A Penny For Your Books

Alessia was at a loss. Everything she thought she understood about her life was just ripped away. Her carefully curated future was obliterated; burned to ash in a wildfire of confusion and sadness.

“We’ve been together for four years. We’re engaged!” she said, exasperated. All of Alessia’s energy was pouring into the effort it took to avoid spilling tears, but her sniffling only grew more persistent as her heart ripped further in two. “You’re all I know.”

She could tell that Marcus was not wholly unaffected by her grief, but he contained his disappointment in a tearless box and a stoic lid. Only the slightest emotion crept out.

“It’s just not working for me,” he replied. “At first you seemed to be another piece of me, necessary for my happiness. Now, our togetherness feels abrasive. I’m sorry.” 

Marcus’s voice failed to match the cruelty Alessia felt in his words, leaving her even more confused as the exchange continued. However, that same emotional inconsistency is what allowed her to translate her own grief into fury.

“What does that even mean? You know what, nevermind. I’m not doing this anymore. Respectfully, I hope I never see you again.”

Alessia snatched her bag and stalked to the front of Marcus’s gloomy apartment. It had become disgusting over the past week–his usual picturesque cleanliness was absent, seemingly altered to match the man he’d suddenly become.

Aurelius watched her with puppy dog eyes. His shiny black fur gleamed along his tail, which was tucked in response to their tones.

At least Aurelius was easy to read.

He whined in protest when Alessia reached for the doorknob. An elderly, white-whiskered Aurelius flashed through her thoughts; another part of her future to say goodbye to. She planted a loving kiss on his soft head, turned around, and pulled the door shut behind her. 

As soon as she was alone, Alessia lost her composure and stumbled a few doors down, letting herself crumple against the wall of the apartment hallway. She told herself that she was worth more than Marcus, that she didn’t deserve his sudden cruelty. She put her headphones in as thoughts of the past week were quickly replaced by memories of the years full of love and affection. Full of the real Marcus. 

Alessia didn’t understand what changed. They were so happy together! Alone with warring thoughts, her grief and frustration left her immobilized. Dazed, she disassociated in the hallway for what felt like hours, minutes. She didn’t know.

After an indecipherable amount of time, she became aware of measured, consistent creaks from the rotten staircase. She turned her head, expecting the familiar short, afroed silhouette of Marcus’s neighbor, Fran. She was about to lift her arm in a half-hearted wave when instead of hair, a fully visored helmet peaked over the top stair. Alessia quickly retracted her greeting and, not wanting to explain her sickly state to a stranger, pretended to be asleep. 

She heard the helmeted figure stop shortly after reaching the top. When they knocked on a door, it sounded like the loud, high-pitched ting of Marcus’s personalized copper knocker. Alessia peeked, and her suspicion was confirmed by a swath of curly brown hair peeking through the open door. Her heart skipped for a moment, forgetting the pain he just caused her.

One eye still peeking, Alessia watched the stranger take a step into the apartment and hold out an arm. He looked to be delivering something. A break up snack?

Through the noise-canceling headphones, she heard two small pops followed by a soft thud. Her gut knotted, but she continued to feign sleep. Alessia’s head swam with possible deliveries, but couldn’t think of anything that was heavy enough to match the sounds. Though, Aurelius was large and still a jumper, so he could certainly have caused some damage.

The hallway was too warm. The wildfire of emotions from earlier was consuming her, roasting her organs and boiling her skin. Alessia’s stomach twisted and her bones felt as rotten as the staircase, brittle and untrustworthy.

Her mind raced as she tried desperately to put the pieces together. She was just as confused about the source of her uneasiness as she was about the breakup. Strangers made deliveries all the time, and this should be no different.

She was yanked back to reality when Marcus’s door clicked shut, signaling her spying eye to do the same. Alessia listened, but the silence stretched on as she waited for footsteps. Finally, the stairs groaned with the helmet’s descent. 

Alessia tentatively pushed herself into an upright position. In the newfound silence, her elevated breathing was too loud and combined unceremoniously with her thunderous heartbeat in a cacophony of sound. Her knees popped as she crawled to Marcus’s door. She was hyper-aware of the imprints the rough, dirty carpet pressed into her skin, but she didn’t yet have the strength to stand. 

Marcus’s knocker loomed over her from her spot on her knees. Alessia reached for the doorknob, but it was locked. She remembered that she no longer had a key. She also remembered that Marcus had broken up with her.

