Warehouses

“Anton?” I asked, taking a seat next to him.
He looked up slightly to acknowledge me but stared out of the window again. His eyes were blank, lifeless. A total turnaround from thirty minutes ago. He was a lot more remote than usual.
I could feel something, paranoia maybe, reach for my grip.
Something's wrong. Something's very wrong, a small panicked voice in the back of my head kept repeating.
I tried to get control of myself, to reason with myself.
"Where's Roman?"
I could tell he didn't want to answer. He looked at anywhere but me.
"He has important gadgets he needs to get before we leave." I didn't like the urgency in his tone.
The television whispered in low hush voices as a local documentary played. Anton didn't look away from it, but I could tell he wasn't paying attention.
Something was bothering him. Or he was still not being friendly with me. Either that or something had happened in my absence.
I hesitantly reached out to touch his stiff shoulder. He cringed at my touch but then relaxed when he saw it was me.
“Anton!” I asked more urgently this time, sandwiching his face in my hands.
He took a deep breath.
"Yeah," he muttered, his voice was unsteady. It wasn't normal at all for Anton. That worried me.
“What is wrong?” I demanded.
Anton curled his strong tan fingers over mine to loosen the grip I had on him and then he turned away from me.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“What is it?” I asked him quietly, desperately.
His head turned sharply, to stare into my eyes. I quickly looked down.
"Something doesn't add up," he whispered flatly, his eyes curiously confused. The tone in his voice caught my attention immediately.
"What does that mean?"
"I didn't want to say anything in front of Roman. But Nuru..." his voice was urgent and he turned to stare blankly into my eyes. "I saw Nikolai, in your bedroom, Saturday night."
I squeezed my eyes tight together before the panic could be evident. With a nauseous roll in my stomach, I realized that maybe Nikolai wasn't just a dream. He'd been in my room. But that was impossible, right? Didn't Roman say he was too skilled? If he had hypnotized me then there wouldn't be any sort of memory of it.
"I saw him talk to you but then the lights went off."
I hesitated, thinking, stifling the surprise and fear. "But that was just a dream"
I felt Anton stiffen next to me. This meant something. I was right to worry after all. The suspense was killing me though.
"Shit!" he hissed and them leaped from the chair, landing heavily on his feet. I started at him, confused.
"Anton?" My voice broke.
"Shit." he said again as he punched into his phone. He pulled the phone against his ear and listened.
"We have a situation," he bellowed into his Blackberry.
It was silent for a few seconds.
I froze, struggling to make sense of the situation. I heard a deep voice reply that always quickened the pace of my blood flow, that could only belong to Roman.
"No!" Anton listened. "Nikolai, he was there Saturday." He grimaced as Roman growled his reply. "No memory."
And then his gaze turned to me.
My heart raced.
"Nuru?"
I nodded stiffly.
"Do you think it's possible Nikolai really was at your house? Do you think Jennie was hiding him?"
I shook my head, the voice in my head loud, it was just a dream. "No."
"I won't let her out of my sight," Anton said to the phone and clicked the off button.
"It was just a dream," I said to Anton. I think I was trying to convince myself more than him.
"You need to eat," Anton said, his eyes dead, body rigid.
The fog of panic refused to leave me.
"I'm okay," I jumped down from the chair. "I need to leave. Can't afford to miss any of my lectures."
Anton drove me to campus in silence. For the full duration of the ride, I stared out the window into the foggy streets and pouring rain. The terror reached a boiling point and the thought that maybe, just maybe, Anton was right, Nikolai had in fact made contact with me had my heart on fire.
The car came to a stop.
"Someone will be here to pick you up." He turned to me. "Roman will be home later tonight."
I nodded.
"Nuru?"
I hesitated before opening the door. "Yes?"
"Be careful."
My stomach twisted uneasily at his voice. It was panicked.
"Aren't I always?" I tried to lighten the mood with my joke but my voice was lifeless.
I turned away and walked into the maroon buildings. They were beginning to look much like something out of a horror movie with each step I took.
