I didn’t have a choice.Get up, Blaire. Get the fuck up.
My cover was blown. I stumbled to my feet, leaping the last bit to the stairs. I took them two at a time, focused only on getting to the street below. The fire escape rattled and shook when my pursuer stepped onto it, but I couldn’t spare the energy to be frightened.
Fear would get me killed. I had to keep moving.
“Get back here, you fucking bitch!” a man’s voice roared behind me.
I shook my head, jumping to the next step. I was almost to the ground now. My feet hit the pavement with a smack, and I took off down the dark, empty street.
Moments later, I heard the man land on the sidewalk. My supposedly safe neighborhood meant there was no traffic out on the roads, likely because all my neighbors were in bed like normal people at this hour. If a lone taxi did pass me, I didn’t have a hope in hell of it stopping. If I saw a bedraggled girl racing through the streets, I probably wouldn’t stop either.
I was on my own.Think, Blaire, think.
There was no room for fear as I ran. No room for doubt.
I needed to find a way to double back on him. Which meant I needed to lose him first. He panted behind me, cursing between his ragged breaths. One of the small alleys would be my best bet. If I could squeeze through to the other side, I might be able to gain a couple seconds on him.
I darted into the alley next to me, sprinting until my legs burned. After several seconds that seemed to stretch on forever, I came out on the other side. It gave me a minute head start, and I raced into the next alley, my eyes widening as I realized it was a dead end, with only a dumpster to show.
“You’re dead, cunt.” The out of breath threat thundered from the next alley. I was out of time and choices.
I lifted the lid to the dumpster and flipped myself over the top, landing awkwardly on a split bag of garbage. At this point, my chances were fifty-fifty. Either my intruder had seen me jump into the dumpster and was storming toward me at this exact moment, and my final, dying breaths would be amongst old take out. Or I got extremely lucky.
My foot had landed in something wet and slimy, the cold spreading up my ankle. My hand felt like it was in an old container of noodles, and if it wasn’t, I really didn’t want to knowwhatit was. The revolting smell of garbage was everywhere, days old food making me want to gag. Forcing myself to breath through my mouth seemed like the only option, except then I could practically taste the nauseating smell. My stomach turned.
I counted my breaths, ignoring the rustling sound coming from beneath me. I hated the dark. In fact, I loathed it. But if I thought too hard about it, I would break.
After the first thirty count, I let myself breath again, sucking in the disgusting air surrounding me. If the man hadn’t come down here yet, it was unlikely he would. Of course, he could just be waiting on the other side of the dumpster, too.
Another thirty, and the rustling grew louder. An animal—at least I hoped it was an animal—lived in here. My foot sank deeper into the garbage bag, and my sweatpants grew damp.
“Thirty more, and then out,” I whispered to myself. “Thirty and out.”
Small claws skittered across my fingers, and I snatched my hand away.
Leave me alone. Fifteen more breaths. I couldn’t hear anything in the alley, and I was taking that as a good sign. All I could taste was rotting garbage, and I wanted to scream.
A tiny set of teeth nibbled on my hand, and finally I shrieked, shaking my burning hand.
“Fuck!” I flipped open the lid to the dumpster to a blissfully empty alley. The perpetrator of the bite scuttered back beneath the garbage, its pink, wiry tale disappearing last. A rat.
A fuckingrat.
I laughed out loud, squeezing the small, bleeding bite. Somehow a dripping faucet had turned into a break-in, a chase through the city, and me somehow leaping into a dumpster filled with God knew what. I pulled myself out of the trash, trying to ignore all of the different textures covering my body. This was quite possibly my worst nightmare, besides the one that kept me awake at night. I couldn’t afford to think about all the germs right now, or whatever diseases a rat carried. Right now, I needed to know where to go next.
My planning hadn’t ever really gotten this far. It had been more of ain the worst-case scenario, this is how I’ll survivekind of thinking. I never considered what I would need after I survived, like a place to stay.
My apartment was out for the foreseeable future. I didn’t have any family, and no friends I considered close enough to call. Duke? I made a face. Somehow, he seemed even worse than spending a night in the garbage.
I could go to the police station. Chances were I’d get brushed off though.
Fuck.
Winder’s face flashed in front of me.Right now, I’m the only one you’ve got.
Something wasn’t sitting right with me. The day he told me he was the only one protecting me, my apartment got broken into? It seemed too coincidental, and I had no way to know the man chasing mewasn’tWinder.
I picked a brown piece of lettuce off my sweatpants, digging in my brain for some logic to outweigh the anxiety. It was difficult to find any, considering my doomsday preparation had actually been required tonight.
