Light streamed through thin floral curtains that probably hadn't always been beige. A bitter chemical fragrance clung to the sheets I was lying in. It was what I imagined embalming ointments smelled like.
Repeatedly shaking my head didn't disperse the shame of the previous night from my mind. Every time I blinked Will's disgusted face loomed at me, like the image had been burned permanently on my retinas. My mind wouldn't stop replaying the vision of him backing away from me like I was an ogre.
Fucking sanctimonious bastard.
Will was not in the apartment. The front door was ajar, and I half-hoped that he'd left it open as a message to get the fuck out of his house at my earliest convenience.
Swinging aside the mirrored door of the bathroom cabinet so I wouldn't have to see my fucking face, I scrubbed my borrowed toothbrush against my teeth with the manic fervor of a murderer erasing bloodstains from tiles.
Packets of pills were stacked neatly on the cabinet shelves. I began to rifle through them. If Will didn't want me to see what pills he was taking, he should have hidden them better.
Aspirin, tramadol, Tryptex.
Aspirin seemed harmless enough. But why was Will taking tramadol? He didn't look like he was in pain. I recognized the Tryptex brand name from summer school; it was citalopram. Severe depression or anxiety. That explained a lot.
Look at the big fucking medical expert.
"Fuck off, Jun-su."
My gray police-victim shoes were halfway on when I heard a shuffling up the stairs to the front door, slow and plodding, like a double bass being tuned pizzicato[1]. Will was coming back into the apartment. His lumbering footsteps were slower than Saint-Saëns's Elephant[2], like he was deliberately taking forever to reach the top of the stairs just to piss me off.
Will staggered into the apartment, wheezing and pale. He flopped heavily onto his haunted-house sofa like he hadn't seen me at all. Or like he was ignoring me. He gulped in short bursts like he couldn't draw breath, then settled back against the sofa cushions with closed eyes.
Out-of-shape asshole.
"I'm walking to Este police precinct. Bye."
Will looked up from the sofa, eyebrows furrowed. "I'll drive you," he wheezed.
So, he was still willing to get into a car with me after what I'd done to him the night before.
His breath seemed to have come back to him, the wheeze replaced by his scratchy bass-baritone. "Are you hungry?"
When I didn't answer, he got up and lifted a blue box next to the sofa. All the other boxes in the living room had disappeared.
"Who really cooked that meal last night?"
Will looked hurt by the question. "What do you mean?"
"And do the owners of this place know that you're hiding out in here?"
It was a plausible explanation to why Will lived in this grand decaying house. Some insane old lady had probably died here, and he was enjoying a few months of illegal occupation of her beloved home before it was sold to developers by her descendants.
"This is my house," he muttered.
"Oh sure, and your Mom really lives here, right?" I sneered, wheeling my arm in a wide arc that took in the flaking paint and rickety furniture of the living room. "I'd never let my Mom live in a place like this."
YOU ARE READING
The Sigma Asset 🏳️🌈 (bxb)║AMBYS WINNER 2022
Mystery / Thriller**AMBYS 2022 WINNER** He'll never play piano again. That's what virtuoso pianist Zephyr has vowed to himself after escaping Sigma, the sprawling criminal organisation that once held him--and still holds his friends--captive in California's mega-city...