He was no longer Alessia’s responsibility. This time, relief and anger both washed over her like a warm bath, comforting her unease. She let go of the doorknob and heard an expectant bark from inside.

Aurelius is fine, and I’m losing my mind.

Alessia’s strength renewed with her mindset, and she stood, now eye-level with the copper knocker. She sighed, grabbed her bag, and walked down the stairs. The steps seemed less brittle than she remembered. 

Outside, the trees groaned against the fall wind. Her hair whipped across her face, and her body was a prime target for loose leaves. Glasses protected her eyes from debris, but a gentle mist rendered them useless in their original purpose. 

Despite the unpredictable weather, Alessia loved fall. Out in the cool air, she tried to focus on upcoming events and holidays–the Renaissance Fair, Halloween, Thanksgiving. This time, she smiled as a tear rolled down her cheek, nearly indistinguishable from the soft precipitation.

A loud revving tore her out of her thoughts. She realized, too late, that her musings had led her unconsciously into the street. Alessia jumped to the side as a motorcycle barely missed her, dousing her in a detritus-filled wave of gutter water. Her overnight bag was soaked through. 

“No, no, no, no,” Alessia muttered. She frantically shifted through the bag’s contents and pulled out her gaming laptop. Devastation washed through her as water leaked out of every crevice. Each drip felt like another snapped thread to her sanity. 

Alessia released a frustrated groan and fell into a crouch, head in her hands. She rocked gently back and forth. Her bag dragged across the muddy sidewalk, but she didn’t care.

Alessia craved nothing more than her warm bed. It was as though every effort of self-soothing was met with divine punishment, so she disassociated as much as possible for the rest of her damp walk home.

When Alessia woke the next morning, her room was too bright. She blinked a few times and glanced at the clock on her nightstand. Its fat block letters mocked her with a self-righteous, unmistakable “9:12AM”.

Not again.

It was Monday, which meant class had begun nearly a quarter hour ago. She cursed and rushed to make herself presentable. She grabbed a sweater and pants from her laundry bin and briefly ran a toothbrush over each tooth. Her fingers brushed through a stubborn curl, but it was intent on maintaining its upright position. Her eyes twitched. Exactly a minute later she grabbed her bag, but recoiled at its cold, damp straps. 

The events of the previous day slammed into her like a wave on a rockface shore. She felt the water chipping away at the rocks, each disappointment cutting into her personal stability. Her head drooped. 

She couldn’t go to class if she’d wanted to. The group project required a working laptop and a functioning brain, of which she had neither. She needed a day off, anyway.

Alessia threw herself back into bed. The springs absorbed the impact and distributed it all to her sleeping cat, or so his reaction made it seem. Now wide awake, his tail twitched as he stared at her with slitted eyes.

“Oh come on. You can’t have fallen asleep that quickly anyway.”

She stroked his face with one hand and ran the other down his back. His satiated, mechanical purrs indicated that he had accepted her apology. For now.

Alessia lay and stroked her cat for another indiscernible amount of time. She probably had some thoughts, but none were worth remembering. 

Despite another creature in the room, the loneliness fell over her like a weighted blanket. She wondered if it was normal to feel comforted and crushed at the same time.

Alessia eventually became aware of a faint ringing. She turned her head to see that her phone was lit up with a call from an “Unknown Number”. She frowned and turned back to the ceiling, letting it go to voicemail. A few moments of silence passed before a corresponding text appeared. 

Now curious and bored, she picked up the phone. It read:

Check outside your door.

Her calm demeanor disintegrated. In her haste to stand, her disobedient foot launched a stray pillow across the bed, pelting her sleeping cat. His hackles raised and he glared at her in a fury that Alessia couldn’t acknowledge yet. 

She crept distrustingly towards the door. Her hands closed into tight fists at her side, ready to protect her in a moment’s notice. She creaked the door open a tad, and her gaze landed on a white box wrapped haphazardly in a red bow. The bow was comically large, dwarfing its proprietor (?). As she stared, Alessia swore could feel an imaginary ribbon tying carelessly around her own neck, bending itself into a careful bow. It tightened and she panicked, but her prying hands found no purchase. 

The sensation disappeared as quickly as it began. Breathing hard, she pulled the box inside quickly and locked the door. 

Once safely alone, Alessia ripped open the box with a morbid, insatiable curiosity. Inside, a brand new, state-of-the-art gaming laptop smiled at her. She smiled back. 

