Even as I think it, something hollow settles in my chest. I’m already working myself into the ground. There are only so many hours in a day.
“Peter could walk you to your car after your shifts,” Brooke says, smoothing a piece of tape over the gauze at my brow. “We can ask him. He won’t mind.”
“How is that going to help?” The words come out sharper than I mean them to. “They know where I live, Brooke. A security guard walking me thirty feet across a parking lot isn’t going to change that.”
She opens her mouth and then closes it.
“Let’s just go,” I say, sliding off the table.
“We could still get something to eat. The diner—”
“I’m not hungry.” I pick up my bag. “Come on. I’ll drop you home.”
She doesn’t push me, but I catch her shooting worried looks my way throughout the drive. I ignore them, not in the mood for a pep talk or comfort. I drop Brooke at her building, wave off her look, and keep driving.
My apartment is on the fourth floor of a building that tries harder than it manages. The hallway carpet is clean but worn thin. The elevator works most of the time.
I push through the door and drop my bag by the entrance.
My place itself is barely furnished now. The good pieces went first, the dining table my mother left me, the armchair I saved up three months to buy, the bookshelf that used to take up the whole wall. What’s left is what didn’t sell. A mattress on a frame. A kitchen with just enough counter space. One secondhand couch I reupholstered myself because it was too worn for anyone to want. There’s a ghost of a life in here if you know where to look, indentations in the carpet where furniture used to sit, empty corners that used to hold something worth keeping.
I drop my bag by the door, kick off my shoes, and make it as far as the couch before my legs give out.
Two years ago, I had dreams.
My mother’s illness took them all from me.
And now, I don’t know who I am anymore.
As I doze off on the couch, I dream of being chased in parking lots by burly men and the sound of a wolf howling in the distance.
Chapter Two
Miranda
It takes three days for the bruises to look less ghastly. Fortunately, the fourth day is a Saturday, the most sacred day of the week, my one day off when no one else gets to make demands on my time. I should be thrilled today. Instead, I’m dragging myself out of bed with a throbbing left eye.
My face in the mirror makes me wince. The discoloring shouldn’t be expected to improve this quickly, but a girl can wish, can’t she? Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on perspective, the very next day of the attack brought a particularly volatile patient in the first hour of my shift. Explaining the bruise became easy by pinning it on the poor man. Brooke side-eyed me when I explained it away to the nursing staff, but it happened during a shift change, and nobody’s really digging into the matter anymore.
“To be fair, he did try to break my nose,” I mumble, gently pressing a warm compress over my eye while a couple of eggs boil for breakfast. “And it’s not like he got in trouble over the whole ordeal.”
While the eggs cook, I down my coffee, going over private nursing job listings on my phone. I try not to think about how hopeless my situation is, but aside from selling a kidney on the black market, this is the only other way to pay off my debt.
My left eye throbs with the memory of the punch. I stand over the pan, gingerly touching my eye now. It’s warm from the compress, but I feel cold inside. I know it’s not going to stop at that. “Kozlov isn’t the type to give up so easily,” I mutter into the empty room. “I need to pay him off quickly, or he’s going to have someone drag me to his bed.”
The words spoken out loud make my skin crawl. The only reason I took the loans from him was because he was the only one willing to lend me money at such low interest rates. How was I to know there was fine print in that contract? Each time I borrowed, the interest rate doubled, something he only explained to me with a sleazy smile once I was knee deep in debt.
By the time I’m peeling eggs, my anxiety is sky-high. I need to get out of the house. I’ll go crazy if I keep sitting here thinking about the downward spiral that is my life. The weather isn’t bad outside. Going on a run would clear my head. I also need to pick up some groceries because there is nothing in my fridge aside from something in a plastic bag that I’m pretty sure used to be a lettuce at some point.
Finishing off breakfast, I take a quick shower, pulling on black running shorts and a gray tank top. I dig through my drawer looking for a cap to avoid getting heatstroke but can’t find any. Annoyed, I root through everything twice.
I come up empty. Then my eyes fall on the stupid signed one.
“You’ll have to do today.” I look at it dubiously. “I’ll put you on eBay tomorrow. You’d better be worth something.”
Jamming it onto my head, I put on a pair of sunglasses to hide the bruise, grab a water bottle and my wallet, and head out.
The June morning is already warm, the mountain air crisp and clean. Perfect running weather. I start jogging, falling into rhythm. Feet on pavement. Breath matching stride. The ache in my body fades to background noise. I let my head empty.
