“Well, we are,” she snapped. “And anyway, I won’t be needing you back when we doreopen.”
My heart dropped. “What?”
She rubbed her swollen eyes and sighed. “Look, I don’t know what happened last night, but I do know that the police seem really interested in your part in it. Truthfully, I find it a little bit odd myself. Your shift was over. Why were you in thealley?”
I opened my mouth to try and explain, but she cut me off with a tutting noise I’d heard her use toward others but never towardme.
“I just think it’s for the best if we end your employmenthere.”
“You can’t possibly think that I killed Lars,” I said in a soft whisper as my eyes began to burn. I could understand the police thinking it. Hell, I could even understand my step-dad thinking it. But Rachel? She’d known me for years. Surely she didn’t think I was capable of something likethat.
“I don’t know what to think, Norah. I walk outside, and there you are standing over his body. You were there when you should have been home. Something isn’t right about that, and I hope to god it isn’t what it seems like. But until the cops prove otherwise, I would feel a lot better if you weren’there.”
I blinked and stepped back. Her words were a slap in the face. She was scared. Ofme.
“Okay, if that’s what you want,” I finallysaid.
She gave a nod, and then she slammed the door right in myface.
* * *
Iwas startingto understand Bree’s opinion on Manhattan. The city that dropped dreams from the top of the Empire State Building where they smashed onto the grimy concrete sidewalks. As I wandered through the gray-laden downtown streets, the buildings rising high on either side of me felt as though they were pressing in close, and the scent of hot steel swirling into my nose made my headspin.
Everything was gray and hot and smelly. Even the cracks in the sidewalks didn’t have hints of green. Nothing about the city feltalive.
I turned the corner and stopped short when I was confronted with an unfamiliar street. It didn’t look much different than any of the others I usually passed on my way around downtown. Two Chinese takeaway restaurants with their neon lights buzzing in the windows. A pawn shop, a bagel shop, and a hair salon that looked like it had seen betterdays.
Problem was, I didn’t recognize any of them. Somehow, I’d gotten turned around. I’d been wandering aimlessly for at least an hour, and while I knew the city well, I’d ended up in a chunk of blocks I’d neverexplored.
Footsteps echoed on the pavement behind me, and a strange eerie sensation settled over me. The feeling of being watched. With a slight hitch in my breath, I continued to move down the street and cast a furtive glance over my shoulder. A dark form hovered at the end of the block. The clouds overhead cast the streets into grey shadows, and he—or it—hovered beside the edges of a building, making it impossible to make out more thanthat.
My heartbeat picked up speed. Was it that creature from last night? Or was it one of the strange guys who had clearly been following me around? Or maybe it was a cop, keeping an eye on their number onesuspect.
Whoever it was, I didn’t want to stick around to findout.
My footsteps were heavy on the concrete, echoing in time with the thud of those that followed. A part of me felt the strong urge to take a look behind me again, but another part was too afraid to see. I just had to keepmoving.
When I rounded the next corner, I set off into a sprint and then rounded the next corner before the stalker could catch up. It was the only way I knew how to lose him. Breath heaving, I slowed and ducked beside a black wrought-iron railing that led up to the front landing of an apartment building. There were some trash cans just in front of me, blocking me from view of anyone passingby.
Surely I had lost him. Surely he wouldn’t know I’d turned down thisstreet.
With my heart still racing, I grasped onto the railing and peered down the street in the direction I’d come. As soon as my fingers came in contact with the railing, my entire body was slammed by an overwhelming tidal wave of nausea. I jerked away, my head ringing, my chest heaving, my eyesblurring.
This was worse than before.Wayworse.
And this time, I wasn’t getting any better. I grasped onto the railing to keep myself from falling over, and another wave of nausea pummelled me right in the gut. Darkness fled into my eyes, and I couldn’t hear anything in the world but a sharp, high-pitchedring.
Maybe I really did need help. Maybe I was going crazy. Because nothing about this wasnormal.
I struggled to stand, and my knees buckled underneath me. It sent me tumbling onto the grimy pavement, my elbows and knees slamming into the concrete. A cry of pain ripped from my throat, and a blinding pain shot through my arm. Breath heaving, all I could do was lie there, trying to squeeze the darkness out of my eyes. But it wouldn’t be gone. It consumed every part of me, and my grasp on the world began to fade. My eyes slid closed, and I couldn’t even move the tip of myfinger.
As the ringing began to subside, I heard the heavy thud of footsteps. They stopped right by my ear, and I screamed inside at myself.Move, Norah.Run.
But I couldn’t move at all. I couldn’t even open myeyes.
“Well, this isn’t ideal.” A male voice, one that wasn’t familiar at all, though the lyrical tone of it alarmed me. “You really need to stop touching iron. Otherwise, you’re going to end up in the hospital, and they won’t be able to fixyou.”
I tried to open my mouth to respond. My muddled thoughts were trying to form questions. Iron? Hospital? Who areyou?
