Page 6 of Deviant

There are no taxis to be had and the queue of people waiting for one, looks like it goes around the block. At this rate, I’ll still be stood here when Saul comes out and then I’ll be stuck, in that same pointless conversation again, so I make the snap decision to walk. It’s only twenty minutes from mine so it’s not unfeasible and perhaps I may be able to catch a taxi further down the road.

My heels clatter annoyingly on the curb, rainwater slithers between my frozen toes and I grit my teeth against the unpleasantness of it. I’m half tempted to ditch them entirely and just go barefoot, but the streets are filthy and besides, it’d only mean another thing for me to carry.

Cars seem to speed past, leaving a torrent of water splashing everywhere. My bleached hair sticks to my forehead, and I knowthat I look as far from my usually put together appearance as I can get.

I’m half tempted to stop in a kebab shop and get some chips, but as I walk from one street to the next, they all seem shut; it can’t be that late, can it? Normally those places stay open right up until sunrise and I know there’s at least a few hours until then. Muttering under my breath, I continue on. I must be ten minutes away now, that’s halfway there. Just gotta keep going.

But as I cross over from one barely lit street to another, I feel the hairs on the back of my neck suddenly pick up. I pause, using the cover of an overgrown bush as some sort of cover and I glance back, checking to see if I’m overreacting.

I don’t know what I expect to see, but there’s nothing. Not a soul. The only movement is the rain hammering down. And yet…

I narrow my eyes, squinting. The streetlamps are sporadic enough to create great chasms of darkness in-between. It’d be easy enough for someone to lurk there, to hide just as I am, and remain unseen.

Water trickles down my back, I curse under my breath and suck in the gasp that threatens to give me away. I’m being silly. Stupid. Imagining monsters now where there are none.

No one knows what I’m up to.

No one has a clue.

I turn, picking up pace and continue on, just as my conversation with Saul replays. The question is can I trust him? Can I truly believe he will keep this to himself? And more importantly, who the fuck told him about it? Only me and Ronin, my source, know. That’s a pretty small circle. If Ronin spilled a peep of what was going on, his head would be on the block beside mine. No, it’s not him. So who the fuck is it?

I mull that thought over and over, wondering if I need to take action already, wondering if instead of going home to sleep, I need to be racing home to pack and disappear?

By the time I get to my place, I feel like I’m teetering on a knife edge, completely and utterly exhausted and yet hyper-alert. I half expect my apartment to be ransacked, to walk in and find a burly man dressed all in black with a gun pointed at my chest.

But there’s nothing, no man, no carnage, just my neatly organised space. For a moment I pause, staring at my belongings, trying to figure out if someone has been in here, if they’ve rifled through and then left everything neat and tidy so I wouldn’t notice.

My skin prickles, goosebumps spread along my arms. Am I being paranoid, or do I need to actually listen to my gut?

All that alcohol fizzles out in my brain. I go from hazy drunk to horribly sober in a matter of seconds.

I place my bag onto the marble counter and kick my shoes off, feeling the softness of the carpet massaging my dirty, frozen feet. The couch looks so inviting, half of me wants to curl up in a blanket and just sleep, only, that feeling persists, as if it’s a chime, getting louder and louder and louder.

And that voice in my head repeats over and over that ‘someone knows.’

Someone knows.

There’s a target on my back.

If I sleep, if I hesitate now, I might as well pull the trigger myself and all of this, all this work, and this risk will be for nothing.

So I force myself to move, force my body to keep going and I grab a bag, stuffing it with essentials, the basics, underwear, T-shirts, comfy clothes. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, how long I’ll need to lay low, most likely I’ll be watching my back in some form or other for the rest of my life and though that thought does alarm me, on some level there’s a sense of belief that I can do this. I can disappear, go off grid, hide in the wilderness and be free of the bullshit constraints that we’ve convinced ourselves are necessary to normal daily life.

There’s a stash of money I keep under the floorboards, and it takes an annoying amount of time to prise the wood up and wrench it out. I always told myself I was being ridiculous in needing such an option, only now, this feels like I need to give Past Ana a good pat on the back.

When I get to the bathroom, I bag up the bottles, the toothpaste, all my toiletries and soap bars that I’ve squirrelled away at the back of cupboard, having liberated them from one hotel or another.

And then I catch a glance of myself in the mirror. My mascara is smeared down my cheeks, my hair looks a tangled nest that will take hours to sort and I know I don’t have time now. I need to be going, to be moving, to be fleeing this space before the inevitable catches up with me.

“Come on, Ana,” I half-whisper, as if I need someone to give me courage.

As quickly as I can, I peel off the sodden dress and towel dry my skin. Then I yank on a pair of thick leggings and a hoody, tucking my hair up to conceal myself further.

With my bag hanging over one shoulder, I cross the living room and head to the balcony, telling myself not to look back, but my eyes do it anyway. They cast over all the little treasures, the trinkets, mementos, moments of my life that are now meaningless. I prided myself in being independent, I prided myself on travelling, on seeing the world, on doing all the things my mother and her ilk would sneer at. What does it mean now? What is it worth? Surely it would be better to have never tasted such things as adventure, and freedom when they’re going to be ripped so savagely from my grasp?

I let out a gasp, but it could be a sob too. I worked so damned hard for this. I sacrificed everything to get where I am. To have to run now, to have to essentially kill that part of me is not just hurtful, it’s offensive.

But what else can I do? I can’t just stay here and hope like some stupid fool that everything will be okay. I have to run. I have no other choice. It’s that or I kill myself. Plain and simple. Only, I’m not ready to admit total defeat. Maybe a few weeks from now that might be my only option, but I have to try first. I have to do something.

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