She never could have afforded something this nice. And to sweeten the deal, it was pink. It was exactly what she would buy if she had won the lottery. 

She texted each of her friends to see who dropped off the box, but none of them had. She had only seen one friend  recently, and two were long-distance. It wasn’t hard to believe that the gift had not come from them. They were as poor as she was. She wasn’t even sure that her friends knew her birthday was this weekend. 

As excited as she was about the laptop, she couldn’t work through why someone would gift it to her. What stranger would spend a few thousand dollars on her?

A familiar sense of unease sent a shiver up her spine. She stood, suddenly rigid. A stranger sent her this gift. A stranger who somehow got her phone number, knew she needed a computer, spent an excessive amount of money on her, and knew her address? This was too much for Alessia. 

Her stomach roiled and she ran to the bathroom. She retched, but her body had nothing to give. The emotional turmoil was a wrecking ball, and she was made of popsicle sticks. 

Once she could build up her strength, she stood on shaky legs and called the police. She told the answering voice that she needed to file a report about a potential stalker. 

“What did you say your name was?” asked the woman.

“Alessia Clark.”

“Ah, Ms. Clark.” The woman took a breath. “We actually have a few questions for you, so it would be ideal if you could come down to the station. You can file your report while you’re here.”

Alessia’s skin prickled with gooseflesh. 

“W-wait,” Alessia stuttered, “Why do you need to speak with me?”

“We’ll see you soon.”

The line went dead. 

Alessia’s room was too quiet, and this time the heavy silence only felt suffocating. Every ounce of comfort was gone.

She took three deep breaths through dry lips, each inhale scraping against the back of her throat. 

Water. She needed water. 

Alessia grabbed her coat and water bottle before walking out the door and collecting her bike. The chill fall air felt harsh against her cheeks. She searched for the same reassurance it gave her before, but found that this wind only stung and bit.

She pedaled fast and was out of breath earlier than usual. The station was only two miles away, but every pedal felt labored, as if the bike was fighting against her. She wondered if it was exhaustion, anxiety, or both.

On the way, she pondered what her stalker could desire. The timing was impeccable. Just the day before, Marcus had broken up with her. Did they know about the separation? What purpose did the new laptop have? 

Alessia recognized that she was complaining about an excessively nice gift, but the pattern of how it reached her was ominous, creepy. The police would surely understand that. They would be reasonable and help a distressed woman, right?

After a particularly difficult hill, Alessia arrived at the station. She was locking her bike when she realized that had failed to bring the laptop itself. She cursed her brashness and entered the station without it, her empty hands fidgeting.

“Good morning, Ms. Clark. Thank you for coming in today,” said the secretary. Alessia recognized her voice immediately as the woman from the call.

The officer had dark hair, pulled back into an impeccably slick bun. As far as Alessia could tell, there wasn’t a single hair out of place. Upon her breast, her nametag read Teresa.

“Follow me back to one of our rooms,” Teresa said, motioning for Alessia to follow.

“What’s this about?” Alessia questioned. 

She listened expectantly, but Teresa just smiled politely and began to guide her through the building. Teresa led Alessia past multiple monotonous, barren office spaces. It seemed that a few officers tried to liven up their desks with photos of loved ones and overpriced decorations, but it did little to chase away the soul-sucking atmosphere. 

“Please wait in here,” Teresa said calmly. 

Alessia’s gaze followed Teresa’s outstretched arm towards an equally soulless room with a door as thick as her skull. Inside was a single table with two chairs on either side. In two corners, cameras watched every inch of space. Alessia wrapped her arms across her chest.

“Is this an interrogation room? Why am I here? Do I need a lawyer?” The words poured out of Alessia in a ceaseless stream, “Who am I waiting for? Do I have to be in here to make a report?”

“Just relax. The officers will come talk to you very soon,” Teresa said, smiling.

Despite her refusal to answer questions, Alessia appreciated a friendly face. She walked gingerly into the room, almost tip toeing. A few steps in, the giant door closed with a bang strong enough to rattle the furniture. 

Alessia jumped and placed her hand on her heart. It was thudding out of control; she swore she could feel it bursting through the gaps in her ribcage. Again, she closed her eyes and took three deep breaths, desperate to calm herself. Her racing thoughts tried to work reasonably through her situation. 

The police could want to speak with her for any number of reasons. Maybe she knew a suspect, or there had been an accident? She froze. What if something happened to one of her friends? She had been so selfish! She’d been so wrapped up in how Marcus had been acting recently that she hadn’t checked in with her friends. 

