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Saint seemed like he might be a suitable candidate.
Her apartment building stood in the middle of the block, the lobby lights glowing out of the single-paned windows. She barely noticed the stairs as she climbed to her floor.
When she’d kicked her boots off on the mat to dry, her phone buzzed, and a thrill ran through her, a spark of lightning in a normally empty landscape.
Unknown number: I hope you’re thinking of me. I’m thinking of you.
Riley stared at the screen and exhaled a long breath. This wasn’t Saint. This was someone else. A problem she hadn’t ignored out of existence yet.
She deleted the text and closed her curtains. She didn’t look out of her window to the park across from her apartment or check the shadows between the streetlamps. She ignored the thunder under her ribs.
Ignore it and don’t engage. They’d get bored and give up eventually.
She’d get a new number again. And find another excuse to tell her family and friends about why she was changing it for a third time.
Riley tried to quiet her mind, breathing slowly into the dull hum of a full apartment building. She tried to relax into thoughts of mud, exuberant dogs and warm smiles, but even the fantasy was too much to ask for.
Riley didn’t see Cookie at the park again, escaped or otherwise, but every evening she wished she did.
Chapter 2
Three weeks later
Riley
Only the hum of forced air filtering through her headphones signalled that she wasn’t in hell.
Not hell, just work.
Riley sighed and clicked on the refresh button, willing something to happen. Anything.
Not anything.
She did not need that. What she needed was a new job.
And a pony. Perhaps a unicorn.
Thirty stories below, toy figures hustled along the wet sidewalk, and cars honked their way through rush hour. Past the edge of downtown, the end of the peninsula jutted into the ocean, a finger dipped in freezing bathwater. An apathetic blanket of clouds flattened the light, the skyscrapers looking like two-dimensional blocks jammed on a small spit of land.
All Riley’d wanted was a fresh start, and she supposed she’d achieved that, but office administration hadn’t been high on her list of ideal jobs. Near the bottom, actually, but she’d seen the pay and signed.
At least here, no one was dying if the invoicing didn’t get done on time. No one died at all.
She didn’t ask questions and did as she was told, and in exchange, she got her student loans paid off faster than any other job would allow.
She had enough money left over to live alone and even go out sometimes.
It was a good deal.
On the horizon, a rust-coloured tanker made its way towards Cascadia, drifting towards the port near downtown. It looked like it was coming straight for her.
Maybe a boring job was the point.
Post-it notes lined up like soldiers on her desk, her reminders neatly printed. A single email waited.
Joy.
Riley’s snort died as the email popped open.
