His Ballerina

Only tonight, there’s something else out there. A big, shiny, black SUV parked right out front.

My heartbeat quickens. That car is way out of place in this neighborhood. There’s only one person it could be.

So he didn’t go away, after all. He’s going to sit out there like some psycho.

I don’t know whether he’s watching me or watching out for me. Either way, there’s no chance I’m getting a wink of sleep tonight.

4

Archer

One thing is for sure: this girl doesn’t deserve the life she lives.

I don’t know what it is about her that makes me determined to follow her throughout the day, to watch her. She’s like a drug in my system, invading my organs, my blood, my brain. I can’t get her out of my head. I need to know her, to know everything about her.

Which is why I’ve been watching. I can’t stop watching.

First, she was out the door before dawn. I made the decision in the middle of the night to move the car further down the street, where I could still see her but where she wouldn’t feel afraid to leave her apartment. Sometimes, I have a tendency to come on too strong. I know that; I can admit it if only to myself.

Sure enough, when that rusty old door screeched open way before the sun rose, she crept out like a mouse and looked both ways before scurrying down the sidewalk with her shoulders hunched, her arms wrapped around herself. I couldn’t see her eyes, but I would’ve bet my bank account they moved back and forth constantly, sweeping the area. Watching for me, expecting somebody to jump out and blow her away.

I settled for following at a distance, and a few blocks later, I watched her slip in through the back door of a grocery store, by the loading area. There were crates stacked back there. A few minutes later, she came back out wearing an apron with the store’s name embroidered on the front and lifted one of those crates, carrying it inside before coming back out for another one.

When watching from the back of the store wasn’t good enough, I pulled the car around the front and parked across the street. She was stocking shelves quickly, efficiently, and nobody would ever have guessed she watched a murder take place not six hours earlier.

I never did find out what she was doing last night, walking the streets alone. Leaving her boyfriend’s house? I would fucking hope not. No man worthy of being called a man would let his girl walk home alone like that.

And if it was a boyfriend, I would like to meet him. Have a few words with him.

Granted, I would be the one doing all the talking since having my gun in his mouth would make it hard for him to speak up for himself. Not that it mattered. I wouldn’t want to hear any excuse he offered.

It’s almost nine o’clock when she emerges from the front of the store. Again, I see her looking both ways before she starts off on foot, and considering the direction she’s taking, it doesn’t look like she’s going home. “Where are you going now, Madison?” I whisper, starting the engine when she rounds the corner.

She’s completely out of place around here. To call this area depressed would be an insult to depressed areas. There’s garbage in the streets, spilling out from abandoned buildings, filthy alleyways. Homeless people huddle in doorways. Men call out to her, using all sorts of language, and my blood boils. Only the thought of what she would do if she knew I was following keeps me from jumping out of the car and blowing them away.

She seems to float through it. Like she’s there but not there. Like she’s somehow above it. And she is. She doesn’t belong here. She deserves more than this.

I’m about to ask myself what makes me so sure of her goodness, her sweetness, when my phone rings. The sight of ACE on the screen only makes me growl. “What?” I bark on answering.

“What the hell is wrong with you? You never went home last night.”

“How do you know I didn’t go home?”

“You didn’t disarm the security system.”

I forgot he can access my system through an app on his phone. He doesn’t love that I don’t live in the family mansion and wants to keep an eye on me. I don’t appreciate it, but I do appreciate how protective we all are in my family. We have to be. “For all I knew, you could’ve been lying in a ditch somewhere with a slug in your skull.”

“Obviously, that’s not the case, or I wouldn’t answer the phone.”

“Thanks for stating the obvious. So, where the hell are you? What gives?”

Meanwhile, Madison is walking into a little greasy spoon diner, one of those places that looks like an old train car somebody left in the middle of a neighborhood. Maybe if the chrome on the outside was updated and the neon fixed on the sign, it might look like a half-decent place. Right now, it looks like a rat buffet—a disease factory.