I made it to class at the same time as the teacher. I sat staring at Mrs. Nelson without listening. The tears were hot against my cheeks and I tried to stifle the anxiety.
I thought of the endless possibilities, if Nikolai actually did hypnotize me, would he make me hurt people, hurt Roman. The very thought made me grip my stomach in pain. How could I live with myself if I hurt Roman?
There was no use thinking of what ifs. All I could do was hope we were just being paranoid. At lunch I avoided my friends, the others didn't seem bothered, but Melissa came to sit with me outside in the drizzling rain. She didn't say anything, she didn't even ask if I was okay. I looked at her with eyes full of gratitude.
The minute school was over I was running. The easiest target would be Jennie. Jennie? My Jennie? I tried not to imagine her body, pale, stone, motionless with the loss of life. How would I survive without her? It didn't matter that I didn't like her very much but I still loved her, as much as a child would love a mother. So what if she wasn't perfect?
Please be okay, mom.
I had a hunch, premonition if you will, that Jennie was in trouble. It was like a sixth sense.
I didn’t stop even when I ran into the janitor; she sang a string of profanities behind me. I didn’t look behind as I ran. I only had a second before the man Anton had promised would be here to pick me up panicked and called Roman.
I was late.
Outside the horrifying maroon building, I slowed to a fast walk, there were three people by the door and I shoved roughly past them, mumbling a low apology when they glared at me.
As I rounded the corner of the school yard a white Honda backed out of its parking space. It looked new, and stood out from the crowd of easily affordable cars.
I waved my hands hysterically. “Hey wait... stop!” I called, running behind the car. It stopped and I slowed to a fast walk, exhausted.
I jumped in, breathless.
“You’re late kid,” The old man said. He looked at me with impatient, irritated eyes.
“Sorry,” I mumbled between heavy breathing.
“I was leaving.” The driver said in irritation as he closed the door behind me. At least he still remembered to be a gentleman.
He was in the driver seat in seconds, his potbelly peeking out under his white t-shirt.
“How did you know where to find me?”
He stared at me through the rear-view mirror strangely. “You called me this morning, kid, told me what you’d be wearing.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
He shook his head, obviously convinced I was insane. I wondered who had made the call, Ruth maybe? Kate perhaps? Or rather another employee Roman hadn't introduced me to?
As the car pushed through downtown Port Edward, I allowed myself to panic. Jennie wouldn't be able to hurt Nikolai... much, not his impressive six feet six inches, not his three hundred pounds of an even mixture of muscle and fat.
“Hey kid, are you okay?” The driver was worried now, his eyes concerned as he glanced frantically at me through the rearview mirror and then back at the road.
Something in my face must've alerted him to the turmoil going on inside. I felt no blood in my face and I knew I must be looking suddenly white.
I tapped my fingers almost painfully into my thigh.
“Can you drive faster?” I asked.
“Any faster, then I’ll be way over the speed limit,” he complained. “I don’t need another ticket today.”
“Please, sir.”
“Fine,” He grumbled. “You did pay me three hundred,” he said with disbelief.
“What?”
He shrugged. “No refunds.”
My eyes were wide with terror and I forced all grainy images to the back of my head. If I wasn't so horror-struck I might have rolled my eyes at the him.
“Hey, kid, which street again?”
I love you, Jennie. I thought worriedly, anxiously. I'm coming. Just hold on.
The driver was waiting for an answer I realized, “Take the one oh-oh four Marine Drive.”
“Alright then,” he mumbled anxiously as his foot stepped harder on the gas.
It was a long, agonising ride.
“Is this it?” His voice was impatient.
Hesitantly I reached up to grab the door handle, my hands were trembling. The sky rumbled and my breath caught. Outside the shelter of the car, the wind was bitter against my exposed skin. I stumbled to a stop at the sidewalk and the driver sighed in relief, turned his car sharply around and drove back down the road.
This part of town was mostly old warehouses that had run out of business. It was dangerously silent, too quiet. Dread crept up on me as my eyes landed on the wooden copper brown door.