I’d meant locked, not just shut, but realized that was a stupid question. He’d broken in. He didn’t have a key.
Mimsy meowed down by my feet, stropping her cheeks across my slacks. I bent for one last pet. “Goodbye, pretty lady. I’ll see you again, maybe.” Opening the bathroom door the barest minimum, I eased through and shut it quickly before she could escape.
My phone hung in my pocket, a useful slim weight.I really should call 9-1-1 and report him.But I knew I wouldn’t. I made my way through the dimness toward the side door. Ten more steps and I reached the open air. When I shut the door firmly, making sure the latch caught, the daylight dazzled my eyes and I sucked in a long breath.I came back here, and it wasn’t that bad.Thanks to a man whose name I’d never asked, and his cat.
I wanted to see him again. That moment when he held me up was the most human contact I’d had in a long time. I had the keys. I could lock him in there… That was madness of a different kind. Anyhow, the lock opened from the inside.
Squinting against the fractured sunlight, I clutched the dirty towel to my arm and made my way to my Tesla. I could come back tomorrow.
CHAPTER3
SHANE
“That was weird,”I told Mimsy as I swept up the last of the glass with damp towels. After three days in our cozy squat, I’d gotten used to the place being peaceful. I should’ve known better, should’ve been ready for someone else to barge in. There was no town so wonderful it didn’t have folks falling through the cracks.
“Maybe we should lock the door whenever we’re home. Keep the place to ourselves as much as possible.” Although I didn’t totally regret not doing so. Something about that blond stranger beset by his demons had tugged at me. I’d been in rough places mentally, a time or two, myself. Didn’t mean he was a bad guy. Broken glass aside, it’d almost been nice to meet someone who didn’t look right past me like I was nothing.
“Probably won’t see him again,” I reminded Mimsy. “Probably a good thing.” Dude had made quite a mess. I’d picked up most of the big shards, then caved to Mimsy’s pathetic meowing from the bathroom and brought her with me, setting her on the pedestal table in the other corner of the room with her dinner served early. I’d told her to stay up there. So far, she was more interested in the food than me, which was the real secret to cat obedience.
Lifting my feeble lantern, I used another ten seconds of battery life to scan the floor. A few shards of glass still glittered off to my left, and a streak of rust-red blood marred the pale tile. I swallowed hard and mopped at both with the damp towel in my hands. Wasting usable towels sucked, but there was no broom to be found, and I wasn’t going to leave broken glass where it could hurt Mimsy.
“Did you get a look at that dude?” I asked her as I folded the glass shards into the terrycloth. “I was a bit distracted.”
He’d claimed to not like the look of blood, but he’d washed his oozing gash into the sink like a bowl full of red water didn’t bother him. I hated blood. From the moment we stepped into the lighted bathroom, my eyes had been glued to that trickle of red down his arm. Bad enough in the dim light, but in the brightness… I’d made an excuse to run and get the towel. Then I’d smiled and played with Mimsy and I don’t think he noticed, but blood was all I remembered.
“Good thing this place has three other bathrooms,” I told her. A last pass with the lantern showed the floor clean and safe. “I might avoid that one for a while. Okay, baby, down.” She jumped off her pedestal and came over as I pushed to my feet. When I headed to the kitchen to toss the glass-filled towels in the empty trash bin, she trotted at my heels.
“Poor guy had some kind of screw loose.” I glanced back to the mirror where I’d used some of my precious duct tape to secure a few cracks I didn’t like the look of.Fuck, I hope no more bits fall down.“Who do you think he was beating up on? His own reflection? Some hallucination?”
I was no stranger to mental illness of all kinds. Us traveling folk included a lot of people who didn’t fit a normal life and needed help but had nowhere to go. Dave used to rant about how we take folks who have mental problems and dump them out on the street with no resources, then throw them in jail when they finally break. Dave knew all about that, since he was self-medicating his bipolar disorder with meth. I’d had to walk away from that disaster.
I wondered if he was still alive. Four years. Could be yes, could be no.
“Mirror-dude was shorter than me, I think. Not much, though. Blond hair. Real blond, not shit blond like mine.” I remembered curls, clean and bright in the glass-block sunlight. “About my age, or a bit older? Thirtyish? Good-looking?” But what rose to mind was a vision of his tanned arm in my hands with the blood running over his skin.
I patted the side of my neck for the comfort of having Mimsy jump up there. “Never would’ve made it through vet school even if I’d had a chance, would I?” I asked as she settled on my shoulders. Although maybe, if I’d never seen— I slammed the door hard on that bloody memory.
“We need to go earn some more money, baby girl.” I’d spent the fifty bucks we’d earned three days back on a thin foam pad that was the best bed I’d had in months, and enough food I felt rich when I ate it. But easy come, easy go. It was time to stock up again, especially if the mirror-breaking dude might come back hungry. Not that I planned to share my food with him, but maybe, if he was really desperate…
“How about down by the seaside? I wouldn’t mind going to the beach.” I’d tried traditional panhandling yesterday with my “Homeless. Anything Helps” sign— no “God bless you” because fuck that noise— at the last stoplight before the freeway on-ramp. Sometimes those were good spots but folks hadn’t been in a giving mood and I’d only made fifteen bucks in three hours. Being young, tall, white, and male didn’t encourage a lot of giving, and I’d left Mimsy back in the building rather than risk her around traffic.
“You’re my lucky charm. Let me hide my stuff and we’ll go see who wants to buy cat food for the cutest feline on the planet.”
Mimsy jumped to the ground and led me to the exit, meowing eagerly. I made her wait while I hid my pack in the dishwasher, my bedding in the laundry drop-ceiling, and what food I had left in the utility room. Then we headed out, making sure the building door latched securely behind us. I wished I had keys.
Idiot, keys are for people who own things.
Hopefully, it would take mirror-guy a while to get up the nerve to trespass again. Hopefully, no other jerk would turn up to try the handle. I’d hidden my stuff well, but leaving things behind was always risky.
Still, walking along with Mimsy at my heels and no pack weighing me down felt great. The sun stood high in the sky, and there was a soft breeze coming from the west. I turned my face into that breeze and strode through the high-class neighborhood like I belonged there. When we came to the first busy cross street, I scooped Mimsy to my shoulders and strolled on.
My first sight of the ocean stopped my breath. I’d wandered the country for nine years and somehow never reached the edge bits till now. The land just… stopped. Beyond a crescent of sandy beach, white-topped waves turned to dark-blue swells and faded to pale blue until the freaking horizon curved to meet the sky.
It was vast and empty, but in a good way. Like there was this huge piece of the planet we humans didn’t get to occupy. The air held an unfamiliar tang that I called salt and seaweed without really knowing for sure.
“Come on, Mim, let’s see the sea.”
The houses along the shore were mansions. I guessed folks who could afford that view had money to spare. The road I was on led to a set of wooden steps running about six feet down to the sand, with a crumbly low cliff on either side. Mimsy trotted down the stairs and onto the beach, pausing to sniff and run and sniff and pounce. I stopped at the bottom of the steps and watched her.
