Lilith tossed a box away from her and pulled herself up. She leaned against the heavy desk, wiping the sweat off of her face, and looked up at the clock on the wall. It was an hour late, but she wasn't going to change it every time daylight savings time rolled around.
10:00pm
Her bones popped as she stretched, walking out of the stock room into the store. She had been closed for nearly two hours. The store only stayed open on weekdays. Not that it really mattered. She was always either here or at home. She could stay open all the time if she really wanted to. She didn't.
Lilith shut off the lights, starting in the back, and pulled her jacket off the hook. She slung it over her shoulders and slid into it. It had been storming all day. Thunder roared, rain soaked the street, and lightning threatened to strike the city.
"For fucks sake." She groaned, feeling the tension in her lower back.
When the last light was snuffed out, Lilith stood silent and looked through the windows and glass door. The city's heartbeat was slow, pulsing as if it were asleep. All of the streetlamps down the sidewalks were glowing. Each one had a halo of white from the haze of the rain. It looked like a dream. The rain was pouring down so thick that the street looked like an obsidian waterfall.
She pulled her hood over her hair and reached up to pull the pen from her ear. She slipped it into her pocket and opened the door. The world roared to life. The rain was no longer dead silent. It was alive and it was angry. Lilith had half the mind to cover her ears. She felt it pelting inside her.
When she walked out into the downpour, it nearly slammed her to her knees. The rain felt like someone was elbowing her head from above. She kept her head down and zipped her jacket the rest of the way up. The wind, that occasionally shifted the rain to push her further faster, felt cold. The breath of fall was nearly in full swing. It had been for a couple of weeks now. She had merely observed the season change from inside her little bubble.
The wind hissed and the rain slapping the sidewalk sprinkled her face. Everything around her turned a lifeless gray as the storm raged on. It pushed her down the street in waves.
The sidewalk ended and she tried her best to look both ways before running across. Being in a storm only made it scarier. People didn't care about the rules when it was a sunny day, let alone a tsunami of rain. She was almost halfway home when she noticed that she hadn't passed a single person. During the day, she wouldn't have been able to make it this far without being squished by the bosom of the city.
Now it was no man's land.
It had to have been nearly eleven when she made it to the apartment parking lot. The building was glowing just like the streetlamps. Lobby workers were all outside smoking. Lilith made it under the walkway and scrunched up her nose as she passed. They couldn't see her face under the hood anyway.
Inside, she walked up to the stairs, and Brock, the security officer, smiled at her. She peeled her hood off and he laughed.
"Looks like it's raining pretty hard. Did 'cha walk all the way 'ere?" He asked before buzzing the lock. The little gate door popped open and Lilith wrapped her hand around it.
"Yeah. I should've left earlier before it started." She admitted, dripping water into a puddle around her. Her lips stretched into a smile and her long fingers pushed her hair back. During the run there, her ponytail had nearly slipped out.
"Go on up to bed. You look exhausted." The husky man leaned back in his desk chair and yawned.
"Okay. See you tomorrow night, Brock." She sent him a wave and slipped past the door letting it click shut behind her.
The stairs made her legs scream by the time she made it up the three flights to her hallway. The hallway was painted a soft green and all the doors were dark wood with little gold numbers.
Lilith didn't know any of her neighbors. She always came home too late to see any of them. The lights flickered the further she walked. At the end of the hall, there was a little window that looked out onto the street. She slowed and looked away from the sky full of buildings and pulled out her keys. The two keys on the end of the ring looked the same. She had always meant to paint one of them to know the difference, but she never remembered. The first one she tried slipped into the lock, but didn't turn. She sighed, removing it and opened the door with the other.
Damn keys. She couldn't even remember what the other one opened.
Lilith threw her keys down on the table by the door and they were instantly shoved to the ground by her cat. Nora stood tall on the table. Her emerald green eyes stared at Lilith in distaste. She groaned again and sat down.
"You're hungry," Lilith said, stripping. Her jacket landed on the floor. Nora leaped from the table and bounded across the room into the kitchen. Lilith kicked off her shoes and dropped her waterlogged jeans on top of them.
Nora stood over her kitty bowl and sat down. Her tail swung sharply and she sat a paw in the empty dish.
"I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying." Lilith couldn't pour the kibble fast enough. The moment the first fish-shaped piece bounced into the bowl Nora had already stuck her head down and inhaled it.
The bathroom door flew open and the lights turned on. A monster passed the mirror. It kind of looked like her, but it was pretty rough looking. She shook her hair out and it poofed around her head, the rest was wet from the rain.
When the water turned hot from the faucet, she pulled the pin starting the shower. It pattered on the plastic curtain. The mirror instantly fogged up and she got in. It felt completely different from the rain.
Clean and refreshed, she wrapped a pink towel around her body and stepped out of the tub. The water gurgled and slurped going down the drain. The mirror was fogged up from the shower and she didn't care. She wasn't really in the mood to look at how tired she was. She tucked in the towel at her bosom and unlocked the bathroom window, pushing it partially open. The rain didn't face this way so it was all blowing out. On the outside, the window was sunken in, so the water from the building dripped down. This window was right over the fire escape and Nora liked to go as she pleased.
