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ONE
LAYANA
Slouched across my new-to-me sofa, I topped my fingers with a fresh round of Bugle hats. With my leg bent just right and my phone perched on my thigh, I could enjoy the latest video of my friend Juno—a.k.a. Glitter Galore—hands-free, while optimally savoring my pre-work snack.
The key to relaxation was ignoring nonsense likeresponsibilities,and also breathing through my mouth, because no matter how many bottles of Febreze I dumped on my Craigslist furniture find, the sofa stank like it had previously belonged to a perpetually wet dog with a penchant for chain smoking.
Try as I might to brainlessly veg out, annoying thoughts kept intruding anyway.
I should have uploaded a new blog post today, or yesterday, or even last week. But I hadn’t. I hadn’t even started writing one yet.
The post didn’t even need to be about anything in particular. Random musings were perfect. I called my blogConfessions of a Serial Mood Killerafter all. But the longer I went without writing, and the more followers I collected, the harder it was to produce a single word.
Since my short stint on TV, fans were flocking.
Yet the words dried up, or died, or floated away to some unreachable height.
The lack of words felt less like a block in the way people usually described this kind of “writer’s block” thing, and more like slowly being dragged into a dark abyss that devoured all semblance of creative thought.
In contrast to my brain, Juno glided across the kitchen on screen like the culinary goddess that she was. Her powder pink hair swooshed behind her as she unveiled the final product that had been hidden just off camera—a three-foot-tall sparkling heart sculpture made of macarons.
“Ta-da!” Juno flashed a well-practiced smile at the camera. “PostyourValentine’s macarons in the comments.”
The gold-leaf sugar cookie in the center of the heart had been my idea. I only wished I’d been there when she’d baked and filmed the final products. I’d helped her dye her hair from white-blond to pastel pink, which was the exact same shade as the fancy cookies. At the same time, she’d dyed the tips of my black hair the color of a mermaid’s tail. I’d also been behind the camera on the first take of the macaron baking, but I hadn’t made the second take.
I’d been at work. Like a chump.
I chomped a Bugle from my pinky finger and checked the clock in the corner of my phone screen. Eight seventeen p.m.
“Hustle, Juno,” I said, as if the recording could hear me.
I only had a few minutes before I had to leave for work and I still wanted to support my girl and participate in the live chat after the video ended. I tapped my shoe-clad feet on the stinky cushion to dispel my eager energy. It didn’t work.
“Now for finishing touches, you can let your creativity run wild.” The camera zoomed in as Juno piped perfect little roseswith icing. She meticulously formed every leaf, bud, and bloom. It was stunning, agonizingly slow work.
Abangripped my attention from the video.
Startled, I blinked. Someone in the building had slammed a door.
It was probably the Carlsons downstairs having a spat again, which would be totally fine and not at all alarming. My apartment’s walls were so thin, it was impossible not to hear everything that happened in the building’s common spaces. Some private spaces, too.
Booming footsteps echoed down the hall—the telltale clomp of doom.
It wasn’t the Carlsons.
My stomach dropped.
Hewas coming.
I clicked the lock button on the side of my phone and held my breath. Unease rippled beneath my skin. If this were a fantasy novel, this would be the part where all the villagers ran and hid in their homes as the people-chomping monster descended from his mountain lair in search of his next meal.
Please let him be someone else’s problem this time.
The stomping grew louder.
No such luck. Maxim Loughty was coming for me, and the absolute worst thing I could do was to let him know I was here.
I dove from the sofa and leapt across the room for the light switch by the door. With a flick, my apartment went black. Somewhere in between, the Bugles had flown from my fingertips. Where they’d landed was impossible to tell.