Her thoughts weaved as she took her cushionless seat. The chair was cold and unpleasant to sit in. It wobbled as much as her thoughts while she reached for her water bottle. She paused. Her water bottle…that she left sitting by her bike. She dropped her head to the table and groaned. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Her throat ached. She tried to swallow some spit, but her tongue was swollen. She peeled it off the roof of her mouth, which stuck to it like sandpaper. 

Alessia needed water. She stood and walked to the door, but the door handle turned too easily in her grasp. There was no time to jump out of the way as the door slammed into her temple. 

Alessia was knocked forcefully backward, but managed to remain on her feet. She felt that she understood now what a concussion felt like. She stood, dazed, as a pair of feet stepped towards her.

“Why were you out of the chair? Shoot, I’m so sorry,” a male voice said. Alessia thought he sounded more angry than apologetic, which only aided in riling her own temper. He continued, “Andre, please go get a towel and an ice pack.”

“And water,” Alessia growled.

Alessia heard a second pair of footsteps recede down the hallway. She slowly looked up as a large hand cupped her forehead, moving her from side to side. Though he was obviously looking for the new goose egg, she felt more like a chicken going to slaughter.

Her gaze met a pair of auburn eyes that looked incredibly unconcerned. Bored, even. She watched his jaw work as he processed the injury.

He frowned.

“I didn’t think I hit you that hard.”

Alessia blinked. Was this man joking?

“It felt like you put your whole weight into that door,” she retaliated. She yanked her head away and rubbed her new bruise.

He said something under his breath, but Alessia couldn’t hear it.

“What was that?” she snapped, irritated.

“I have the ice pack,” came a new, squirlier voice. 

Alessia watched as a short man with blonde curly hair and glasses walked up and presented the pack. He looked at the other, larger policeman with a certain reverence that almost made Alessia uncomfortable. Instead of handing it to her, Andre held the ice pack out to his coworker with both hands, eager.

The tall man took it with a nod and handed it over to Alessia. 

“Hold this to your head for the next ten minutes.”

Alessia glared at him, and he glared back. The wordless exchange lasted a few agonizing seconds, until eventually he blinked and pulled out her chair. His authority was off-putting. 

Alessia sat. She started to sweat as she remembered the circumstances that brought her here. The cold metal of the chair mingled unpleasantly with her clammy free hand, sending her nervous system into overdrive. She moved that hand to her lap, where it habitually pinched in pants in time with her pulse.

The large officer muttered as he walked to his seat, but begrudgingly sat next to Andre. When he looked at Alessia again, his face was a void, unreadable.

Both men were staring at her. After a minute, Andre spoke.

“Our partner told us that you called to make a statement,” he said, “What happened?”

Andre picked up a pen and paper, ready to take note of what she said. Weston’s hands remained still on the table in front of her. Uncaring or unconcerned, she wasn’t sure. 

She took a deep breath and said, “I think I have a stalker.”

Weston’s impenetrability faded and he was unable to hide his evident shock. It seemed as if he was expecting her to say something different. What did he expect to hear? Andre, on the other hand, jotted down a note. Encouraged, Alessia explained everything that occurred since the man on the bike destroyed her laptop. By the end of the short story, Weston’s finger tapped against the closed fist of his other hand.

“Did you get any information about the bike? Weston asked. “Color, make, model, year, license plate, anything?”

Alessia furrowed her brow. Irritation and humiliation whipped through her thoughts in a twister as she realized that she could not recall a single discernable characteristic. 

She lowered her gaze and slowly shook her head. 

“Are you able to provide a phone number from the person who contacted you?”

Alessia pulled out her phone and showed the text to the policemen. Andre pulled out a computer and made a quick search, but now they shook their heads.

“They used a fake number. Unfortunately unless we track an active call, we are unable to get any information from that. Not unless we send it to the FBI, which we’re not doing right now,” Andre said. The pity in his expression only frustrated Alessia further. 

“So you know nothing, and will do nothing.”

She felt helplessness take hold in her chest. It squeezed her lungs and panic threatened to overtake her.

She said, “All of this should show you that he doesn’t want to be identified and knows how to stay anonymous. That should be enough to raise suspicion.”

Right?

Weston nodded absentmindedly, but his finger was tapping wildly now.

