name the item he was looking for until he saw it wasn’t lost on her. What the hell does this guy want? Her first thought was a robber or rapist but even as the idea crossed her mind it didn’t feel accurate. “Uh huh. Well, here they are.” She held her hand out, gesturing towards the variety of plastic, metal and ceramic food and water bowls. The whole time she refused to take her eyes off the guy. She couldn’t shake the feeling that this was someone you wouldn’t want to be left alone with, and she was indeed alone with him. No one else was in the store. If she yelled loud enough Shay—who might be home—might hear her. But she couldn’t count on that. And why the hell did she know this guy wasn’t a guy to trust? Her anger over her inability to remember the experiences that guided her instincts caused her more frustration.
“Yes. Well,” the guy said softly. His voice was strangely plain, no accent, not deep, not high pitched. Nothing memorable at all. Sydney couldn’t even pinpoint why it bothered her, but that didn’t stop her from feeling weird about the guy. “I’m looking for one that...a dog with allergies could use.”
Sydney swallowed hard but refused to let her apprehension show. “What kind of allergies?”
“Hah.”
Syd stiffened. The word barked from the man’s throat and didn’t sound remotely like laughter even though that was supposed to be what it was. “Excuse me?”
“Just regular allergies.”
Whatever remnants of professional courtesy remained that dissipated. “What does that even mean?” she asked. Her eyes narrowed again and her voice was sharp. She wasn’t stupid. Paranoid, damaged, weird, and an amnesiac. But not stupid. This guy was creepy and she wasn’t going to risk whatever he was up to just to seem normal. For all she knew he could be a cop...searching for Don’s murderer. The thought caused her stomach to twist.
Footsteps pounded down the stairs from their apartment and alarm widened the man’s eyes as he stepped back. Sydney couldn’t stop her shoulders from slumping in relief. The next few seconds were a weird mix of confusion and annoyance. Confus
ion because she couldn’t figure out what the hell the strange, “Short Man” wanted. And annoyance because after her initial shock she realized she wanted to step up to the man’s challenge. She didn’t have a clue if that challenge included handcuffs or a bloody ax in his mom’s basement, but regardless she wanted to take the man on.
The gut instinct to fight surprised her, Sydney didn’t consider herself a coward, but her actions—those she could remember—proved that she was a “save herself” kind of girl. She knew Shay or Zak were on the other side of the wall and for a moment she feared for her friends. Whatever this guy wanted, Syd was determined to not let it hurt them. As she turned back to the man, ready to confront him, she almost expected him to have disappeared, as if he was some figment of her imagination. Instead, he was walking quickly towards the door. She tilted her head at him. Well, he’s definitely not a cop then, she thought to herself. Cops aren’t going to hurry off just because someone else comes along.
Zak bounced through the door grinning. He was so much like Shay it was amazing sometimes. His curly blonde hair was cut short was carefully gelled to perfection. “Hey doll! Shay and I are ordering Chinese. Do you want in?”
Sydney swallowed her uneasiness before answering. “No. No thanks. I’m not really hungry.”
“You sure?” He almost looked concerned. But nice guy and friend or not, Zak always seemed to view Sydney as the newcomer and he didn’t usually go out of his way to be her best buddy.
“Yep.” She struggled to keep her voice even.
“Well, we’ll probably have leftovers anyway, so if you want some just let us know.”
“OK.”
Zak returned to the apartment, leaving Syd staring worriedly at the front door. Who the hell was that? She tried to keep calm but realized it was pointless. Someone had found her. Short Man was too weird to just be a coincidence. She knew it was going to take a lot of weed and tequila to get herself to calm down tonight.
Chapter Eleven
The next morning, feeling antsy and uneasy, Sydney decided she needed another walk. She kept expecting Short Man to walk into their apartment and start harassing her again. She had only traveled a block before the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Prickling in paranoia of being watched, she kept her pace. If she was being watched Syd didn’t want them to realize she knew they were there. And if she was just being paranoid, she didn’t want all the people on the street to think she was crazy. Drawing attention to herself went against everything she had struggled to do since waking up by the lake.
Nonchalantly, she slipped into a sandwich shop and bought a soda before sliding into a seat in front of the large picture window overlooking the busy street. With her sunglasses still on, she tried to look like she was just people watching. But, when she saw him, her heart skipped a beat and she jumped foolishly. She kept her head to the side and watched Short Man from the corner of her eye. He was easily recognizable as his eerie plainness was imprinted on her brain. He was sitting across the street at a tiny metal table in front of a frozen yogurt shop dressed the exact same as he had yesterday. His bland face was turned towards the restaurant that she had ducked into.
Sweat pooled under her palms and dripped down her spine. Theories flew through her brain. None of them reassuring. Them. He must be one of Them. Sydney just didn’t know if Them was the cops, the “men in black,” criminals or what. Whoever they were she knew it meant nothing good for her. She couldn’t go back out on the street and pretend she didn’t know he was there. She looked towards the back of the shop, behind the counter was a kitchen area and over the doorway hung a sign declaring employees only. By the looks of the man running the shop she didn’t think it would be a good idea to ask him to make an exception and let her leave through the back. She was sure he would refuse and it would attract attention.
