Siren Nights (Series Part 1) (The Lure) Read Free

problem.” He
tightened his grip. “Maybe I should stop being so nice.”
    “Let me go.” I said again, this time with
no trace of fear or hope. My mind was strangely clear and detached, as if
watching a movie in a theatre or maybe as if I was watching one with my arms
bound to the chair and my eyelids taped open.
    Or maybe it was that I was in another
place, another time with a man twice my size towering over me and holding me
down and claiming a selfish love. No word or action would stop him. 
    The door banged open and broke the spell.
It was Mina, my manager. “What the hell are you two doing?” she said with a
scowl. “Stop making out and get back to work.”
    I wrenched my arm out of Brett’s grip and
fled out the back door instead, forcing it closed. The sky outside was clouded
and threatening rain.
    The door twisted as Brett tried to open it,
but it held firm. I threw a crate in front of it, then bolted down the alley
and kept running. I took the first turn I saw -- and then the next one, and the
one after that, until they all blurred together.
    I kept running. Burning lungs and leaden
legs were nothing compared to the sheer throbbing agony my feet were in.
Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer and staggered to my knees, kicking my
heels off. I closed my eyes and listened for the sound of pursuit.
    A voice came, but it wasn’t Brett’s. “Whoa,
where’s the fire?”
    My body shook, but it knew it couldn’t run
any further. So it straightened despite the burning pain in my feet and thighs
and I faced the source of the voice.
    The source was a young man wearing a
wide-brimmed fisherman’s hat and a long black coat. Leaning against the wall,
he had his hands shoved into his pockets. Short, wavy dark hair haphazardly
framed piercing brown eyes. Even in casual dress, he cut a striking figure. He
looked as if he was waiting for something.
    He stood only a few feet from my position
and I realized I must have run right by him without noticing. I must have been
pretty intent on evading Brett.
    “Oh…uh... nothing. Nothing’s the matter,” I
replied weakly. “I’m fine.”
    The man nodded. “Okay then.” He returned to
staring at the alley wall.
    He didn’t seem inclined to say anything
else... or do anything else. He just leaned back and stared at the window
opposite him. Dare I hope that he wasn’t here to make a bad day even worse?
    I picked up my shoes in my hands and began
to leave the alley before realizing I had no idea where I had escaped to. The
alley way behind and in front of me lead nowhere. Limping slowly, I followed
them to the next intersection, but from there I only saw another dumpster and
the locked back door of a Spanish grocery.
    Well, there was one lead. I walked back to
the stranger. “Uh...Hi again. Sorry to bother you, but do you know the way back
to Elm Street?” That was where I worked. I figured I should probably apologize
to my manager unless I wanted to lose the first job I was able to swing in this
economy.
    “Hmm.... Elm, huh? We’re a bit far from
there” he looked back and forth, although it didn’t seem like there were any
landmarks to navigate with. “I guess the best way is to get to East Second and
then to follow it down. If you take a left down there and then your second
right, you should come out on Maple and from there...” he shook his head. “You
know what? I’m not doing anything important now. I can show you.”
    My body tensed. “Um... that’s fine, I don’t
want to be any trouble.”
    He laughed. “Be trouble? Or find trouble?”
He said it with a glance at the direction I had run from.
    I flushed. So he had figured something out,
though it wasn’t hard to tell. “Well... okay. Thank you very much.”
    “I’m Jason, by the way.”
    “...Anna.”
    I put my shoes back on reluctantly and we
started walking towards the alley exit. “You new here?” asked Jason.
    “Yeah,” I replied, “Just moved here last
month.”
    Jason nodded.