Page 36 of Walking in Darkness
It was so heavy I could hardly breathe.
I followed it, winding through the city, taking back alleys and narrow streets, tracking my way into the places where the disparaged lived. The places only the depraved would seek.
It was then that I found what I was looking for.
Women.
So fuckin’ young that bile burned in the back of my throat.
There were only two of them, loitering at the end of a street.
One had dark-brown curly hair, and the other was a bleached blonde.
They were dressed in next to nothing, their legs bare in the middle of the frigid winter. Each of them wore a cropped fake-animal-fur jacket, like that would be enough to keep them warm.
Both were clearly strung out.
Eyes devoid of emotion.
Detached.
No question, it was the only way they could stomach living this life, which they were likely forced into.
But they weren’t really who I was looking for. They were just a sign. A beacon for the perverted.
The brown-haired girl didn’t even look at me when she stepped forward in an attempt to get my attention. “You looking for someone to keep you company tonight?”
The younger one beside her looked up. The second she did, a bolt of disquiet moved through her when she caught sight of me.
Shaken from her stupor.
It was like my appearance was enough to drag her back down into a beat of reality. Green eyes widening with shock and a surprised sound spilling from her lips.
She stumbled back a step, trying to disappear into the shadows of the dingy building that stood high behind her.
Her fear was distinct.
Palpable as it radiated from her skin.
I ground my teeth, hating that she was afraid of me.
“Nah,” I said. “But maybe you should go home. Get out of here.”
The one with the curly brown hair laughed a hollow sound. “Oh, honey, thisishome.”
I angled around them, turning left at the corner they were standing at, and I stuffed my frozen hands into my jacket pockets and let loose a chill that tumbled down my spine.
Doubted it was the weather that had conjured the cold. It was just the sickness that roiled in the confines of the squalid street.
Knowing I was close to what I came for, I itched, nervous that I didn’t have my gun. I was armed only with a knife, but there was no chance I was going to leave Aria at that motel without a way to protect herself.
Fucking hated that I’d had to do it in the first place.
“You sure?” the only one who’d spoken called behind me. “You look awful lonely.”
“Yup,” I said without looking back. Covertly, I let my attention swivel from left to right, searching the foulness that wormed through the night.
Vapor puffed from my mouth, and adrenaline thrummed through my veins.