She wanted to go back to her apartment, pack up her stuff, and run. But she resisted. They had already found her, hadn’t they? They knew where she lived. If she ran, what would that mean for Shay? At best, if They were the cops, she would be interrogated. At worse, she could be in danger. It occurred to her that the Short Man could have already made a move against Sydney if he wanted too. What are they waiting for? Sydney didn't have money to run. She cursed herself for spending so much of Don’s money already. She did the mental math and figured she had less than two hundred dollars hidden away in her room.
While her and Shay’s arrangement was beneficial to keeping off the books, it was bad for the sock drawer bank account. She thought about what she had that she could sell and made up her mind. If she could get Xander to buy back the weed he had sold her, sell her laptop to a pawn store and pocket the bit of cash Shay would give her this week, she could come up with maybe five hundred dollars. It wasn’t much, but it would be enough to get her out of town.
She ignored the ache in her chest at the thought of leaving Shay, and if truth be told she didn’t want to leave Xander or Zak either. They were the only friends she ever had in her short memory. She remembered what it was like to be alone on the streets and no part of her wanted to go back to that. But she knew she didn’t have a choice.
Deciding Short Man’s weird waiting game gave her at least a few hours, Sydney pulled out her phone. Xander answered on the third ring.
“Hey, there.”
She ignored the chills that his voice caused to spread over her body. “I need a favor.”
***
“I don’t do refunds,” Xander scowled at her twenty minutes later, after picking her up from the shop.
“I’m not asking for a refund. I’m just asking you to buy back what I have left.”
He ran his fingers through his shaggy hair and stared at the road. Sydney still didn’t know how to feel about how easily it had been to get him to pick her up. She had asked for a favor and he hadn’t hesitated in agreeing. When she asked him for a ride he had only cautioned her that he was in his tow truck. Thirty minutes later he was pulling up in front of the sandwich shop.
It had taken an incredible about of will power for Sydney to not look at Short Man as she hurried to Xander’s truck. “Thanks,” she told him, trying to sound as normal as possible while climbing into the remarkably clean tow truck.
“No problem.”
If he wondered why she needed a ride two blocks from her apartment he, thankfully, didn’t ask. She hated having to ask him to buy the rest of her weed back. It felt pathetic and she knew it would lead to questions she didn’t want to answer.
“Look, you realize that I don’t exactly have a big customer base, right?” he asked, finally looking her way as they stopped at a traffic light.
She raised her brows at him as if to ask, “So?”
“I sell to, like, five or six people. You being one of them. Even if I had the money to buy back the weed I sold you, who do you think I’m going to sell it to? I get one supply and parcel it out to a few people. I can’t afford to keep a supply around.”
“You can’t sell it back to whoever you bought it from?” she knew it was a stupid question and waved off his exasperated look before he had a chance to answer.
They rode in silence for a few more blocks before he spoke again. “Do you have a destination in mind? Or are we just cruising?”
Sydney wanted to ask him to drop her off at Union Station so she could hop on a bus out of town. But she didn’t want to leave without at least a few things. The reality of her situation was slowly setting in. She had no memory, no money, and someone was after her. It was stupid to even wait around—just asking for trouble. She should take what she could and run now, while she still could. “Just drive. Please.” She didn’t meet his look and instead focused on the road ahead.
Chapter Twelve
Hiding in between the bales of hay, Sydney endured the scratching and poking from the stalks as she did her best to stay unseen. The tractor trailer bounced over rough, unpaved road long enough for her to whimper with pain from scratches and pokes from the hay. She didn’t
know what was worse, the condition of her feet or her arms, face and back. She could only imagine how bad she looked now. There was no way a decent person wouldn’t call an ambulance after getting one look at her.
Finally, the tractor rolled to stop and idled noisily and Sydney sighed with relief. Staring up at the sky, she could see the sun had almost set and she had no idea what to do next. Exhausted and in pain she lay there panting, waiting to be found. Over the sound of the motor, she could hear someone in heavy boots climb down from the tractor and shuffle around. A few rattles, clanks and clangs later the tractor roared into gear again and it took a moment for Syd to realize that the tractor was on the move while the trailer stayed still. Once the sound of the engine faded, she sat up. Holy shit. She couldn’t believe her luck. The farmer had left the trailer parked next to a barn and went on his way. Wincing, Sydney scooted to the edge and half jumped, half rolled off the side. She hit the ground and immediately fell forward onto her face. A loud grunt and followed by a groan of pain croaked out of her and she lay there catching her breath for a moment.
She sat up, startled to see a massive black cow staring at her over the top rail of a fence. The beast slowly chewed and flicked its tail before deciding she wasn’t interesting anymore and went back to grazing. Sydney forced herself to climb to her feet using the trailer for leverage. She didn’t see or hear anything other than the sound of crickets gearing up for the night and the sporadic, baleful call of a cow. Hoping for one more piece of luck she limped towards the barn. Mud, grass, and a few strands of hay stuck to the bottoms of her bloody feet creating an almost protective barrier that helped dull the pain of her more fresh cuts. She nearly cried with relief when she discovered the huge rolling, barn doors weren't locked. She only had enough strength to slide the door open a few inches, but it was enough for her to squeeze through before sliding the door shut again.
Don't Let Them Find You (The Dyian Series Book 1) Page 7