“So a man you don’t know accidentally ruined your laptop and then replaced it with a more expensive one, and you want to report him?” Weston raised an eyebrow, and the table shook from the force of his incessant taps.

She winced at the downplayed oversimplification and tried to maintain her composure. It looked as though she would have to figure this out herself.

“We don’t know that it was the same person. He knew my name, number, and address.”

“Unfortunately all of that information can be found on the internet without much effort,” Andre stated. He had stopped taking notes earlier, before she’d finished her story.

Weston turned to Andre and muttered under his breath.

“Can you please speak up?” Alessia barked. She was sick of the self-entitled, impatient behavior she was receiving.

“I said, I can’t believe you’re wasting our time with this when we have a murder investigation to get to,” Weston bit out.

Alessia’s eyes widened. Murder? Lexington wasn’t a ghost town, but it didn’t have high-profile crime. No one died here unless they were old, sick, or occasionally stupid. For as long as Alessia lived, her hometown had not experienced a murder.

“Murder? Who died?” she asked with a shaky breath. Her heart fluttered, which made breathing difficult. She felt as if a slug had slowly dragged its slimy body across her brain, covering each thought behind a layer of viscous fog. Was the murder what they wanted to speak with her about?

Andre paused at the genuine shock her body displayed, unsure. 

“Marcus Spellman,” Weston continued, “He was killed yesterday afternoon in his apartment. Exterior building cameras show you entering prior to his death, and leaving after, per the coroner’s estimations.”

Weston’s voice displayed no sympathy, no understanding. The pressure in Alessia’s chest increased and she coughed violently, struggling for air. Her fiance was dead. 

No, she thought that she must have misheard them. They were provided bad information or were messing with her. Marcus was fine when she left, right? She closed her eyes and recalled yesterday’s painful events. She walked through the breakup, with his harsh words and contradictory body language. Her memories from the hallway were fuzzy, but she gasped as images of the helmeted stranger filled her thoughts. How could she forget?

The two men watched her intently, and Alessia took another deep breath.

“There was a man,” she said shakily, “A man walked up the stairs and knocked on Marcus’s apartment while I was laying in the hallway.”

“A man?” asked Andre. He had both elbows on the table, leaning forward in anticipation of her words.

Alessia sighed when she realized she’d have to recount the whole experience.

“Marcus and I were engaged up until about an hour before that. He broke things off with me and I was too upset and confused to leave, so I laid down in the apartment hallway while the information settled. While I was laying there, disassociating, a man with a motorcycle helmet walked up the stairs and knocked on Marcus’s door. At that point I did not want to talk to anyone, so I pretended to be asleep.”

Weston and Andre both leaned forward now, and Weston had finally quit the nonstop tapping. He was eerily silent, an unmoving and menacing statue. Alessia silently prayed that they could see the grief, shock, guilt, and embarrassment on her face as she recalled what happened next.

She pinched her leg as she spoke, “When Marcus opened the door, the helmeted man stepped in and held out his arm. I could only see from a single slitted eye, so I assumed he was handing Marcus a delivery. I heard two pops and a thud.” She winced. “It sounds really bad to say it now. It sounds like I should have noticed something was wrong. But when I left, Aurelius still sounded like himself, so I didn’t think twice about it. I was so upset about the breakup and Marcus wasn’t my responsibility anymore,” Alessia finished. 

“Aurelius?” Andre pressed.

“Marcus’s dog, sorry,” Alessia explained. She was flustered and forgot to include that detail.

“Marcus Aurelius?” Andre said under his breath. He shook his head in amusement and Alessia watched a silent battle take place in his head. He seemingly lost the fight, and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. 

Alternatively, Weston was even more stoic than before. His nostrils flared on his flushed face, and he radiated skepticism. 

With her shame about this new information, Alessia supposed she looked equal parts guilty and distressed about the murder of her fiance. Ex-fiance, actually, which certainly looked worse. She pursed her lips.

Weston finally wrenched his attention away from Alessia and towards Andre, who not only lost the battle, but seemed to be digging his own grave.

“What’s so funny?” Weston bit out.

“Marcus Aurelius? The philosopher? It’s name play; it’s funny!” Andre shrugged, as if he wasn’t handing Weston the nails to his own coffin. 

Weston’s glare was angry enough to bury Andre alive, and was definitely efficient in wiping every trace of amusement from his partner. The resulting silence was deafening.

