KILL COUNT FIVE by MARGOT DYLAN

Author:MARGOT DYLAN [MARGOT DYLAN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SWARM Publishing
Published: 2022-08-10T00:00:00+00:00

11

I bang open my apartment door and lurch inside, desperate to be alone so I can calm down, so I can quell the still rampant heat. I’d managed to stay in control while fighting at Mr. Cho’s the other day, but back there felt different. As Veronica ramped up it was almost like I could feel myself slipping away.

As I drop my keys on the floor my eyes latch onto something across the room and I freeze. My body is still but my heart pounds against my ribcage.

What the fuck is that doing there?

It’s been placed on the windowsill for maximum visibility and immediate effect, I can only assume.

Someone is messing with me.

How do I know? Because they left me a present.

No, this isn’t from an apartment inspection, or a nosy building super.

It’s much worse.

It’s a toy giraffe.

“Fuck,” I hiss out loud.

Are you wondering why I’m freaking out over a stuffed animal? Because when I was ten years old, three years before my father died, he gave me a toy giraffe just like this one. I loved it. I named him Gerald the Giraffe, and he slept next to me, every single night, from then on. Through Dad’s cancer treatment, well after his funeral, to every sleep-over and night away, and right up until I was carted away to the facility.

And now… this. The giraffe propped up against my window looks exactly like Gerald.

I stride over to grab the toy then march back downstairs. Halfway down, a woman of indeterminate age is huddled on the steps doing something on her phone. I pause, wondering if this is the person I want, then dismiss her. She looks out of it and why would she break into my apartment and then hang out on TikTok in the stairwell?

I pound on Sasha’s door.

She doesn’t answer. It’s pretty late, but she keeps weird hours. More than once I’ve walked past her apartment at three a.m. and heard loud, maybe drunken, singing in a language I couldn’t quite make out. I press my ear to the door. The apartment sounds empty, but she could be sitting there in silence, waiting for me to go away. I stand there for nearly a minute, listening, but she’s either good at playing Squid Game or she’s not home. I’ll have to try tomorrow.

I go to run back up the stairs, then stop. I don’t want to be in my apartment right now. It feels contaminated, and unresolved tension still burns through my system. Does the giraffe mean someone has found me? Already?

I grab my phone and message Jackson. He often stays open past midnight.

You still at the studio?

I get a thumbs up in reply.

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