I also find a pack of underwear that I bought a while ago and put away for safekeeping because I like the style and I knew they’d stop making them as soon as they realized I wanted to keep buying them. You learn not to trust supply lines when you’re a woman.
I crawl under the bed and curl up with a blanket and a pillow. I am exhausted, and I have to sleep. I guess they’re probably not coming back tonight, and if they do, they probably won’t check under the bed. I make sure there’s a bunch of garbage in front of me so it all just looks trashed the same way
It’s afternoon when I wake up. I can tell by the way the light is coming through the window and filtering through the debris of my life. I get up and have some more candy for late breakfast, then wash a non-broken cup out and have a drink and generally do my best to make myself presentable.
Leaving the apartment is dangerous, because I can’t see if they’re watching it or not. It’s way more likely that someone is watching from nearby now than it was early in the morning. I hesitate, wondering if I should just stay put.
I am glad to see that my phone is charged. I have an idea. Well, less of an idea, more of an impulse that I blindly follow because I am feeling incredibly lonely.
I call Simon.
I don’t really expect him to pick up. And he doesn’t. But someone does answer the call.
“Hello, Lydia,” Veronica says.
“Hi, Veronica, can you put me onto Simon, please?” I act like this is any other day and any other call taking place on that any other day. I am not going to give her the satisfaction of hearing me freak out.
“No,” she says. “If you would like to see Simon, you would have to come into work. I see you’ve decided to no-show today. That will have to go on your permanent record.”
“Oh, well. I’ve been informed I have tenure, so I am not worried about a little sick leave.”
“Oh, you’re ill?”
“No. You make me sick.”
We are trading verbal jabs and it is equal parts satisfying and awful. This woman has fucked up my life and wants to make me a prisoner of her evil company and all I can do right now is be passive–aggressive about it. I want to be full aggressive.
She sighs. “How much longer is this going to go on?”
“Forever,” I tell her. “Your henchmen are too stupid to catch a fly in a flytrap. They’re never going to get their hands on me. How long are you going to keep trying to fuck with me before you realize there’s no point?”
“You turned me into a cat. I am not going to stop until I have taken everything from you,” she says, her tone chilling. I can hear the venom in her voice. She truly does not like me. She truly wishes me harm. If I were not so useful to her, I think she might want me fully dead.
“I never had anything for you to take. You’re the bad person in this. You’re the one who made this situation happen the way it has happened.”
“I didn’t turnmyselfinto a cat,” she says, putting emphasis on the word that makes it apparent she blames me for what happened to her.
“Okay. I did that part. But, aside from that you are definitely the bad guy. Still are. Sending men to trash a girl’s apartment?”
“So you’re in the apartment,” she says.
“No,” I lie.
“It doesn’t matter. This call has been traced from the moment you made it. Several teams are converging on your location now. There’s no way out…”
I hang up, throw my phone down on the floor, grab my bag, and run. I go to the stairwell, but I don’t try to go down. If she’s telling the truth, they will definitely be out there. I go up instead, onto the roof. There are fire escapes up here, but I have a different plan. This set of buildings was made all in a row. I think I can jump between them, escaping by losing them yet again.
But this isn’t the mall. I wasn’t fast enough.
Veronica didn’t tip me off until it was too late to matter. She’s probably kicking herself for telling me at all. Or maybe, if she’s really fucking twisted, she’s imagining how panicked I must be and enjoying the knowledge I am suffering. And to think I bought her the fancy cat food when she was living in my bathroom.
I approach the building’s edge, and to my dismay, notice that the gap between structures seems a lot wider up here than it did down there. Could be an optical illusion, or it could be my survival instincts trying to keep me from jumping between multi-story buildings. I bet I can do it, but brains really hate that kind of thing.
Bam!
The door behind me bursts open and men start yelling at me. It’s the fucking worst.
“Put your hands up!”