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It was just a not great neighborhood in the dead of night.
I got a stomach ache every time I left work.
Even if I carried a little hidden can of mace, an eye-gouger, and a large umbrella with a pretty pointy thing at the top.
Just in case.
“Be safe,” Maureen called as she started loading up the coffee filters with coffee, preparing for the upcoming rush.
“I’ll try my best,” I called, waving at her before slipping my fingers into the holes in my eye-gouger.
I was a native city girl.
I was accustomed to the streets.
But not since I was a reckless college student did I walk them alone at night if I could avoid it.
These days, though, there wasn’t a lot of choice.
I needed to save every dime I could.
And not just in my usual “get a summer job to hold you over while schools are out and so you can buy much-needed classroom supplies” kind of way.
No.
This was in a more pressing way. In a way that said I might have to make some of my own classroom decorations and put some wishlists up on my social media, begging people to contribute to my classroom since I couldn’t do it myself.
I was lucky, I had to remind myself quite often, that I worked in New York City, where teacher salaries started much more reasonably than other places in the country. The problem was, of course, that the cost of living in the city was also much higher.
I once read somewhere that the ideal income to live comfortably in the city was just over eighty-grand. Not even working a summer job put me close to that.
Which meant that I was really in the red these days.
It was fine, though. Temporary and fine. I could do it. Deal with the hard work and the creepy boss. Just another year or two, that was all.
Maybe one of the other waitresses was right. It was time to start selling pictures of my feet or my old, worn socks from the nights at the diner. Apparently you could “make bank” if you knew what you were doing.
I was only halfway joking when I said I was considering it.
If push came to shove, I could paint my toes and snap some pictures.
That was what my mind was on while I was walking home, since I knew better than to listen to music or an audiobook.
You had to be vigilant about your surroundings.
Which was why I was keeping one eye on the unhoused man who seemed to be watching me and a small cluster of young men who were probably not up to anything productive standing around after three a.m.
Once I passed them, though, it seemed like everyone was tucked in for the night.
Or so I thought.
Until I rounded a corner that would eventually lead to my apartment building and heard a strange, muffled, pop-pop-pop sound.
It was oddly familiar, like something I’d heard before, but just couldn’t quite place.
Not until, of course, I felt something pierce into me.
Once.
