Running through my mental map of the library, I give the chipper woman in front of me directions, mentally sighing in relief and dropping the fake enthusiasm the second she turns her back. One hospital escape, two near accidents, and a three hour drive later, I had to call it and settle in a new town for the night. Normally I’d have made it much farther before starting over, especially with the risk of my description in the hospital’s database for Malcolm to possibly find. He’s hacked into security cameras before, so it’s not out of the realm of possibilities that he has some sort of program scouring the internet for the keywords ‘eye color: gold.’
Pretty damn hard to be invisible in this day and age, but I don’t have all of my ducks in a row yet and need to regroup before I wind up burning through what’s left of my reserves so that Icanstart over again. While I love modern conveniences, everything is overly complicated and expensive. IDs, social security cards and birth certificates, bank accounts, reference checks to evengetwork, not to mention the bane of my fucking existance; social media. If you don’t have some sort of digital footprint, it’s instantly cause for suspicion.
Gods, I wish I’d been born a couple hundred years ago. Chop off your hair, memorize enough details to pass off your sob story, and start over fresh in a new town. Rinse, repeat.
“Amelia, dear, would you mind the desk for me while I run to the restroom?” The elderly woman settles a hand on my shoulder from behind and I startle, jerking away from her touch and whirling around. To her credit, she doesn’t comment, using the excuse of brushing a strand of her salt and pepper hair out of her face to pretend like she didn’t notice my reaction.
As my heart stutters, I manage a weak smile at the fake name. “Of course. No guarantees you won’t have a line of people anxiously awaiting your return, but I’m pretty great at poking at a keyboard and grumbling under my breath that ‘the darned system is frozen again’.”
Chuckling, she passes by me, putting a little distance between us as she does so without making it abundantly obvious. “Sounds like you’ll do just fine then. Back in a flash.”
Sneaking a peek at the nametag in front of her station, I mentally repeat ‘Clara’ until it sticks in my memory. Taking my seat behind her semi-circle desk, I straighten up a few stacks of various fliers that are alljustaskew enough to give me an eye twitch. Once they’re all paperclipped, I organize the stacks for easy access, hoping Clara won’t be too upset since I’m not actually rearranging her workspace, merely... buffing out the rough edges.
“Excuse me, miss?” Glancing up at the man before me, I immediately flick my gaze over his left shoulder to the illuminated exit sign.
Messy hair a shade of black so deep it has a blue sheen where the lights hit it falls into a pair of dark blue eyes only a few shades lighter. One ear is ringed in enough silver piercings that it’s more metal than cartilage, matching the couple adorning his lip and eyebrow. A black long-sleeved shirt is practically painted on his broad chest, with a thick silver band around his upper arm above the fabric. Hands tucked into the pockets of his faded black jeans, he clears his throat. My cheeks flame at getting caught in my thorough perusal, stomach flipping at the knowing smirk he gives me.
It’s been a long damn time since I’ve gone through the hassle it takes in order to get my rocks off, but I can still take some mental snapshots for my spankbank. Relationships are completely out of the question, so it’s a fine line to straddle, stringing potential lays along long enough to confirm they’re human before I sleep with them. It’s a hell of a lot of wasted time and effort for very little payoff, but sometimes I need the occasional win to keep me motivated when all I want to do is give up. Or at least, I used to. What little sex life I’d once had has been kept thoroughly in check over the last few years by Malcolm escalating to a whole new level of crazy that puts his old self to shame.
The cold splash of that reminder kills the lust from my veins and clears my head instantly. “What can I do for you, sir?”
When he opens his mouth to reply, I catch a flash of metal studding a line down the center of his tongue. “I was hoping you could point me in the direction of fantasy books? Preferably more on the adult side than YA.”
“To the left, follow the bend left through to the next section, and there will be a large sign for adult fiction.”
Giving me a two-fingered salute in thanks, he takes off without another word. The rest of the day passes by uneventfully; Clara teaching me the system, some paperwork, but mostly pointing people in the right direction to find what they’re looking for. Honestly, this is by far the best job I’ve had in years. I’m genuinely going to be sad after I have a few paychecks under my belt and need to move on.
