My throat doesn’t like all my talking. Something that puts me into a foul mood. That’s such an improvement over the mind-numbing fear that I feel like cheering.
“I’ll count you down, shall I? Three… Two…”
The car brakes so abruptly that I tumble into the back of his seat, having been unconcerned about wearing a safety belt.
I check the door but it’s still unresponsive.
“Now the door, Brian.”
“This really isn’t—”
“Three… Two… One…”
I smash the shoe into the padding just beside his head, shrieking with as much gusto as my battered throat will allow. Despite Brian’s girth, he utters something that sounds suspiciously like his own shriek.
“The door, Brian. Now.”
When it clunks, I wrench it open so fast I hear a muscle in my shoulder pop, but I don’t have the luxury of time to wait to see if it hurts.
I’m outside, standing in the drizzle, hopping on one leg to get my shoe back where it belongs. The vehicle takes off, veering dangerously close to a parked car near the corner before the driver gets a grip.
In case he changes his mind, I cut through the driveway of the nearest house and jump over the back fence, landing awkwardly on the other side. The night is cold enough that my teeth chatter, the continuing rainfall adding to my misery as I stumble out of the neighbour’s property onto the footpath.
I don’t know where I am. A terrible sense of direction added to only really knowing one suburb well doesn’t lend itself to great navigation skills. If I couldn’t find my way around Baxter’s house, there’s little chance I can place myself inside an entire city.
It’s too cold to just stand so I start walking. The pain of limping along in shoes unsuited for the rough concrete or the weather is still preferable to standing still, freezing, and making myself a target if Brian goes cruising.
My insides are hot and my outsides colder than ever when I finally see a street I recognise. Instead of ambling along, I pick up the pace. Even if the deranged lunatic who assaulted me was wrong about Sergio being at my home—why? It doesn’t even make sense?—I would be mad to go there. But there’s another place I know well, one I can get inside without a key, so I aim straight for the skating rink.
In the six days since I last saw it, the place hasn’t changed. I have, which makes it feel different, but the physical reality of the rink is right as I left it.
My key code works on the rear door, and I scurry inside, so glad to be out of the drizzling night that I take a while to realise my body temperature hasn’t altered.
Luckily, my locker holds a change of clothes. Not underwear, that’ll have to stay damp, but sneakers, a tee shirt, and sweats. I take my beautiful dress off and roll it into a damp ball, tossing it—along with my damaged heels—into the bin.
I remember standing before the mirror, twirling to make the tassels spin. Now, I never want to see it again. It has Andrej’s grubby fingers all over it. Making it dirty. Making me dirty.
The nausea rolls up my throat and I jam my forearm across my mouth to force it back. That touch reignites the pain in my face, the pain in my throat. It makes the fear come crawling back, bringing me to my knees.
I choke back a sob and suddenly feel so exposed that I can’t stand it. After leaping to my feet, I run from the staff room, heading around the rink. My keys are gone, but no one came back to lock the equipment store after the incident, so I can still open the door.
Inside, I scoot around the edge of the machine and huddle underneath the tarp. The same place I discovered Sophia.
It’s dark. Without lights on inside, there’s precious little glow coming into the rink from the outside streetlamps. Add the barrier of this enclosed room, and it’s pitch black. The only things I see are generated by my damaged eye or my imagination.
I sit at first, then lay on my side, neither position comfortable. My head injuries keep reporting new and more intense discomfort. Each time I press my fingers to the site, the skin is puffier, the feedback more intense.
When I shift to yet another position, a piece of crumpled paper comes loose, and I feel its edges in the darkness. A food wrapper? It doesn’t have the plasticky feel of most modern items. Maybe a receipt. Except the top feels fluffier, like a sheet torn from a notepad.
Even holding it directly in front of my face, I can’t see it. The darkness is too encompassing. With a groan, I force myself to stand and feel along the wall until I come to the lightswitch.
And there I hesitate.
Nobody is watching the building. That’s what I want to believe. It’s a rink in a lowly populated part of the city. On a good day, we can barely attract customers and right now it wouldn’t be open, anyway. If anyone’s noticed the place has been shut since last Thursday, that’d be a miracle.
Except it’s not customers I expect to be lurking outside, stalking the location and reporting back if someone spots an inside light being turned on.
If there is anyone scoping out this building, they’ll have seen me enter. No one’s attacked so far, ergo the chances of them being interested in a light they probably can’t even see are close to zero.
