“It won’t do you any good. Elevator’s out,” I call over my shoulder and then, to my total surprise, the doors ping open.
“Since when?” he asks, holding the doors wide. He doesn’t even struggle when they try to close, he just thrusts his hand back further and the doors obey. He does this twice while patiently waiting for me to get my act together.
We wear similarly suspicious expressions.
“Since today,” I mutter, staring at the lift like it betrayed me.
“Before you left for work?” Aiden quizzes.
“Yeah. It was the reason I came down the stairs in the first place and saw Tom,” I explain, though he’ll have figured that out for himself already.
“I see,” he replies, but his furrowed brows tell me he’s confused, and I can’t blame him. This raises questions. The possibility of someone coming out to fix the elevator in a day is unprecedented, but not impossible.
Still, it makes me feel like a liar; as though the working elevator makes me a suspect. Still, if it was working earlier, why would Tom be in the stairwell? Why would I bother trundling down twelve flights when I was already late for work? I wasn’t wrong. The damnthing had been broken. Hadn’t it?
“Thank you, Jules, that’s good to know.” He motions for me to hurry and get in. As soon as I do, the doors shut, penning us in the cramped space. He pulls out his phone, his fingers flying over the screen in determined taps until he puts it away again.
“Ready?” His voice cuts across the silence and he nods motioning to the wall panel. I hit the button for twelve and step back again.
Fiddling with my buttons and hair, I rub my eyes and discretely run a finger under my nose, hoping nothing hangs there from my tears earlier. None of it really matters. I just need something to do. I stare at the back of the door. The thick metal walls seem too close, and the pattern stamped into the sheet metal blurs from staring at it too hard.
The elevator’s slow juddering stop turns my stomach, but not because of the motion. When the doors pull apart, showing me the scene I take for granted on a normal day, my heart beats so hard against my chest I expected it to explode with the effort.
I need Aiden to leave. I can’t let anyone see what happens next.
Aiden’s head turns left and then right, scanning the desolate corridor, before indicating that I should lead the way. I try to walk in front of him, but he keeps pace, remaining at my side. Only when I hesitate at my door does he finally take a step back.
“I’m good now. They’ll be in bed and the kids will be sleeping. I really don’t want to wake everyone and if my dad sees a strange man…he’s a little strict.” Understatement. He’s a tyrant, but it won’t be my morals he’s protecting, it’ll be his pride. I won’t let Aiden see just how low we are. I can’t. Even if I never see Dax Nagano or Aiden Driscoll again, I’d rather they not think of me as scum of the earth. Maybe I am like my father after all; my pride seems as important to me as his is to him.
Aiden doesn’t look happy about it, but I’ve said something that strikes a chord with him, and he changes his mind about coming in. “Okay. You have keys?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I’ll go. You should probably give me your number for Mr Nagano to contact you. He’ll need to talk to you again.” Aiden’s right, but I can’t help him.
“I don’t have a phone…not even a house phone,” I add before he bothers asking.
Aiden nods. “Then we will visit you here tomorrow.”
Shit. I really want to keep all this as far from my family as I can. “No. Umm…I work atButchers & Bakerson the corner of The High Road and George Street. I start at four-thirty a.m. and finish at nine.” Charlie asked me to come in half an hour earlier on Fridays to help with the deliveries. Shame because I could really do with some sleep tonight.
“Okay Jules, I’ll be there to collect you.”
Not ideal, but better than them coming here. “Okay. Night, Aiden. Thanks for the ride.”
“No problem. I wouldn’t want your boss having to hunt me down now, would I?” He says it with a smile, but I can see he took the threat seriously. Dax’s men seem like they’re afraid of nothing. They work as a seamless unit, observing everything like shadows pressed up against walls and all in the interests of Dax Nagano.
It begs the question, who is he?
As soon as the elevator doors close, I reach for my key. It turns in the lock easily enough, but the door opens less than an inch before a loud bang and a jingle of the security chain rings out along the corridor.
It isn’t the first time Dad’s made me sleep in the corridor and it won’t be the last either, but that doesn’t stop me hating the bastard for leaving me outside. He knows the skin traders roam the corridors at night, that I need to be up by four, and that I’d never stay out this late without a damned good reason. He just doesn’t care and, let’s be honest, he’s itching to pay me back for earlier.
Perhaps I got off lightly?
I hunker down with my back to the door and pull my bagcloser. It’s too heavy and angular with the books inside to make a good pillow, but it will come in handy as a weapon if I need to swing it at somebody. The luminescent digits on my watch confirm I have an hour and twenty minutes to catch some shuteye before I drag my carcass to work, but there’s no way I’m getting any sleep tonight.
Not when Dax Nagano fills my thoughts.
