When we reach my floor, I fumble with my keys, my hands still shaking from everything that's happened. The hallway is dimly lit and narrow, with doors on either side leading to other tiny, shabby apartments like mine. Most of my neighbors are working families, elderly folks on fixed incomes, single mothers trying to make ends meet. No one here has a lot of options.
My apartment is at the end of the hall, 3C. I slide the key into the lock, but before I can turn it, Damian's hand covers mine.
"Let me," he says quietly.
I step aside, hands shaking, watching as he turns the key and slowly pushes the door open. He enters first, his body tense and ready, and I realize he's checking for threats. The thought that someone might be waiting for me in my own home sends a chill down my spine. Tears prickle at the back of my eyes, and my body takes over before I can stop myself. I push past him, into the apartment, and I hear Damian snapping at me to stop, but I don’t listen.
“Mary?” I call out softly, and a few seconds later, a teenage girl steps out of the kitchen, brunette ponytail bouncing. She freezes, her eyes going wide, and I remember that Damian is behind me with a gun.
I spin around. “Put that away,” I hiss. Damian glares at me, and I glare right back.
“We’re fine,” I snap. “Put it away. I mean it.”
His jaw tightens, but he slides the gun into his waistband, hovering near the door as he closes it behind him. Mary is still standing frozen in place, and I wince, realizing that I don’t have my purse. It’s back at the Hibiscus, along with everything else I took with me to work tonight.
“I—” I bite my lip. “Hang on. I have cash in my dresser. I’ll grab it for you and then you can get out of here?—”
“What’s going on?” Damian interrupts from behind me. “Who is she?”
“I’m the babysitter?” Mary’s voice is a squeak, all three words a question as she stares at Damian, and his eyes go wide.
“Sienna?”
“Just wait here,” I hiss, half-jogging down the hall. I grab Mary’s wrist on the way past, pulling her with me toward my bedroom, and she follows. I clench my teeth against the guilt—she has no business being dragged into this, and I need to get her out of here as soon as possible. Whatever’s coming after me, I can’t let her get wrapped up in it, just because she agreed to babysit my son for extra money to work her way through community college.
“Who is that?” she hisses as I pull her into my bedroom—notentirely insensible of the fact that I’m doing what Damian did to me just a little while ago—and I turn to face her, an apologetic expression on my face.
“Don’t worry. He’s a—” I swallow hard, trying to think of an explanation that could possibly make sense. “He’s a friend.”
A knowing look crosses her face—too knowing, for someone who’s eighteen, but then again, she’s less than four years younger than I am. “Okay…”
“I’m going to have him walk you out to your car. Okay? I promise he’s safe. He won’t hurt you.”
“I’m sure I’m fine—” Mary starts to protest as I go to my dresser, digging in my underwear drawer to find my emergency stash of cash. I yank out three hundred-dollar bills—more than three times what I usually pay her for a night—and hand them to her. She glances down at the money, and then back up at me. “Sienna?”
“Everything’s fine,” I promise her. “I’m not going to need you to watch Adam for a little while, though. I’ll call you when things are straightened out. I’m sorry. Just… let Damian walk you down to your car. Please?”
She swallows hard, stuffing the cash in her jeans pocket. “Okay,” she whispers, and I nod, heading back out to the living room where Damian is waiting. He’s still standing by the door, tense and agitated, and he looks back at me as I step out.
“Are you ready to go?” he asks sharply.
“Not yet.” I take a deep breath, bracing for his irritation. If he’s always like this, then maybe it’s something I’m going to have to get used to. “I need a few minutes. Can you please walk Mary down to her car? Just to make sure she gets there safely?” I give Damian a pleading look. “I’ll explain everything in a minute. Just please walk her down.”
He looks at Mary, and then lets out a sharp breath. “Fine.” He gestures to the door. “Let’s go.”
He glances back at me as she walks nervously toward him. “Fifteen minutes, Sienna,” he says, and it sounds like a threat.
As he walks out of the apartment, I look around, seeing it—seeingmyhome—through his eyes. It's small—barely 700 square feet—with a cramped living room that doubles as a dining room, a tiny kitchen with outdated appliances, and two closet-sized bedrooms. The furniture is secondhand, mismatched pieces I've collected over the years. The couch has a throw blanket over it to hide the worn spots, and the coffee table is actually a trunk I found at a thrift store. The walls are thin enough that I can hear my neighbors' conversations, and there’s a box fan in the living room for when the air conditioning can’t keep up with the Miami heat.
But it's mine. Or it was, anyway. I've tried to make it homey with pictures and plants, little touches that make it feel like more than just a place to sleep. There’s a bookshelf full of books near the TV, romance and fantasy mostly, my escape from reality. Toys are scattered across the floor—Mary must not have gotten around to cleaning up yet. I look at them, at everything, trying to think of what to take. Of what, out of my collection of possessions, is really meaningful.
I head to my bedroom first, pulling a duffel bag out from under my bed and then grabbing clothes on instinct, hoping that what I reach for is what I want the most. Underwear, my comfiest sleeping clothes, the one pair of nice jeans that I saved up for ages to buy, my favorite T-shirts. In my dresser, in a small wooden box, there are two tiny mementos that I haven’t pawned over the years, no matter how poor I’ve been—my mother’s wedding set and her pearl earrings. I look at them for a long moment, considering slipping the rings onto my finger, but I decide to wait. I put the box into a side pocket of the duffel bag, and head to the bathroom, collecting my toiletries. If I’m going to be staying somewhere strange, I want to have things that are familiar.
The room across the hall from mine is more difficult. I get a backpack out of the closet, leaving the duffel in the hall as I gently nudge the door open and step inside, into the warm, humid darkness of the room.
There’s a faint glow from the dinosaur nightlight next to the door, the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. In a racecar bed next to theslightly open window, lying on his side, is a three-year-old boy, sleeping soundly.
I pad quietly to the dresser on the far wall, opening the drawers as slowly as I can to avoid them squeaking. I pull out clothes, all of his favorites, tucking them into the backpack. I grab a few of his favorite toys that are sitting on the shelves next to his bed, the picture books he likes me to read to him at night, and then I kneel down next to the bed, gently touching his shoulder.
