What if you threw your life away and the world threw it back? If you found yourself in credit to the value of one life? Would you spend that credit on a worthy cause, if fate offered up the chance?
...
These functions were invariably tedious. Tonight's, however, was interminable. For he had determined this would be the night. The night when his weeks of grooming, of preparation—of anticipation—came to fruition.
The girl was ready. Her fear was a palpable thing, leavened to a ripe perfection with the hint of impossible hope his patience and guile had engendered. The prospect of at last harvesting the fruits of his labours aroused him as few other things now could.
Nevertheless, he concealed his impatience. Appearances must be maintained, after all. Networks fostered and connections made. While lacking the visceral thrill of his less conventional dealings, there was still gratification in carving his way through the treacherous waters of the corporate world as the apex predator he knew himself to be, a shark among the minnows.
So, expression composed and manners impeccable, he charmed and mingled and pressed the flesh and shared toasts and exchanged small talk—and forced himself to savour the tide of heat rising within.
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Nick stood there in the warm night, dripping onto the tiles. Who was this woman? Help? What did that even mean? Was she offering? Or maybe threatening? As in, back off soggy weirdo, or I'll call for help?
So absorbed was he in his own situation, so convinced he must be the sole repository of all the woe in the world, that only when she mouthed the word, "Please," did it dawn on him she might be asking. That there might be enough trouble in existence for someone else to have a share.
Responding to this required something of a mental shift on Nick's part. His most recent goals had been finding a way out of this life and then a way off this building; having screwed up the first and in the process of screwing up the second, he didn't feel like a person with much help to give.
Besides, why would somebody who lived in a place like this be asking a mystery trespasser for help? Why not call the police, or the paramedics, or whatever? Hell, even a boy scout would be more use than Nick in his current condition.
Nevertheless, he was the one she was asking. And irrespective of his capacity to help, the only way out of here was through her penthouse. Maybe she just needed a big spider sorted out?
Keeping his movements slow, he made his way over to the steel-framed glass doors that fronted the stairs leading up to the pool level, as the woman, her eyes never leaving him, shadowed his progress. Then, face to face, no more than a yard apart, they stood and regarded each other through the glass.
She was young, maybe early twenties. Although attractive, with high-cheekboned, Asiatic features and flawless skin, there were shadows under the dark eyes and something about her expression which evoked a pang of empathy in Nick—it seemed he wasn't the only one having a rough night. As she didn't seem inclined to do so herself, he reached for the door handle—to find it locked.
He rattled the handle just to be sure, but when the door didn't budge, gave the woman a questioning look and raised his hand to make the gesture of a key turning. She shook her head in response, before turning to a fresh page on her sketchpad. She held up the new message.
