Prompt. You return home and find your apartment door slightly open.
The elevator door jerked open with the usual bang and clatter and I reminded myself for the umpteenth time that I had to get the hell out of this firetrap. The wall fixtures flickered in the empty hallway and the time-eaten carpet stretched out before me the final hundred feet to my shitty one bedroom apartment. My armchair waited faithfully, along with a whisky and something from my Charles Bronson library. My God, I was ready for it, after the day I had on the line--only I hadn't met Lydia yet.
Balancing a grocery bag in one arm, I raised the key to the deadbolt but stopped short when I noticed my apartment door was ajar. For a split second I froze and checked the number on the green door. One time I tried to get into the neighbour's apartment, but I was shit-faced that night and I was stone-cold sober now. An image of my apartment, barren and ransacked, flashed into my mind with blank spaces where my stereo, speakers, TV, and Blu-ray collection used to be. Did I leave the door like that all day? No, I had closed and locked it. I was sure of that. Monty, my scumbag landlord, had probably let himself in and neglected to lock up after himself. It had happened before. A rage built in my guts. I was about to stab out his number on my phone and give him an unholy blast of shit when I heard a noise inside. A shuffling of feet. The son of a bitch was still there. I dropped the phone in my pocket, shoved open the door and hurled myself inside.
"What the hell, Monty! You think you can just—"
A gaunt woman with unwashed yellow hair stood under the light in the center of my small foyer. One of the bulbs had burnt out and the other flickered as it struggled to stay lit, but even in that unflattering light it was apparent she had once been beautiful, but something in the world had defaced her. Her eyes were wide and ice blue but hollow and dim. Her wide mouth was open, the lips pale and trembled a little. Fear corroded her face, etched anxious lines around her eyes and across her forehead.
"You're not Monty," I said.
She said nothing in reply and backed up about five steps. Her fingers tied themselves into knots so tight I was worried she'd break them off. I set my bag down, raised my hands in a non-threatening gesture.
"Who are you?" I asked and from her searching expression she was hunting for a name under all the junk in her brain.
"Lydia," she said at last, her voice barely a whisper.
Something was deeply off about this woman. Whatever was eating her up, it was deep inside and had carved her hollow.
"Pretty name," I said. "Lydia. You got a last name?"
Her brain worked and the effort wrote itself across her face until Lydia shook her head.
"I lost it," she said.
Her eyes darted from me to my bag, to the door behind me, to the dark kitchen, down to her hands. She was a bird caught in a brier with a hungry cat glaring down at her. I took a single step toward her. She took a single step backward, her long, stringy yellow hair trembling as she shook her head.
"Okay," I said. "It's okay. You don't like people. I get that. I don't care much for them myself. How did you get in here?"
"The bagman." She was tall and lean, but her voice was like a child's.
"Bagman?"
"He has special keys. Locks just fall away. He said it wasn't safe for me at the manor anymore, so he brought me here."
A small wad of tension ratcheted across the back of my skull. One of Lydia's long forefingers escaped the knot of her hands and pointed at my chest. There were lines and dots tattooed on the inside of her wrist in different colours. She noticed me staring at her wrist and she clutched it back as if she'd scalded her hand.
"Are you Braun?" she asked.
"I am."
A noise escaped her throat, part laugh, part sob. She reached behind and pulled a small white envelope out of her pocket and held it in her shaking hand. I took it. Inside was $1000 and a hastily scribbled note. I hadn't seen that hand in almost ten years but recognized it straight away.
Braun,
The woman I left you is Lydia Preston. She needs a place to hide for a few days until I can make arrangements for her, and your pad was the safest out-of-the-way place I could think of in a pinch. Don't let her out of the apartment. I'll swing by to pick her up after I figure out a plan. The grand is for room and board and other services as required. I'll say sorry in advance, brother.
All will be well–just keep your eyes peeled and your ear to the ground.
GR
I crumpled the note and tossed it into the trash. Lydia Preston. I knew that name, but it didn't come to me in that instant. It only came later, when it was too late.
"I don't want to go to anymore parties," she said.
Parties. My stomach turned as I began to understand what this poor woman had endured. She had been traded like a commodity by traffickers, shipped from site to site as a party favour for rich pigs to play with. The bars and dots on her wrist were Morse code, probably a list of exchanges she'd been sold on. The history of her slavery embedded in her skin.
