Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
“Sorry, Miss Hart,” the officer says. “We’ll keep following up on leads and let you know when he is apprehended.”
They have a lot of pressure being put on them by the commissioner. I’ve seen to that.
But I do not intend to leave this all to them.
I try not to cry from frustration. I’ve been set up by this man. I’ve been stalked by someone I employed, someone who smiled in my face then snuck down to the basement and fucked me over my desk. I don’t know how the fuck he did that. Fire escape, maybe, window exit.
I’m going to find him, I tell myself. I don’t have to freak out and cry because he is going to be found. Giving into emotion now will be a waste of time. I have to get a grip.
I have people looking. I have information coming, but not everything is immediate, and I am in a state of… well, a state.
So I go to a bar near the old office and have a drink. Then another one. At some point, some people from the paper come and give me their commiserations. They don’t really care. How could they. They don’t understand what I have lost. They’re glad that the building wasn’t more greatly affected, and that they’re not going to be laid off. At the end of the day, all anybody really cares about is themselves.
I have a few more drinks. I buy a few rounds of drinks for them. They get happy about that, and I smile because why not make them happy when it’s that easy to do it. It’s almost like I’m celebrating my losses at this point.
This is why I don’t have any real friends. I’m too rich to not be used by practically everyone I meet. People don’t see me as a person. They see me as a vending machine.
I stumble out of the bar at closing, choosing not to take a cab or rideshare home. I’m going to walk. Or, I would, if it wasn’t for the fact that the ground keeps lurching around in a very uncooperative manner.
The side of a building catches me, which is nice, but a little rough.
“I like it rough, but I don’t like it so abrasive it takes my skin off,” I say, patting the wall.
I’m not entirely sure where I am. I’ve gotten turned around somehow. Doesn’t matter. I probably own this building. Whatever it is. Or maybe have a share in it. Or maybe one of my associates does. Regardless, the city is my home. All of it. If I fall asleep on the street, that’s basically the same as being asleep on the rug in front of the fire.
I keep walking. The world keeps turning. A little faster than it usually does, and I don’t like how the sky is on the side now?
Oh, wait, I’m lying down. How did that happen? Why is the concrete soft? Oh. It’s not soft. It’s rotting. Oh. It’s… never mind. I push against gravity, because that is reliable. Can’t trust the sky to stay where it is, but gravity always pushes down.
“Hey, lady,” someone says.
There’s a man nearby. I can smell him.
“Go away,” I say.
He must not have understood me, because he grabs me, which is the exact opposite of what I told him to do.
“Get off me!”
The road gets narrower. It’s more of an alley now. The man pulls me into the darkness and starts grabbing at me, trying to get my clothes off me. He’s clumsy and rough and stupid. How dare he? How absolutely fucking… doesn’t he know who I am?
I shove my elbow up into his jaw. He stumbles backward, and the warm spatter on my cheek tells me I got blood out of him. Maybe knocked a tooth or two loose.
He calls me a very rude name and tries to hit me.
He succeeds.
I collapse to the ground from the blow, which lands on the back of my neck.
He reaches for me, but he doesn’t grab me. I don’t know why. Maybe the sky and the ground betrayed him too. I feel a hot spray of something across my cheek, something that tastes like copper when I lick my lips.
I hear the sound of flesh tearing. I wish I didn’t know that sound, but I do. All too intimately. Someone is being ripped apart nearby. They’re screaming and complaining about it, and I’m not being attacked anymore, so I’m hoping it’s the same person I hit, and who hit me.
Then there’s quiet. It doesn’t take long for someone to stop screaming. Killing happens faster than anybody realizes. Life feels like it’s going to go on forever, and then it just sort of stops and that’s it, and the sky is on the side.
A bigger, but softer hand reaches for me, tries to guide me up from the ground.