I can barely make him out in the darkness, but I can feel him staring at me with what’s probably terror.
Right. I still have my hood up.
That’s probably why he screamed like that. The hood makes me look like the grim fucking reaper sitting on his bed in this darkness. Which is almost funny because I’ve been called worse things.
I pull it down and tilt my head at him. “You weren’t answering your door.”
“A-Alexei? What the fuck?” he chokes out. “How did you get in here?”
“I have a copy of your key,” I say, because there’s no point in lying about it.
“What?”
“I made a copy. Can’t really have one of your neighbors see me crouched in front of your door picking the lock. Might have to kill them.” I pause and think it over. “I could just stage an accident and push them down the stairs. Depends on how loud they scream. Your building has thin walls, very thin. Your next-door neighbor, Mrs. Smith, would probably call the cops. She seems like the type. Whole thing becomes messy, and I don’t like mess.”
“Oh my god,” he breathes, voice strained and horrified. “Stop. Please stop talking like that. You can’t just say things like that.”
He doesn’t want to hear about the neighbor situation. Fair enough.
I’m supposed to keep the killing theoretical and private. Not explain exactly how I’d push someone down the stairs and make it look accidental. That makes him nervous.
I’ll have to try keeping it vague from now on.
It’s too dark to see his face properly, but I don’t need to see it to know he’s panicking. I can hear it in his breathing, the way his voice shook when he said my name earlier.
I walk over to the light switch. “Wait, don’t.”
My finger hovers over the switch. I flip it on anyway and look at him. He’s pulled the covers over himself again.
“Just please don’t freak out, okay? It looks worse than it is. I’m fine, I promise, and please stop talking about killing my neighbor.”
He drags the blanket down slowly. Half his face is purple and swollen, scraped raw in places like he was dragged acrossconcrete. His hands fist the sheets like he’s trying to hide them. I see the bruises there too, running up his chest and scattered across his arms.
“What the fuck happened?”
I’m going to kill whoever touched him, rip them apart so slowly they’ll beg me for death, and I won’t show mercy.
“Nothing, I just fell off my bike on the way home from work. It’s fine, I’m fine.” He rubs the back of his head and tries to give me a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
I don’t buy it.
I move to the bed and sit in front of him, my hands going up before I can stop them. I want to touch, to check, to prove he’s lying. He flinches and moves further away from me.
“There is no way a fall from a bike did that. What happened?” I bite out.
“No, really. I fell off my bike. There was this lady who cut in front of me, and I shot forward and hit the asphalt.”
“What lady? What was her name?”
“What?”
I’m going to find her and break her in fucking half, put her under the pavement she shoved him into. I don’t say that out loud though.Learning.
“That doesn’t matter. It was just an accident.”
“It was really an accident?” I pull out my phone and shoot a quick message to Daniil.
I’ll get this woman’s name, and then I’ll pay her a visit.