"No," I said. "No, no more parties. I promise."
That reassured her a little and she wandered off into the living room. I ducked into the tiny kitchen, pulled out my phone, and punched GR's number from the speed dial. It rang for a while but went to voice mail.
"Hey, pick up the God damned phone, man," I said, keeping my voice low. "Your package was waiting for me. I want to know what the fuck you want me to do with her. She needs a hospital, maybe even a psych ward, not a sleepover at Braun's. Fucking call me, asshole."
I disconnected and put the phone back in my pocket.
Lydia was looking out the window through a narrow gap in the curtains. I picked up a weird smell I hadn't noticed before and realized, more than anything else right now, Lydia needed a bath. I ducked into the bathroom, put the shower on, and came back out to the living room. At the window, she was looking down at the kids running around and climbing on the monkey bars in the park next door but there was no recognition, no emotion. She might as well have been watching an ant farm.
"Hey," I said and she jumped.
"I'm sorry!" She snapped the curtain closed and backed away from me, terrified. "I'm sorry!"
"It's okay," I said, hands raised. "You're allowed to look out the window, Lydia. It's fine."
Her pale blue eyes flicked to the window then back to me, distrusting.
"You want a shower?" I asked.
"Shower? Where are we going? You said no parties."
"We're not going anywhere. No parties, Lydia." I rubbed my face. "You look like you haven't had a good shower in a while. Scrub-a-dub. Wash your hair. It'll make you feel better."
The barest flicker of a smile twitched on her lips.
"Come on," I said. I coaxed her across the living room careful to give her space, to look as non-threatening as possible. "The bathroom is right here."
She walked inside, regarded herself in the mirror and fingered her stringy hair. She looked back at me.
"I don't have any of that fancy soap or bubble bath you women love," I said, "but the water's hot and soap is good. Wash cloth and towels are right there."
She reached up and started to unbutton my shirt.
"Whoa, whoa," I said. "That's enough of that."
She stopped, confused, then a switch flicked the lights on in her eyes and she moved like a cat.
"Not going to join me?" she asked, coming closer. "I do my best work in the shower."
Inside of a second she'd gone from terrified waif to full on femme fatale. I had to remove her hands from my chest by force. She looked hurt.
"Look," I said, "whatever you've been through...that's over now. That's in the past. You're safe here."
She backed away, looked around the small bathroom. The mirror was veiled in a fine mist that softened all her harsh edges. I backed out of the bathroom.
"Undress--by yourself--and just leave your clothes by the sink. Take as long as you want in there. It don't matter. You can lock the door. Like this--see? I'll put some fresh clothes for you outside the bathroom door. Okay?"
Lydia nodded, but she kept staring at me expectantly, as if I had lied to her about her being safe. I pulled the door shut and let it click firmly into place. The water kept running and for a long time that's all I heard. Was she just standing there staring at herself in the mirror? I shook my head and left the apartment.
Jenna lived across the hall. She was a thirty-year-old artist and we hooked up occasionally. I pounded on her door.
"Jenna!"
Her bare feet padded toward the door. The deadbolt clicked open, the chain slid across, and Jenna opened the door.
"Knock the door down, why don't you?" she said, then her face changed. "What's wrong?"
Jenna was petite with delicate features and eyes that made you believe elves were real. Her sandy hair, held back by pink yarn, had flecks of yellow and white paint in it. She was the most beautiful woman in the building and she took my breath away every time I looked at her. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the bank of windows behind her, illuminating the canvas propped on her easel. On the workbench was the usual clutter of brushes and palettes and crinkled tubes of paint. The smell of oil paint and chai wafted into the hall.
Roscoe, Jenna's pug, raised its head from between his paws where he had been snoozing on his bed. She had rescued him from a puppy mill, along with the miniature poodle, and the terrier who had been playing under the coffee table. They all stared past her at me, then trotted over to the door, nails clicking on the hard floor. Jenna had a soft spot for strays. That's why she put up with me.
"What, Braun?" she demanded. I snapped back to reality.
"I need to borrow some of your clothes."
