I ran between the cars. Horns were blaring—either at me or at the traffic jam. The voice calling my name was growing more distant. Or maybe I just wanted to believe that. As long as my legs didn't give out.
At the intersection I lunged forward on the red light and, having crossed the road, started walking directly against oncoming traffic. I didn't look back. I only listened, trying to hear whether he was still calling or not.
My heart was pounding somewhere outside my body. Adrenaline burned through my veins, not yet cooled after the encounter with my stepfather.
I ducked into an alley and crouched behind metal crates. I was clutching my bag so tightly that my fingers went numb. My breathing gradually evened out. It was winter, but I didn't feel the cold.
A plan was already forming in my head. Clearly. Step by step.
This wasn't my first escape. I knew my priorities. I knew what to do next. Once, at sixteen, I had run away from home the same way. From him.
"He is gone."
And only then did I catch myself on another thought: I hadn't even reacted to the fact that Theron had killed a man right in front of me. It hadn't frightened me. Hadn't surprised me. It passed by like a mere fact.
Was it because of shock?
Later.
I would deal with it later. In a safe place.
Right now the main thing was cash.
I came out of the alley and walked briskly along the street. At the stop, I managed to jump onto a bus that was pulling up. I rode a couple of stops, found an ATM, and withdrew the maximum amount.
Two more stops—another ATM. Again, the maximum.
After that, the system demanded a code.
Turning on my phone was dangerous.
I didn't know what Theron was capable of now.
After I had become a witness.
Now I needed to find a place to stay.
I didn't know where to go.
I went down into the metro, made several transfers, came out on one of the outer streets, and got on the first bus I saw. After passing a cheap motel, I got off at the next stop.
The hotel was below average. But right now it didn't matter. The main thing was that they wouldn't find me.
I checked in, and to my surprise they didn't even ask for ID. I didn't waste time and went straight up to the room. I locked the door on all the locks and the chain, and only then allowed myself to sink down onto the floor, my back against the door.
I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breathing.
He won't find me here, will he?
The image of my stepfather surfaced too abruptly. I flinched and opened my eyes. His touches rose up in my memory—ugly, sticky. I sprang to my feet and went to the bathroom.
I grabbed the soap and began furiously scrubbing my hands. Then I lifted my gaze to the mirror.
My hair and part of the skin on my face were dark. Blood.
On the black coat it had barely stood out, like dirt. Though he himself had been dirt. On my face I noticed small scratches, apparently left by me.
I tore off my clothes and stepped under the cold shower. I rubbed soap into my hair, into my skin, into my body with such force that my skin burned. The cold water only slightly cooled the sharp, frantic movements.
I found some pathetic little hand towel and dried myself with it. My hands were still trembling slightly, but I forced myself to get dressed—slowly, carefully, as if haste itself could give me away.
And at that moment there was a knock at the door.
Not tentative, but sharp. Almost immediately after it came a tug at the door handle.
I froze.
My heart thudded dully somewhere in my chest, my breathing faltered, as if the air had suddenly grown denser. I didn't move and didn't even blink, listening, trying to understand whether it was real or imagined.
I quickly pulled my work clothes on over my bare body and went to the door. The handle was no longer moving, there was no knocking. I slowly leaned forward and looked through the peephole—no one. Empty.
I imagined it.
I didn't exhale right away. Only a few seconds later, when the tension in my shoulders began to ease, did I drag the only chair in the room over and wedge it under the door handle to block it. Only after that did I allow myself to change properly.
I lay down on the bed and pulled the dark blanket up to my chin—not because of the cold, but out of caution. Getting sick now was not an option.
To my surprise, there were no tears. The shock was slowly receding, leaving behind not emptiness, but clarity. Even, measured thoughts were returning to my head. Clear calculation. Control.
I closed my eyes, but as soon as the silence became familiar, I again imagined the sound of the handle being tugged. I flinched and sat up sharply, each time checking the door with my eyes, as if it could have changed in a second.
On the one hand, I understood that these were only echoes of fear, reverberations of what had happened to me. My brain kept playing against me.
On the other hand, I couldn't be sure of anything.
Theron was not an ordinary man. He worked with weapons, with jewels worth hundreds of millions, with people who disappeared without a trace. He had already killed a man—calmly, without hesitation. And if he wanted to find me, no amount of caution would be a guarantee.
Closer to morning, I had almost no strength left, and I fell asleep, no longer caring about my own hallucinations. My body simply shut down.
I woke up in the evening.
First I listened—silence. Then I carefully checked the corridor, and only after that went downstairs and extended the room for another three days. Without unnecessary conversation, without questions.
I walked to the first twenty-four-hour store and bought the simplest fast-food set. All that running, fear, tension was devouring too much energy. I had never been large; my body had almost no reserves left.
