The way home felt longer than usual.
Streets glistened from the rain, streetlights cast dim cones of light that pierced the gray like holes. Droplets beaded from rooftops, fell into puddles that gathered into dark mirrors.
I held my bag tighter, walked faster, but my footsteps echoed too loudly – as if they were betraying me. Each strike of my heel sounded like someone following me.
The wind smelled of metal, cold water, and earth. I breathed in the air; it tasted like night.
At the end of the street I turned, wanting to take the direct route past the small parking lot behind the garages. The asphalt there was cracked, the fence dented. I just wanted to get through.
But there he was.
Leaning against the fence as if he belonged there. Hood pulled low over his face, a cigarette between his fingers. The smoke curled in the wind, dispersed to nothing before it could fully form – as if it lacked the strength to rise into the sky.
Malaric.