"What? No. Are you a cross-dresser now? You're not borrowing my clothes."
"Jenna, I'm serious. I got a woman in my place who needs fresh clothes."
"I'm serious, too, Braun. Look at my face. You either commit to me or you move on, okay? I'm tired of all this on-again, off-again bullshit. I don't have time for it."
Jenna started to close the door, but I wedged myself through.
"Get out, Braun!"
"Dammit, woman, would you listen to me for one second?"
Jenna folded her arms across her chest and glared at me.
"There's a woman in my apartment. I did not bring her home. She was there when I walked in and she's had a rough time. She's coming down from...God knows what. She's taking a shower right now. Her clothes are filthy and she needs something clean to wear."
Jenna's eyes softened as she listened, the hard lines around her mouth melting into concern
"How did she get in there?" she asked. "I was home all day. I didn't hear a thing."
"An associate of mine dropped her off. He's coming round later to take her off my hands, but she needs freshening up. Bad."
"What happened to her?"
I shook my head. "I think she was trafficked as a prostitute. She's got tattoos on her wrist that look like exchange tags written in Morse. Whatever happened to her, it went deep. She's haunted."
"What's her name?"
"Lydia Preston."
Jenna scrunched her face. "Why do I know that name?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said. "It rings a very distant bell for me, too, but that's not the problem at hand. Just lend me some clean clothes for her. I swear you'll get them back good as new."
Jenna retreated into her bedroom and I crossed the apartment to her easel, the menagerie of animals trailing after me. Jenna was working on a new piece. The viewer was at the bottom of a green rolling hill populated by a carpet of yellow flowers with the crowns of trees peeking over the crest of the hill. It was a happy, sunny day in the painting, but it only served as a reminder that no matter how great it was in one part of the world, somewhere else was rotten and there were people whose lives were in pieces. One of those people was in my shower right now.
A woman's scream shattered the stillness. I was at Jenna's door as she rushed out of her bedroom with a bundle of clothes in her arms.
"What the hell?" she said.
"Stay there," I said.
Lots of things go through your mind in an emergency, but in that moment, as I flew across the hall, Lydia's haunted face was the only image that filled my mind.
My apartment door hung wide open and light spilled across the floor from the bathroom. A man in a dark suit was struggling to control Lydia, one arm wrapped across her chest. She was naked and thrashed in his arms like an eel.
"Hey!" I barked.
The man turned, raised his arm, and fired the gun in his hand, but I was already halfway to the floor. The bullet tore through the kitchen cabinets behind me and screamed off the concrete wall. I rolled to the left and came up against the wall next to the bathroom just as he dragged Lydia out of the door. She writhed and bucked and he shifted his arm to get a firmer grip, but she slipped free enough to bear down on his wrist with her teeth. He bellowed and let her go.
I launched myself at him but he was bigger and faster than I expected and Brutus deflected the tackle like a man who'd had plenty of practice. I ended up in my closet, tangled up in coats.
Brutus had Lydia almost to the door by the time I climbed out of the closet with an old scarf in my hand. I looped it over his head with both hands and heaved. He jerked backward, a stifled scream gurgling from his throat, and I cinched the scarf tighter. Lydia slipped free and Jenna hustled her across the hall and into her apartment. I heard her door slam as he threw himself left and right across the foyer like a bull in a rodeo trying to shake a cowboy off its back. He slammed me against the kitchen wall then against the bathroom wall, but I hung on. Brutus pitched forward and I slid across his back as wide as the hood of a car, but the move only twisted the scarf tighter around his neck and I nearly dragged him down on top of me.
He was bent over me at the waist and frothing and gurgling in my face as I lay on my back on the linoleum floor. The scarf had pinched off the blood to his head and his face was bluer by the second but he wouldn't go down. He waved his gun in my face and, desperate, I braced my foot against his chest and pushed up with all my strength. He dropped the gun and clawed at his neck, nails tearing the flesh as they tried to get under the scarf. Brutus convulsed for a few seconds then his eyes rolled into the back of his skull and he collapsed, hitting the floor like a bag of concrete.
_________________________
© 2016 Kevin M. Coleman
First published on Wattpad.com
Updated by by Kevin M. Coleman
Photo by Pavel Neznanov on Unsplash