She pulled the covers back and stood over the bed running her hands over her stomach. She dug her fingers under her sports bra and pulled it down. Her fingers lingered at the strap and she finally slid under the sheets. The bed was cold, but it enveloped her. The free damp strands of hair stuck to her neck and the bed dipped as Nora padded ever so softly over Lilith's lumpy body. The room settled and Lilith pulled Nora closer to her. Her hand wrapped around Nora's little body and a little paw grabbed onto it.
A beeping pulled Nora out of her peaceful sleep and her eyes opened. She turned her head to survey the room before standing up and meowing. The meow and the beeping alternated. Meow. Beep. Meow. Beep.
Nora's nose prodded Lilith's cheek and the second nudge made her push Nora's head away. She mewed in protest then smacked Lilith's face with a soft paw. Her eyes opened and Nora's eyes were the first thing she saw. They're opened with a look of anxiety. She heard the beeping... and movement outside.
This pulled her out of bed. She wrapped a silken floral robe around her, barely tying the waist, before stomping into the living room. Her sleepy, heavy footed walk stopped when someone knocked impatiently at the door. Being right there, she unlocked it and whipped it open.
At first glance, his eyes softened at her. They were a blizzard behind his warm face. She pulled her robe around her as he smiled at her. He glanced down and it cracked, but he met her eyes and brought it back as strong as ever.
"They're evacuating. An apartment up has caught on fire." He explained before looking down at the cat staring at him. Nora squinted and whipped her tail.
"Shit. Um, thank you." She started to turn around to gather some of her more important things when the man reached out and lightly caught her hand.
"Don't," He paused before his jaw relaxed. "We only have to leave for legal reasons." He opened the door a bit and took a step, but the cat didn't move.
"Oh. Thank god. I didn't want to start dragging stuff around, anyway." She reached down plucking the cat from its place. The green orbs never moved from him.
She pulled on a pair of old sneakers over her socks and followed the man into the hallway. She hugged the cat to her chest and started down the stairs.
Other people were still trotting down the stairs in front of her. She looked over to the man dressed in grey and pinched her brows. Had she ever seen him before? He was tall, had soft pushed back black hair, and looked rather out of place among the others all dressed in nightclothes. He, on the other hand, was still wearing a jacket and dirty boots.
Lilith ran her hand over her cat's soft head. The line down the stairs stopped and he stopped inches from her. He was looking away and something pulled Lilith closer. It was sweet. Against her better nature, she leaned in and sniffed him.
There was a cloud of vanilla following him. She looked around suddenly aware of the people that might've seen her sniff the man and she leaned away. Nobody was eyeing her or sending dirty looks her way. She let out a sigh thankful for her neighbors' lack of curiosity.
Nora was drilling her eyes into the back of his head. She was limp in her human arms sensing the danger, but something animalistic was growing in her tiny kitty chest. The vanilla stranger had prickled something deep inside of her and it screamed bad.
Outside, the man had guided Lilith out of the way of the others and towards the edge of the parking lot. She was nearly run over by a paramedic that was too focused on the crowd to notice her. Lilith pulled her up and held her over her shoulder and stroked her silky back. Nora kneaded her shoulder and started purring, trying to calm Lilith's racing heart.
Lilith was focused on the building. A leaping orange fire lapped at the sky from the fourth level. It had busted out of the apartment window and stained the bricks above it black. Soot was raining down over the crowd.
A team of firefighters had shown up and sprayed water, pushing the flames back. She was so caught up in the burning flesh of the building that when her phone started ringing in her pocket she jumped. When had she slipped it into her robe?
Her fingers dug around for it and pulled it out only to fumble and drop it. It landed with a sploosh at her feet. This time she picked it up and just stared at it. The screen read Mommy before turning blue and shutting down. An emptiness swirled inside her.
"I'm a fucking idiot." She whispered to herself. She dropped it in her robe and the man reached out to touch her shoulder. Nora made a verbal sound of disapproval.
"You can use mine if it's important." He bit his lower lip holding in a smile. There was a boyish charm to him that made her turn a little pink.
"Can I? My mother will shut down the city if I don't call her back." Lilith laughed but knew it wasn't a joke. Her parents were some of the top political people in the city. It was no surprise that the fire had already reached her.
"How long have you lived here? I don't even know your name." She followed him across the street towards a dark midnight blue truck. It was one of the big ones and it sparked a childhood fear of being run over deep inside.
He popped the driver's side door open and reached in laughing softly. When he turned around and leaned against it, he handed her his phone.
"Andy."
"I'm Lilith." She said smiling down at the tiny screen. She went into the phone with one hand and typed in the first couple of numbers. Andy looked at her soft skin and almost curly blonde hair. He wanted to grab it in his hands and feel her struggle against him. The feeling had his smile dwindling. The spark started a low fire burning in his soul. She took another look at the fire and held the phone to her ear.
When the tone beeped in her ear informing her about the service not being activated, she didn't even have time to question it before he had her.
ns 15.158.61.55da2