This officer-on-officer confrontation was too much for Alessia to process amidst her immense and growing distress. It was too silly, too out of place to exist in tandem with her current reality. Alessia covered her mouth in desperation as a giggle escaped. She clapped a second hand over the first, but was unable to stop the sudden onslaught of delirious laughter. 

Weston and Andre turned to her in disbelief. In the back of her mind, she knew that her reaction was distasteful. She knew, but she couldn’t stop. They continued to watch as tears filled her eyes. 

It was only when the force of Alessia’s hysterics made her gasp for air that Weston sent Andre to fetch water. Weston’s glare pierced daggers into Alessia’s skin. She calmed slightly, but then she couldn’t help but wonder if part of Weston’s frustration was due to his lack of understanding about the joke. 

Her giggles returned, softer this time.

She was vaguely aware of the significance of her situation. She was being accused of murder and had no alibi or additional information to provide. However, she was also absolutely sure of the truth to her own innocence.

By the time Alessia could compose herself, Weston’s foot was tapping at breakneck speed. The table vibrated. 

Alessia had stopped giggling, but her already foggy brain was fighting the worst bout of light-headedness she’d ever experienced. Her head swayed, and she felt like a bobblehead. 

Weston must have been aware of her condition, because as soon as Andre returned with water, the men left the room. The isolation gave Alessia the space she needed to banish her hysterics, but her nervous system was wrecked.

She supposed that she had done everything she could and may as well return home. Thoughts of the police’s complete disregard for her situation almost sent her down another spiral. She understood now why some of her friends refused to bring their experiences to the police–they didn’t care. Frustration turned to an anger so intense, she could feel it in her blood.

Alessia grabbed her bag and strode to the door. She turned the handle, but found it locked. She yanked and the thick metal reverberated against its frame and through Alessia’s body.

She slammed her open palm against it and yelled, “Hey, are you going to let me out of here?”

The blinds rose from the tiny window in the heavy door, and Alessia jumped. Weston’s emotionless face nearly filled the entire pane.

He looked down, and a few moments later displayed a notepad with “NO” scrawled to fill the page. He held the note to the window for a moment before dropping the blinds back to their resting position.

No? What did he mean no?

Alessia pondered his reasoning for a moment before knocking on the door again, more fervently this time. 

“Why not?” she yelled.

A few seconds passed before the blinds rose again, just as suddenly as before. This time it read “Because you’re our prime suspect”.

She barely had time to read the last word, suspect, before the blinds crashed back down. She breathed.

“Fine,” Alessia muttered to herself. She walked back to her seat and drank the rest of her water. The cold liquid burned as it went down.

As she sat, she processed the new information about yesterday. Alone with her thoughts, she was unable to escape the growing anguish from the loss of Marcus. It festered in her chest, then moved to her stomach, her head, and all the way to her toes. They numbed with the heaviness of a much more permanent loss.

She sat, and she grieved.

She grieved for herself, for Marcus’s family, their mutual friends, and whoever else would shed a tear at the news of this violent death. This murder. Alessia didn’t know what this said about her, but she grieved the hardest for Aurelius, who would never again see his favorite person.

Alessia sat and cried in that room for what felt like hours. After a time, the feeling came back to her toes. Her sobs turned to sniffles, her tears to a headache. She grew impatient and knocked on the window again but this time, there was no answer. 

Alessia groaned and returned cross-legged to her spot on the cold floor. Without an emotional outlet, her hollow soul festered annoyance, irritation, and then rage. No one checked on her. No one gave an update, or even a bathroom break. Her bladder was on the verge of bursting.

It had to be late now. Alessia wondered if anyone was still in the building and pressed her ear to the door.

She heard a thud, followed by a shout and another thud. It was so faint, so muffled, that two days ago Alessia would have dismissed it. 

But not today. Today, she had lived through that same eerie thud at Marcus’s apartment. That thud was the sound of a body, and this time she was sure of it. 

Alessia began to hyperventilate as she quickly slinked back down to the floor. She breathed and breathed and breathed but each inhale evaded her lungs. Eyes blurring, her eyes darted from the door handle, to the window, to the camera, and back. 

She felt the denim around her crotch grow warm, and she cursed when she felt that her bladder was empty. Despite the circumstances, her first instinct was to cover her accident. Alessia shakily removed her jacket and placed it over her lap. She was wrapping an arm around her thigh when she heard the doorknob rattle.

Alessia froze. Her body was paralyzed by fear. She was a sitting duck, a mouse in a trap, forced to scurry until her captor grew bored. The door swung open and Weston’s massive frame took up the entirety of the door. 

