The ride was tense and silent, the city lights casting fleeting shadows across Felix’s sharp features. After what felt like an eternity, we turned onto a quieter street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I was far too poor to be in this zip code. I looked down at my shoeless feet and thrifted clothes and cringed, praying I wouldn’t be seen by anyone else in the cover of night.
Felix stopped in front of an old brownstone. Except this one didn’t quite fit in with the others on the street. The front was more worn, the windows streaked with grime, and the faded paint peeled in long, curling strips. It looked like it had been forgotten by time, yet somehow it still demanded attention.
Helping me out of the passenger side door, he looped my arm in his as if we were lovers. The truth was far less romantic. He wanted to make sure I didn’t run. Not that I could have gone far; my feet ached and bled, making each step a reminder of how trapped I really was.
Felix unlocked the door and we stepped into the pitch-black building. I couldn’t make out the full extent of the mess, but I knew it wasn’t clean. Shadows clung to piles of clutter, furniture stacked haphazardly, and the faint smell of mildew hung in the air. But, even it its messy state, I figured it couldn’t be any worse than the mess I had lived in.
The two of us stood there in the dark, the silence pressing in on me. It was overwhelmingly uncomfortable.
“Um… are you going to turn on the light?” I asked, nervously tapping my fingers together. My voice sounded small, even to my own ears.
“The electricity isn’t on,” he said simply, as if it were the most mundane thing in the world.
“The electricity isn’t on?” I repeated, my blood pressure spiking. “How do you expect me to clean this place?”
“I guess you better get started in the morning,” he replied, almost casually, leaving me to stew in the dim shadows.
I heard his boots crunch softly against the debris-strewn floor as he made his way toward the door in the darkness, each step deliberate and echoing through the empty space.
“By the way,” he called out. “You’re locked in from the outside. There’s no escaping.”
“But… what if there’s a fire?” I asked incredulously.
“I guess you’ll have to hope the fire department gets here on time.”
The sound of a key turning echoed through the room, and before I could react, the door slammed shut behind him with a deafening bang. The darkness pressed in, and I was left alone, my pulse hammering in my ears.
“Fuck you, Felix!” I screamed into the void of the dark house, my voice bouncing off the walls and swallowing me in its emptiness.
Chapter 4
Tessa
Sunlight—or what passed for it through the dirty curtains—burned my eyes as I stirred awake. My body ached from head to toe. Last night I had stumbled through the darkness, searching for somewhere to sleep, and finally settled on a lumpy old loveseat. At the time, it had seemed like a good idea. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, wincing as the motion sent sharp jolts of ache through my back. Blinking against the weak sunlight filtering through the grimy curtains, I took in the room for the first time. Dust coated every surface, shadows clung stubbornly to the corners, and the furniture looked like it had been abandoned for years. The brownstone, which had seemed merely rundown at night, now revealed its full, weary decay in the unforgiving light.
“Oh my god,” I said aloud.
I could handle a dirty house or a grimy restaurant. But staring at the peeling wallpaper, the dust-covered furniture, and the endless clutter, I wasn’t sure this was something I could tackle.
I had no choice. It was either this or sex work.
“I guess I’ll see what the whole thing looks like,” I said, talking to no one but myself and any ghosts that might live in the house. “And find some cleaning supplies.”
I maneuvered around the mess in the living room, stepping over piles of newspapers and broken furniture. Each step kicked up a small cloud of dust that made me cough, but I forced myself forward, trying to get a full sense of just how bad this place really was.
I made my way to the kitchen, each step a hazardous negotiation with shadowy memories lingering in the air. The light filtering through the grimy window showed a sink piled high with dishes that had long since surrendered to mildew. I gagged as I surveyed the kitchen. The rancid stench clawed at my throat, and I stumbled backwards, desperately seeking the reprieve of fresher air.
Not that there was any here.
I turned away from the chaos, only to be met with more. Trash and broken furniture crowded every corner, dust motes danced in the weak sunlight, and a sour, unplaceable stench clung to the air. It was a disaster, and for a moment, I felt the weight of it pressing down like a physical force.
Overwhelmed, I sank onto the edge of a grimy couch, burying my face in my hands. The smell, the decay, the endless piles of trash—it was all too much. For a moment, the chaos around me faded, replaced by a sharp, aching memory of home. My old apartment with its broken elevator, the stale smell of the restaurant clinging to my clothes, even my father’s drunken rants. How had he gotten me into this mess? How had hisendless schemes, his half-baked promises, left me standing here, in someone else’s ruin?
I hated it, all of it. And yet… I missed it. Missed the familiar rhythm of my life, the terrible comfort of knowing exactly how bad things were. Here, in this crumbling Brownstone, I felt untethered, adrift, and unbearably small.
Hot tears pricked at my eyes, and I tried to swallow them back, but they spilled anyway. I missed home, even if it had been a shithole. Even if it had been my prison. Somehow, it had been mine. Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to hate my father, not really. Not even now, when everything he’d done had thrown me into this chaos. My brain screamed that I should be angry.
