That’s strange. Maya never makes her bed.
I stepped away from her door and took a sniff. If she’d already left, I’d smell the lingering aromas of toast and coffee. Two pieces of buttered toast and a cup of coffee was her usual morning breakfast. Hmm. I don’t smell anything.
I entered the living room and froze. The apartment door was wide open, and Maya was gone. “What the hell?” I panicked, and quickly closed and locked the door.
My breaths sawed in and out of my lungs as I scanned the area, including the small kitchen, and found nothing out of place. I checked for a note on the fridge—our usual place to leave things for each other, but there wasn’t one.
I pivoted back to Maya’s room and checked her night stand for a clue about why she left without closing the door. She knew safety was the number one priority if she was going to live with me. I could only guess that Maya had left the apartment abruptly. But it wasn’t like her to leave the apartment door open.
Baffled and slightly worried, I closed her bedroom door, went back to the living room and dropped onto the sofa.
Should I call the cops? —no. Maybe she forgot to leave me a note before she left. She could, at times, be clueless, but not about our safety—never our safety. Not after what had happened to me.
Lately though, Maya hadn’t been herself, not since she started dating Jess. She’d been more distant, and we hadn’t hung out for a while—other than last night.
We’d been close once, as two friends who grew up together in a small town often were. She knew my secrets and I knew hers… or so I’d thought.
“Where did you go, Maya?” I uttered to no one. I let out a breath, surrendering to the notion that this was just a fluke mishap. I’d talk to her later about it.
I got up from the sofa and made coffee. Then I whipped up some scrambled eggs, cut up an avocado, and made toast.
I’d taken a sip of my coffee and a bite of my breakfast, when a jiggling sound came from the apartment door. I paused, glanced at the clock on the wall, and assumed it was Maya.
What the… I thought Maya forgot her key. I took two steps toward the door, ready to give her hell, when it slowly opened and a meaty arm—holding a gun—extended past the threshold.
I froze for a moment, before my survival instincts kicked in and I silently flattened myself against a wall that would hide me from the intruder. I frantically looked around for a weapon, but I wasn’t fast enough. The owner of that arm crept inside the apartment. The guy was massive.
Jesus. It would take a bulldozer to knock him out.
Instead of trying to find a weapon, I dropped to the floor, crawled to the pantry and crammed myself inside. Thankfully, I’d left the bifold doors open after getting out the loaf of bread. Maya had pulled apart the lower metal shelving the other day and hadn’t put it back together yet. Her laziness had inadvertently created a good hiding place.
I crammed myself into the tight space. With luck on my side, the trespasser wouldn’t see me.
The meathead left the front door open and I heard him stalk off toward the bedrooms. Now was my chance to close the door to the pantry. At the last second, I decided to leave it open a crack in case I could get a better look at the intruder’s face, and tell the cops.
Damn it. I just realized that my phone was charging in the bedroom.
There was a quiet curse, before heavy footsteps pounded toward the kitchen. I braced myself, as I watched through the crack at the intruder closing the apartment door. He then entered the kitchen and loomed near the pantry. I held my breath and silently prayed that he wouldn’t open the door and look inside. From this vantage point, I could see his ugly mug and the scar that ran across his right cheek.
He pulled a cell phone from his pants pocket and called someone.
“She’s gone…” Pause. “Yeah, the roommate’s gone too…” Then a longer pause. “Will do…” Pause. “Okay. We’ll keep a look out.” He shoved the phone back in his pocket.
Panic and fear mixed with my confusion, but I remained as still as possible and waited to see what the lug nut was going to do. I didn’t wait long. He looked around the kitchen, stopped and stared at my half-eaten breakfast, and I lost the ability to breathe. I closed my eyes, trying to wash away the dizziness, when I heard the soft click of the front door.
I popped my eyes open and listened intently for more sounds. After a good five agonizing minutes, I peered through the opening and didn’t see the guy. I was so sure that he’d left that I climbed out of the pantry and took a shuddering breath. While the panic in my gut settled, I shook my hands out to ease the sting from wringing them so tightly and then wiped my sweaty palms down my pajama pants.
Who was that asshole? And what does he want with me and Maya?
Something inside told me that he’d be back, and I had to get out of there. I raced to my room, exchanged my pajamas for yoga pants and a long sleeve shirt, and jammed my feet into my black Hey Dudes. Then I grabbed my backpack out of the closet and began shoving clothes and other necessities into it. I threw in my cellphone and charger, and remembered my toothbrush and toothpaste. One foot out of my bedroom and I froze midstride. The same enormous guy was standing in the hallway.
“I knew you were here, bitch,” he said gruffly, an evil grin sliding across his face. He pointed the gun at me and closed the gap between us. “I told Grater this was going to be easy money.”
I stumbled backward into the bedroom, tripped over the backpack I had dropped in my fright, and landed hard on my butt. The back of my head hit the floor with a thud as I crumpled. My brain rattled and stars floated across my vision.
As my eyes cleared, I saw the bastard coming at me. The meathead was so huge, he reached me in three long strides. With the gun pointed my way, he hovered close like a death wraith, ready to extinguish my life.
My heart jackhammered, and the air in my lungs all but evaporated. I was suffocating in utter terror.
