“What the fu—” He sneezed violently, dropping the blade.
I ran. Out of the basement. Upstairs.
Dig’s raging storm of sneezes echoed.
I heaved myself up to a new floor. His boots chomped nosily behind me. He cussed. Something about being stabbed. Something about cats. I wouldn’t know anything about it.
I flung my heels down the hall and ran in a new direction hiding in a room behind a filing cabinet and grabbed a fake bamboo plant to cover my other side. Once he walked past, I’d slip out behind him and go back into the stairwell locking the emergency exit door.
Quiet.
I slipped my hands over my mouth to stop my breath from leaking out of me uncontrolled.
“Princess…” His voice slipped out like the stench of rot. “Princess…”
Go away.
The sound of his boots slunk lazily along the carpet squares.
“Aw. How cute. You threw your heels away, making me think you wentthatway.”
Irritation pulled my brows down.
Moonlight highlighted the rust on the table. I searched the distance in the murky black, trying to find an outline of a figure. Nothing. He might as well be a ghost.
“I know where you are Princess.” He let his voice drift down the hall. “I always know where you are. There’s no point in hiding. I tell you what, if you come out by yourself without me dragging you out, I promise I’ll go easier on you.”
There were at least a dozen offices on the floor. He did not enter them out of his own safety, probably thinking I was hiding behind a door or on the ceiling with a blade ready to cut him down before he entered. He was lingering outside, trying to coax me out with lies of knowing where I was.
“You’re in there, behind the filing cabinet and fake bamboo tree.”
I stood up. “What the freckle?”
He hung in the doorway, arm along the frame, leaning casually. In his other hand he flipped a blade in the air, catching it by the handle. “Sup?”
There was no exit.
Moonlight swam across the carpet and waved against his dark jeans, showing off his silhouette of wide shoulders and hood pulled over his head. A glassy glint of the stupid sunglasses shone. His lips tugged up to the side.
“How did you know where I was?” I asked.
He tilted his head as if he were confused by the question. “Why wouldn’t I?”
It was clear he was not leaving the door frame. There was a window at my back. The joint to open it was well rusted. It would take huge efforts to open and jump out and I doubted he would allow me time to accomplish this. My throat bobbed. I was not trapped. I was not trapped. I was not—
“You’re trapped Princess.”
“What do you want?” I asked.
“You.”
“That’s not very specific.”
“Will you let me feel your chest?”
“No, thank you.”
“Just your heartbeat.”
