"Hey," she said, keeping her voice low. "I'm sorry if I woke you up."
"You didn't," I echoed.
She hovered near the couch, eyes landing on my bandaged side and then glancing away. "I made a sandwich." She set the plate on the coffee table next to the sofa.
The plate was ceramic, patterned with faded blue flowers. Thesandwich was cut in half, one half already sliding apart. There was also a handful of potato chips, the cheap kind, crumbled at the edges.
I sat up straighter, ignoring the flare of pain, and reached for the plate. "Thank you."
Kimmy nodded and turned around. "I'll go to the bedroom so you can eat." She waved at the door across the way. "Privacy, you know." She motioned vaguely at her own face, then at my bandana. The fabric was damp with sweat. I wanted to take it off badly, I realized.
Then it dawned on me, I'd just thought of her as Kimmy, not the client.
It was bad. No, it was worse than bad. It went against every rule of the Bureau.
"Okay then," she muttered and retreated to her room, closing the door behind her.
The silence that followed was heavy, but not suffocating. I waited first. Just to make sure she wouldn't come back. Maybe she'd forgotten something.
After a couple of minutes, I pulled the bandana down and let it hang around my neck.
I ate with both hands, tearing through the sandwich in under five minutes. My body needed the calories. I chewed with my mouth closed, swallowed, forced the chips down even though my throat was sandpapered raw.
When the food was gone, I waited some more, then stood to test my legs. The world tilted, then corrected. I walked to the window and pushed the curtain aside an inch, just enough to see the street below.
The cars parked by the curb were all familiar, which meant no tail. Good. The lamps on the curb glared against the asphalt.
I held my breath for ten seconds, then let it out slow. My reflection in the glass was pale, eyes sunken and dull, hair matted and unruly.
I turned, crossed the living room, and hovered near her bedroom.
The door was closed. A seam of light glowed under it, warm and yellow. I knocked, gently, not wanting to startle her.
"Yeah?" she called out.
"Are you still up?"
She hesitated. "Reading. What's up?"
"Nothing. Just…" I trailed off, then pressed my shoulder to the wall. The pain in my side was a nuisance, but manageable.
A minute passed. I listened to the sounds in her room—the faint rustle of a page turning, the creak of her mattress as she shifted. I sat down on thefloor, leaning my back against her door, my legs stretched out in the hallway.
For a while, I just stayed there, staring at my black socks.
I didn't know if I was guarding her or the other way around.
Maybe both.
Time dragged on, and I was exhausted, but my mind was too wired to sleep. This situation was a total clusterfuck and I needed to figure out how to deal with it. I needed to make some changes to my plans now that I knew someone was after me.
"What are you reading?" I asked.
"Just some women's fiction book."
"Is it any good?"
"It's decent. The writing is a little boring. But sometimes that's what you want."
