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Shallow breaths left my chest feeling hollow.
Don’t move. Don’t make a peep. Maybe he’ll think you’re not here.
As silently as possible, I inched my face toward the peep hole.
Don’t do it.
Whatever you do, don’t look.
It was an undeniable compulsion. I didn’t want a glimpse of the man I knew had to be on the other side of the door, but for some self-destructive reason, I couldn’t stop myself from checking anyway.
Sure enough, my eyeball met the middle-aged fire hydrant of a man I’d expected. Maxim’s graying bowl cut partially obscured his squinted eyes. His furry pelt of body pubes protruded from his pits, his shoulders, and the neck of his thin white tank top.
A shiver raced up my spine at the sight of him. Bile crept up my throat.
No one beyond the age of ten was supposed to wear their hair like that. No one of any age was supposed to wear a tank top in the winter. It was almost like he presented himself in the worst way possible because he knew how horrifying a spectacle he was to behold.
Maxim must be a perverse emotional vampire who fed off people’s revulsion. It was the only possible explanation.
“Lanana, I know you’re in there.” Getting my name wrong,again,Maxim pounded his meaty fist on the door. His heavy New England accent made every word he ever said sound tinged with anger. “I can hear you breathing.”
“No you can’t,” I whispered under my breath.
“I can hear that, too.”
Frack.
“You can’t keep hidin’ from me forever,” he said. “Pay up or I’m gonna pawn ya TV.”
Joke was on him. I didn’t have a TV or anything else worth pawning. Well, I did have a laptop and phone, but I kept those safely attached to me at all times and both were so battered and decrepit that no one would buy them anyway.
With a phlegmy cough, and the clear sound of spitting, Maxim continued, “If that don’t cover it, Imma change the locks and throw ya junk out da window.”
Okay,thatwould be a problem for me. My shoebox apartment might not have been fit for inhabitants beyond the mystery creature that chewed its way through the walls at night, but it wasmine.
“I know you gotta go to work sometime, sweetcheeks,” Maxim said, using the pet name that made me vomit in my mouth a little every time he uttered it. “As soon as you come outta this door, we’re having words and you’re payin’ me what you owe.”
This one-sided conversation was giving me whiplash. But this time, haha, it was me who was coming out on top. I was never going to step through that door. Maxim would be left waiting forever. Eventually he’d move on to torment some other poor soul, or eat some orphan babies, or whatever.
Maxim was right about one thing though. It was time for me to go to work, and I couldnotafford to lose another job.
Fortunately, I’d had the forethought to put on my uniform, my coat, and my shoes before sitting down to watch Juno’s video. If I hadn’t, there was no way I’d be able to find my things in the dark.
I pulled away from the door and crept silently across the tiny apartment toward my only possible way of escape—the window between the mini fridge and the stink sofa. Fortunately for me, I was on the second floor, and only the first-story windows had bars on them.
Crunch.
I cringed at the sound of a Bugle smashing under my shoe.
Maxim pounded on the door. “I heard that.”
Of course he did.
I hurried the rest of the way across the room and pried open the window. I snatched my messenger bag from atop the mini fridge as I climbed out onto the ittiest bittiest metal awning.
Icy winter air bit at my skin. I filled my lungs and coated my tongue with it. It tasted like victory. And a little like metal and the garbage-filled dumpster parked on the ground right beside the fire escape ladder.
With a bittersweet laugh and an already cold nose, I zipped up my coat and descended the ladder to face my next trial.
