It takes me another week to find out where he lives and when he comes home. After juggling my shifts a bit, asking Bart to substitute for me on Friday, and lying to my boss about finally scoring a date, I get a night off. In a way, I do have a date. It’s just that my date doesn’t know about it yet.I manage to grab a few hours of sleep before the alarm clock rings at one AM.It feels strange to leave home in the middle of the night.I park by the sidewalk on a small street far removed from the busy areas of the city, turn the engine off and sit still for a few minutes, listening to the silence interrupted by a whooshing sound of cars passing by. The rare pedestrians do not even notice me in the shadows of the driver’s seat. After a while, I put my earphones on and find some night radio station on my phone. The music fills my ears and I lean back in my seat, keeping my eyes on the sidewalk.The sky is begin
His reaction is immediate. The moment the door locks click, his hand darts down to his right boot and then comes up with a thin blade that he points at my face.“Unlock the doors,” he says. “Unlock the fucking doors!”I catch his wrist and push the sharp steel away from my face; then twist his hand so that the blade flies into the back seat. His tries to unclench my fingers with his free hand, then throws it forward, trying to stick his finger in my eye.“Stop it,” I snarl, avoiding the blow and catching his second wrist as well.“Unlock the doors, you psycho!” He tries desperately to shake me off, then twists in his seat and hits me in the stomach with his foot. I gasp and let go. He turns to the window and slams his elbow into it. The glass doesn’t break; he hisses with pain and turns to me again.“Open the door! I told you I don’t want no trouble!”
The warehouse is long and dark and empty, and every sound we make is accompanied by an echo. The light of the dawn streams in through the holes in the roof and the glassless windows. Raven takes a few steps, looks around, then turns to me, sticking his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans.“You sleep here?” He points around with his chin. “A bit trampish, if you don’t mind me saying.”“Not right here. There’s a couple of rooms in the basement where the truck drivers used to rest when this place was still in use. There’s a toilet and a little kitchen and a couple of mattresses left.”“Five stars, sounds like.” He nods. “So? We’re here. What do you want?”I take a step in his direction. He flinches but remains in place, watching my approach. He looks pale and tired in the light of the morning. He’s almost a head shorter than me now. The difference
The downstairs room is empty save for the mattress on the floor. It’s relatively clean, too. I’ve swept the place thoroughly when I first started sleeping here on the days my shifts were scheduled too close together to make driving home worth my while.Raven walks around, peeks into the little adjacent bathroom, then turns to me, wrinkling his nose.“Not five stars,” he says. “Four at most.”“There.” I hand him the paper cup I have brought from the coffee machine in the corridor.He leans on the wall and brings the cup to his nose, inhaling the smell. “Arsenic, by any chance?”“Why would I want to poison you?”“I don’t know. I can’t think of any reasons why would you want to be friendly, either.”“There are easier ways to kill you if I wanted to.”“Easier, but less fun.” He ta
When I wake up, it’s hard to tell if it’s morning or evening. The night shifts in the last few months have completely screwed up my biological clock. I lay on my back, staring at the white ceiling of my one-room apartment and the long shadows cast by the window shatters, trying to remember what day it is. Then, I remember Raven.I get up and make myself a breakfast—or a supper, depending on what you call the first meal of someone who wakes up in the evening. Then I sit in the kitchen, staring at my plate, picking at my food, gathering my thoughts.The night has been too crazy to have been real. I’ve basically kidnapped a person and locked him in a basement of an abandoned warehouse—a totally psycho thing to do. I could perhaps still go there and set him free, no real harm done—there’s no way he would go to the police, not given his drug use and what he does for a living.I could let him go, allow him to sin
It’s dark and quiet when I open my eyes. I blink and rub my face. The room has been dark since Raven has smashed the only light bulb a couple of days ago, and then tried to cut his wrists with the shards. It was also then that I realized that he couldn’t be left alone.So, with my shifts canceled under the pretense of sickness, I’ve been staying with him all the time. The stuffy air of the small room has been giving me constant headaches. The place probably stinks, too, although I’m so used to it by now that I don’t really smell anything.At first, it was like living in a cage with a wild animal. I couldn’t sleep unless I had him tied up, which required a struggle; and even then, I couldn’t get him to shut up, so what little rest I could get was constantly accompanied by his moans, threats and begging.It’s quiet now, though, and my body tells me that I’ve been asleep for a while, perhaps a few
There,” I say, switching off the engine. “Welcome to my castle.”Raven leans forward, examining the red brick building with its dirt stained walls and dust covered windows.“Not much better than the warehouse,” he says, unbuckling his seat belt.All of his movements are slow and deliberate, as if everything demands effort and concentration. He looks like a ghost, his skin blueish pale and still dirty despite the cleaning we did by the tap in the basement. He needs a good hot bath. We both do.We go up to the fifth floor, stopping on each landing long enough for him to catch his breath. The elevator has been out of service since before I was born, if Mrs. Macintosh from the first floor was to be believed. Going up and down the five flights of stairs had seemed like a small price to pay in exchange for the low rent, but for Raven this is probably an exercise at the limit of his endurance.It takes u
I sit on the makeshift mattress bed I have made for myself on the floor, flipping through the TV channels when Raven finally appears from the bathroom. He has a towel wrapped around his head like a turban and is wearing my pants and sweatshirt that look ridiculously baggy on him. He stops in the middle of the room and looks at me.“Really?” he says. “You intend to sleep on the floor?”“Yep,” I say. “You’re sick, so you have the bed for tonight.”“I’m not sick.” He shuffles to the bed and plops onto it. “Just...tired.”I switch the TV off. “You should eat something.”“Later.” He lifts his feet onto the bed and stretches out on his back. “Tomorrow.”He unwraps the towel and drops it to the floor, then runs his fingers through his damp hair, spreading it on the pillow around his head. The room is most