He sniffed. 

“Why does it smell like piss in here?”

Only Alessia’s eyes moved. She looked Weston from head to boot, but he seemed fine. Relaxed, even. Did he know about the intruder? Had Alessia been wrong?

“Weston,” Alessia breathed, “I think there’s someone in the building. I heard sounds that were identical to what I heard at Marcus’s apartment. I think…someone may be dead.”

Weston stared at her, contemplative, and his indifference caused her shoulders to relax a bit. After a few moments, he stepped in and pushed the door closed behind him.

“Alessia, there’s no one here.”

“Can you at least check?” Alessia’s voice wavered. 

Her desperation must have ignited the smallest flame within Weston, because he glowered, but moved back towards the entrance. He cracked it to give a thumbs up to someone Alessia couldn’t see and closed them in again.

Alessia’s terror peeled away at his assuredness, layer by layer. His authority was final, a nail in the coffin; she must have been hearing things. She sighed and rubbed her eyes, desperate for her nervous system to catch up to reality. 

“Hold on, did you piss yourself?” Weston asked. His voice was full of a derision that set Alessia’s thoughts on fire. She was so hot that she simmered, and she hoped that Weston could feel the intensity of her hate. She hoped that he would sweat. 

“You. Left. Me. In. Here,” she said, the words chopped. “For. Hours. I knocked. I needed to go to the restroom, and then just now thought I was going to die. Forgive my bodily reactions to your incompetence.”

He laughed and walked over to the table. Alarm bells blared in Alessia’s head, but she failed to identify the source. Her thoughts were too clouded, her body too exhausted. 

“That’s why I chose you, Alessia. You feel emotions so intensely. That makes you the strongest kind of conduit.”

Despite outwardly beginning to relax, Alessia realized that her pulse had never slowed. Her skin rippled in gooseflesh and her eyes were wide, still in full fight-or-flight. It was as if her subconscious rejected her conscious reasoning, maintaining its own control of her body.

“Conduit? Chose me? What do you mean?”

Alessia’s thoughts were a hurricane and there was nothing she could do to stop the churning. 

Weston continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “However, I thought you’d be more grateful for the computer, even if it was only for a day. I didn’t think you’d come to my place of work, but maybe this was easier, in the end.”

Weston’s hands were clasped on the table, just as they were during the interrogation. Except now, his gaze wasn’t irritated, it was hostile. His pupils greedily drank the light from the room. They were a black hole, and Alessia was a victim of their morbid allure. Her own soul felt pulled in every direction, yanked and split and punched and torn.

Alessia couldn’t bring herself to stand. Her body was beginning to feel hollow.

Weston sat patiently at the table, waiting for Alessia to catch on.

She gasped, barely holding on to reality. 

“You’re the one stalking me,” she breathed. Her nerves were alight, and she was hyperaware of the chilled grip of the denim against her crotch.

“Not stalking,” Weston mused, “but taking care of. I’m so irritated that you called it that. I wasn’t able to set you up for success as well as I would have liked before you sped things up, though.” He furrowed his brows. “I also thought you’d be more grateful for getting rid of that prick.”

Alessia felt like she was floating outside her body. She crossed her arms over her chest in a last-ditch effort to protect herself from what she was hearing. Her eyes squeezed shut and pressed down into the crook of her crossed elbow, rejecting the words. 

“At the time, I hadn’t known he had just broken up with you. I’d been threatening him to leave town for over a week and he kept refusing, but I guess he finally gave in,” Weston sighed. “Not soon enough though, apparently.”

When Alessia recovered enough to use her voice, it felt as if someone else was speaking.

She could only croak, “Why?”

Weston frowned as if confused that she hadn’t got it. His foot began tapping again, softer this time. 

He sighed, “As a conduit, I’m taking your place. You can’t have a lot of people around who know what you were like before, because they’d know something was off. Without a family or many in-person friends, Marcus was the only wildcard, so he had to go.”

Alessia only stared, wide-eyed.

“You deserved a short explanation, so that’s that. Otherwise, thank you,” Weston said. His body relaxed, but his eyes maintained their solid, focused void.

The pain of the admission was too much for Alessia. Marcus still loved her. He was so contradictory when he broke up with her, so sudden, cold. All of the behavior changes were due to the threats, and he let her believe that he wanted out, all so they could both live. Only now, he was dead anyway.