I didn't feel like eating.
But I ate anyway. Right now this wasn't about pleasure, but about necessity.
The next day I went into the first store I came across and bought a black tracksuit that was familiar to me and a black padded jacket. I was lucky—a black cap was there as well.
I threw away all my old clothes. Before that, I washed the blood out of them—not out of pity, but so as not to leave unnecessary traces or raise questions.
The silence lasted three days. It gave hope: either they didn't know where I was, or they weren't looking.
To be sure, I waited until the fifth day. The same silence.
On the fifth day I went to a library to use a computer. I chose the one farthest from the motel, almost on the other end of the city. Three hours with transfers, through traffic jams.
I was lucky—they already had computers with internet there.
I immediately logged into my bank account and changed the cash withdrawal limit. Then I wrote a letter to my sister's school and checked all the details.
One thing remained—the call.
I didn't risk turning on my own phone. I used a local one, under the pretext of loss. Because it was an emergency, they allowed it.
I called Derek's workplace.
"Hello, does Derek Morris work there? I'm his friend, all my things were stolen, this is the only contact I could find."
"Please specify your name."
"Mirey Ellis," I said my name more quietly than usual.
"Hold on, I'll check."
A minute of waiting stretched in the receiver. Then the connection returned.
"Mirey…" Derek's anxious voice was almost like a breath of air. "Are you all right? Your phone is off."
"It's a long story," I said. "I wrote to the school that you, as an authorized person, will meet my sister when she arrives."
I didn't know if I was being presumptuous, but there was no choice.
"All right," he answered without questions, with clear relief.
"Have you noticed Theron's security or him himself near our place?"
"I have," he confirmed. "But yesterday they left. Before that they stood by your door for almost two days. They didn't pay any attention to me."
That gave a weak but important hope: Theron still hadn't connected Derek to me.
"Look around. If they're no longer nearby, pack my things—the most necessary, at your discretion, and—"
"Is it really that serious?" Derek interrupted.
"I think I'll have to leave," I confirmed without further explanation.
"Is there a plan?"
"Alaska. Until I get a passport. Then maybe Canada," I said, not fully believing myself yet that it sounded realistic. "There's an envelope in the first drawer of the dresser. Take it for me."
"Okay. Do you need a ride somewhere?" he asked calmly.
"I'll call later and tell you where. We need to be sure you aren't seen in my apartment."
"Don't worry," Derek replied confidently. "If they catch me, I'll find something to say. Plus your sister will be arriving soon—there's always a reason."
That wasn't like him at all. Usually he spoke dryly, to the point, without trying to reassure.
"Tell me your number. Next time I'll call you directly."
He dictated the number, asked a few short clarifying questions—about clothes, about my sister.
I was about to hang up when he suddenly said:
"I thought you'd finally done it…"
The silence hung too densely.
"I…" I couldn't find the words. "You know I was too weak for that."
After that conversation, I immediately left the building and headed for the motel, deliberately changing transport and routes. I rode more along the ring road—fewer cameras there. Who knows how long his reach is.
On the way I went into a store, bought food, and only then returned to the motel.
I entered the elevator together with some man, without paying attention to him. My thoughts had been dragged back again to Derek's words; I kept turning them over and over.
I stepped out after the man and only then realized it wasn't my floor. The very top.
I turned around—the elevator had already gone.
I headed for the fire stairs, deciding to go down that way faster, but froze when I noticed the door to the roof. Without a lock.
I went up, pushed the door—it opened too easily.
Up there it was quiet and dark. The view from above was foreign and unfamiliar. Too open.
With the bag in my hand, I went to the edge and looked down.
It was higher here than at my home.
And for some reason, calmer.
"Have I become stronger?" I asked myself.
I lifted my head. Above me was a clear sky with stars, and the steam from my breath dissolved in the cold almost at once.
What is all this for now.
I don't believe people.
I don't remember what joy looks like.
I don't know what will happen next.
I have never felt love. I don't remember my father. My mother, in my early childhood, married a sadist and preferred to close her eyes. To everything.
No one has ever chosen me.
And at some point I stopped understanding why I was even continuing to struggle in this world.
For what?
To experience even more pain?
Another disappointment?
The bag with the groceries slipped from my hand. The first tear finally rolled down my cheek.
The pain crashed over me sharply and deeply, so much so that I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. But I couldn't. The scream stayed inside, stuck somewhere in my chest.
"I'm tired. I'm so tired," I whispered, and the tears flowed harder.
Tired of being strong.
Tired of always making the "right" choice.
I just can't anymore.
I stepped onto the parapet. Through the tears I could no longer see either the height or the sky; everything blurred, merged into one muddy stain.
I just want this pain to disappear.
For all of this to disappear.