The Dark & The Beautiful

07

"Where is it?" His words are short and simple, not even his face inclines emotion other than sternness. He's very hard to read, even in a situation like this. I exhaled a low breath, one that started to keep my heart beating back to normal before I nodded toward my closet on the other side of the room. The trench coat which I think is safe to assume is his is hanging from the door. "It's in the pocket where you fucking left it," I tell him.

He pushed himself off of me and walked over to the closet grabbing the coat. I sat up from my position on the bed as I watched him fumble inside the pockets until he pulled out the hard drive in all its glory, a low breath escaping him. He inspected it for a moment,  before turning back to me. "Did you plug this into your computer?"

"I was gonna lie to you and say no but since you're risking your life climbing through a five-story window for a damn hard drive I probably shouldn't," I stand up from the bed fixing the towel that's barely clinging to my waist at this point because of him. "so yeah, I did. Why? Was I not supposed to do that."

I wait for an answer.

He slowly shakes his no like a school teacher.

I groaned aloud. "Aw man, is my laptop gonna get a virus?"

"Where's your laptop?" he asked and I gestured over to the desk in the room where my laptop sat already opened.

I watched him as he walked over to it. He closes it shut before picking it up. I eased a brow at him, arms crossing against my bare chest. The look on my face when I see this son of a bitch grip my laptop with his big two tattooed hands, raising it in the air before slamming it down onto his knee splitting it open — my entire soul left my body, an inaudible sound coming from me as my hands tangled in my hair. "What the fuck man!" I try to contain my voice, not wanting him to put his fingers on my mouth again so it comes out like a loud whisper.

The man places the broken laptop back on the desk. "If I didn't do that you would've had a swat team at your door by tomorrow morning," he says to me, dusting off his hands. He's drenched in sweat, dirt and what looks to be a little bit of blood right now but my laptop is what he gotta clean off of him? Oh, okay. I take note of the gun stuffed in the waistband of his pants but I try not to stare at it too long hoping if I ignore it so will he.

"You just destroyed my laptop," I said to him as I made my way over to my desk. "my mom got me this as a birthday present. Do you know how much laptops cost nowadays?" He doesn't answer me, his eyes are too busy bouncing around my room for that. They go from my black and grey bed sheets and curtains, the U-turn and One Way street sign that hung on my wall, and the large 8ball rug beneath us. I grew a little embarrassed after a while. It's not like my room is dirty or anything. It's clean — always! But then I had to find something to wear . . .

"Great, you got your hard drive now leave." I find the bass in my voice again, a hardened look on my face as I point toward the open window. He doesn't say anything. He just peers out the window and I do the same to look down and see the police officers down below with flashlights and sniffing hounds.

I'm tempted to scream out for the police and let them know that the campus intruder is in my room right now for a fucking hard drive but this man has a gun on him and blood on his shirt.

"Fuck," he curses under his breath, a hand coming us to rub the bridge of his nose.

"Oh hell no," I shake my head, a hand reaching down to adjust the towel around me once again. "you gotta get out of here."

"And go where?"

"To hell hopefully!" I could feel my face strained from the force of the words I let out. I turn around away from him, a hand coming to run through my damped head of curls. "You have to get out of here. If someone catches you in here . . ." there's a sudden knock at my door. We stared at each other, a silence stretching over us in the room.