Alessia released a gut-wrenching sob only to have her same noise reverberated back to her. It was Weston’s voice, but it was her despair. Everything about it was wrong. 

She looked to him with confusion and disgust imprinted in her scowl, but an identical expression met hers. She moved her right arm, Weston his left. His timing was so perfect, so exact, that he was a giant, masculine reflection of her. 

Alessia’s mind did not return to her body. Everything that she now witnessed, she saw from above. She was not conscious of the movements her body made, or didn’t make. The version of her in the chair was a husk, a lie perpetuated by the bones that kept it intact.

From her position, Alessia turned and saw a cloud of shadows emerge from Weston. It sparked and glimmered, bubbled and gurgled. It was hideous, and it was beautiful, devilish and angelic. 

Alessia suddenly came to the undeniable conclusion that she must be dreaming. Her consciousness was overwhelmed by the truth of Marcus and had pushed her aside in a valiant effort to protect what was left of her. The knowledge of his torment was too much; to know that he had still loved her had snapped her last cord to reality. She was floating in the shame of her willing acceptance, her consciousness both incongruous and harmonious with the roiling shadows that lurched out of Weston’s every pore.

They pulled away from him as if summoned by an exterior force and lurched towards Alessia’s body. Even in its instability, the shadows took the rough form of a hand. She watched with horror as the shadow grew haphazardly into the form of a person. Its movements were jerky, staticky, unnatural. From above, she could only observe. 

The shadows had almost entirely vacated Weston when the door to the interrogation room flew open. An officer yelled something that Alessia couldn’t hear and immediately fired his gun at Weston. The shot blasted through his skull, and Alessia watched brain bits and shattered bone hit the wall. 

For a moment, Alessia was mesmerized by the vibrant cherry that now painted the soulless wall.

While she was preoccupied with the death of Weston’s physical body, Alessia momentarily forgot about the shadow. She turned her ghostly head, slowly, towards her seated body in time to watch the shadow mold to her form and dissolve into her pores. 

Alessia felt a snap. She no longer felt like a visitor in her own body, a silent observer. Her mind was no longer clouded. She looked down at her arms, but nothing had changed. She still looked the same, but felt conscious again. Except, her body was still across the room.

Alessia’s body turned to face her, giving a quick wink before turning to face Weston’s corpse. It feigned a scream that sounded so much like Alessia’s, she startled.

The officer marched dutifully into the room, gun still drawn. He walked over to Weston and checked his pulse. Alessia looked at the chunks of brain on the wall and back to the corpse. Time felt nonexistent. 

The officer lowered his gun and turned to face Alessia’s body. 

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Did he hurt you at all?”

Alessia’s body shook. Just like Alessia had before, her body wrapped her arms over her chest, latching onto her shoulders. She looked pitiful. The officer reached for a hand and kneeled next to her, holding her steady.

“Did he hurt you?” he repeated.

“No,” she watched herself say, “He didn’t get the chance. But he did kill Marcus Spellman, and was the person stalking me.”

The officer nodded and drooped his head, defeated. 

“We know. We figured it out too late. Luckily one of the officers managed to press the emergency button before Weston got to her, but he killed the four other officers on duty here tonight.”

Another officer walked in and placed a blanket around Alessia’s body.

“You’ll be okay,” she said. “You’re safe now.”

The two officers huddled protectively around Alessia’s body and asked her some additional questions, but she could no longer hear them. She watched her mouth move and tears stream down her face, but they were not her tears. It was a strange feeling, to watch herself. 

“Hello?” Alessia asked. She waved her arms, but only Alessia’s body’s eyes flickered over to her. Even then, it was only for a moment, an afterthought. “Can anyone see me?”

No one acknowledged her presence. Alessia felt a chill that she had never experienced before. It was uniform in the way a glacier was, one material frozen all the way through. It was overwhelming, and it was searing. In her desperation, she stared again at Weston’s corpse, eyes bulging and urine staining the ground beneath him. She felt no comfort in his death.

The officers helped Alessia’s body to her feet and began to shuffle her out of the room. She recognized pity on her body’s face, but her gaze never reached Alessia. 

Alessia felt everything. She was aware of every sound, every feeling. Also like a glacier, she was stuck, frozen and unmoving. She was transfixed to her spot floating above the interrogation table, relegated to suffer in perpetuity away from the comfort of human warmth and recognition.

A single, cold tear zapped whatever warmth was left from her cheek.