“I’m sorry you’ll have to deal with that.”
“It’s all right. I’ll tell him…” She hesitates. “What shall I tell him?”
“Tell him I left this morning to go back home.”
“Right… right.” Her brow creases. “Are you going back home?”
Of course not.“Absolutely.”
“Got it.” She gives herself a little shake, offers me a tight smile, then comes in for a hug. “Be safe, back home.”
“I will. Don’t worry about me.”
She draws back, eyes filled with worry. “Regulartexts, okay?”
I lift my phone and waggle it. “You got it.” I want her gone now. I’m crap at goodbyes. I’ll probably never see her again, and she knows it too. There are tears in her eyes, and if she cries, she’ll set me off again. “Go on. The traffic gets ten times worse with every minute that passes.”
She nods, sniffs, and heads for the door. Pauses in the hallway. “Do you want to take theNext Genbox set? We only reached season three.”
That’s true love, right there.
“I’m good. I’ll probably steal some of your Marvel instead.”
“Okay… just… not anything with Loki in it.”
“Tom Hiddleston is hot. I get it. Thanks for everything, babe.”
“You too. See you when—”
A knock on the door interrupts us, and for a moment I think Alex is already here.
Then comes a bored voice. “Amazon.”
“I got it.” Carol opens the door.
A cardboard box into her face, and she flings up her hand in reflex, knocking it out of the way; too light. It’s empty. A man pushes in, shoving her back. His baseball cap is pulled low, his eyes lifeless. He’s holding a gun with a goddamnsilenceron it.
He takes barely a second to register me, shove Carol to the floor, and fire twice.Phut, phut. Carol jerks with the first hit; barely twitches with the second. Blood sprays the wall of her apartment. The white wall. The wall I got muddy after a run in therain, and had to clean while Carol laughed at me.
Carol’s not moving.
He kicks closed the door before I can even react. I stare at Carol’s body, look at him, back to her. In shock.
In my mind’s eye, I can see her leaning against the wall, telling me I missed a spot. I can see her standing right there, in the hallway, ten seconds ago.
Now she’s gone. Two bullets in the head, just like that.
That’s when I scream. I scream and I scream, and he doesn’t care. He crosses the apartment in quick strides, grabbing my throat. The next scream comes out as barely more than a squeak. He shoves, his leg behind mine, and there’s nothing I can do. I hit the ground hard, his weight on top of me.
It knocks the breath out of me, but I won’t go down without a fight. I reach for his face, clawing with my fingernails.
My strength is nothing to him, and he bats my hands away with ease.
“Enough,” he says, bored, his accent cultured and British. The barrel of his gun pushes into my stomach. “Hold still, unless you want a gut shot. I hear it’s averypainful way to die.”
I’m tempted to fight anyway, because what’s the point of not? Except that if he wanted me dead, I’d be dead already. He killed Carol.
The silencer is the scariest part. It makes his threat that much worse. It pushes past my fear, into my rational thoughts. I know he can follow through, andno one will hear. They didn’t come for my screams anyway. And why would they?