Rolling the metal cart full of books in front of me, step ladder strapped to the other end, I send up a silent thank you that the stitches they used at the hospital were dissolvable so I wouldn’t have to cut them out myself and wind up with another stab wound or ten. The skin is still tight and itchy, my muscles sore and happy to tell me constantly that I’m overdoing it, but it could have been infinitely worse.
I could have been caught before I skipped out on the hospital bill.
The ladder is only four steps, not overly cumbersome to deal with. Set it up, grab an armful of books, reshelve, and repeat. Half the time I don’t even need it, and the afternoon passes by peacefully. While sliding another book into place, one catches my eye, and I slip it free. Skimming the first page, it quickly morphs into ten more before I have to shake myself out of reading on the clock. Tucking it under my arm to bring with me when I leave tonight, I take the first step down when a couple of kids run past, one tripping into the cart and sending it crashing into the ladder.
Shit.Bracing myself for impact, I curl in on myself.
A rush of air leaves my lungs at the hard smack against my upper arm and thigh, but it quickly becomes apparent as I roll onto my back that it was from the iron bars this guy calls arms instead of the ground. “Watch your damn kids, will ya?!” he barks at the middle aged man that comes puffing over, red faced.
“I’m so sorry, which, uh, which way did they go?” he pants, and with a tilt of my pissed off savior’s head, the man apologizes again and takes off jogging after the little hellions.
Reflexively, I want to scramble away as fast as possible, but the cool air on my lower back overrides the impulse with a bone-deep, visceral one that’s afraid to move a single muscle beyond my heart threatening to pound right out of my chest. With my shirt riding up, I could brush against his bare hand in my attempt to untangle myself. Right now, every point of contact is safe, yet every additional second I stay paralyzed puts not only this guy in danger, but everyone in the building.
I don’t know how Malcolm keeps finding out, because if he’s watching me closely enough to know who I sleep with, why wouldn’t he swoop in to drag me back? Yet the news stories are seared into my memory of the movie theater chained from the outside and everyone burned alive alongside the guy I had a one night stand with, of the explosion in the parking garage that took out the man that I had a weekend fling with, and the seventy bystanders caught in the crossfire.
Ignoring my rapid breaths sawing in and out of me, he carefully sets me on my feet. He steps back immediately, tucking his hands into his pockets again. “Are you alright?” At my rapid nod, he huffs a breath out of his nose. “Good.”
Giving me a quick once over as if assuming I’m lying, he walks away without another word. Barely ten steps later, he’s slipping back into his booth, picks up the book he left on the table, flips around a minute to find his page, and returns to reading. As I wrap my arms around my sinking stomach, I stare at him with a wariness that ratchets up with every nervous heart beat, but he doesn’t spare me another glance.
***
He’s here again. Maybeyou should skip town earlier than planned.
No, I can’t afford it,I reason, arguing with myself.I haven’t noticed him following me after work. Heck, not even around the library. He just sits in that same booth day after day, reading from open to close.
At a childlike shriek, I glance up to see the same heathens from two days ago sprint across the main lobby and reluctantly admit that itisa small town. Not a lot of places to hang out during the day that don’t cost an arm and a leg.
No matter how I try to justify things, it’s making me uneasy. A lifetime of looking over my shoulder and taught to jump at shadows before I could even walk has left me with a cosmic fuck-ton of paranoia. Since I have no one to talk things through with besides myself, I walk the fine line that borders crazyhard, but it’s the only thing keeping me from falling off the deep end altogether.
Some days I wake up feeling the burning iron on my skin again, the old wound aching for days afterward, or hearing my parents’ muffled voices as I hold my breath, afraid to move a single muscle as I hide in the pitch black room beneath the floor. Others, I’m so angry that I wind up on reckless benders as I try to exorcise my demons in one form or another so I’m able to pretend that I havesomesort of life to make all of this effort mean something, clinging to whatever petty victory I can get my hands on.
