Ricochet Read Free Page A

Maybe she had a spider land on her. Surely
he isn’t some kind of psychopath. Then I heard his voice, very clearly.
    AGAIN. COUNT this time. OUT LOUD
    1…. 2…
    Start back at one.
    Please! No!
    AGAIN!
    1…2…3…4…5…
    I backed away from the wall and sank
into the floor. What exactly am I hearing? I stood and walked out of the room,
shutting the door behind me. Maybe this is a bad dream. Maybe I will wake up on
the couch. I sank into my bed, feeling very uneasy.
    When
I woke up the next morning, I decided to skip the shower. I washed my face in
the kitchen sink and pulled my hair into a bun. I rushed out the door, trying
my best to miss Cash. I wasn’t sure what I heard, but it made me feel
unsettled. I don’t want to ask, but I also don’t want to interact with him
without knowing, so I’m better off avoiding him altogether. I started going
into my workroom at night and pressing a glass against the wall. Some nights I
heard the screams, some nights I didn’t.   I decide I don’t want to hear it anymore.

Chapter Five

 
    It had been a couple of weeks since the
wails of the screaming girl had pierced the walls of my workroom, and when I
ran into Cash in the hallway, I had nearly forgotten. I was letting myself into
my apartment after work, and his words startled me.
      “Hey! There you are. I was wondering what
happened to you,” he said, as charming as ever. All kind eyes and whiskey
smooth words.
    “I’ve
just been really busy,” I replied, trying to seem as disinterested as possible.
    “How
are our secret missions since you’ve gone rogue? I see they haven’t taken you
out yet,” he teased.
    “Not
yet, I’m still kicking. See ya.”   I
rushed into my door and shut it quickly behind me. In all honesty, I hadn’t
been doing his missions. Ever since the screaming girl, I’d abandoned his
stupid elevator fantasy, and the panic returned. Whenever I began to use the
coping mechanism he taught me, thoughts flooded my brain about what he could be
doing to that girl. That he was this sick fuck who was all saccharine sweet in
the daylight but does God knows what to women behind closed doors. It would
throw me into an absolute panic. What if he has some woman held captive in
there? Or picks women up off the street to torture and kill them and has stacks
of dead bodies in his spare bedroom?
    I
was torn between equal parts curiosity of what in the actual fuck could be
going on over there and sheer terror that if I walked into that apartment I
would never walk back out again. Of course, this was probably somewhat
irrational; if I went missing the police would probably question the neighbors
first. But, a lot of my fears are irrational, and aren’t often backed up by
intermittent, horrified screams coming through the wall. I decide that I need
to know. Tomorrow, after work, I’m going to knock on his door and ask if he
wants to split a pizza. I’ll invite myself in, and find out exactly what is
going on over there. I’ll make sure I meet him in the hall in the morning, and
we can do our secret agent shtick and that will be a perfect segue into asking
him to hang out later that day.
    The
next morning my alarm dragged me from slumber, kicking and screaming. I hadn’t
been sleeping well, and dreaded the morning. Groggy and disoriented, I
remembered my plan for the day. I gathered my clothes, and stood in the bathroom
until I heard the shower kick on beyond the wall. Once again my thoughts
drifted to Cash on the other side. I still hadn’t heard any of his famed shower
karaoke, and kind of hoped he would start belting out a tune so I could join
him and have something to bond over. As if our meet-cute hadn’t been eye-roll
inducing Rom-Com material already. By the end of the shower, I forgot that I
was on a mission to expose him as a creepy psycho, and had to use the massaging
showerhead to orgasm back into reality.
    Disgusted
with myself, and feeling like I needed a post-shower shower, I quickly