Her door.
Marina's door.
I remember climbing those stairs. Four flights. Each step a negotiation with my own body. Each landing a small victory.
I remember knocking.
I remember her voice.
I remember?—
Nothing.
After that, nothing.
Where am I?
I force my eyes open.
The room is dark. Not completely dark. There's light coming from somewhere. A door. Slightly open. A thin strip of yellow cutting across the floor.
I blink.
Try to focus.
Ceiling above me. White. Plain. A small crack running from one corner toward the center.
Not my ceiling.
Not my apartment.
Not the penthouse in Chicago with its floor-to-ceiling windows and its view of the river and its panic room behind the bookshelf.
Somewhere else.
Somewhere—
The smell hits me.
Lavender.
Faint. Underneath the sharper scents of antiseptic and blood and sweat.
But there.
Lavender.
Her.
It comes back in a rush.
Marina's apartment. Marina's door. Marina's face when she opened it and found me bleeding on her doorstep.
The look in her eyes.
Horror. Anger. Something else I couldn't name.
She let me in.
