We had made enough noise that if there was someone inside the building, they would certainly have heard us. But all was silent. The place felt utterly empty, and as if by mutual agreement, we turned down the short corridor. To the right were stairs, and beyond that were four open doorways. Makayla cast her light down the hall and we followed its beacon, looking in each apartment as we passed. The sound of our footsteps bounced off the cement floor. A freakish sense of déjà vu settled on me as I recalled the gloomy corridor in the town hall where I had previously encountered Justyn, and I had to make an effort to stay calm.
“Watch you don’t trip on that,” Makayla whispered as she aimed her light on a crumbled pile of bricks. “This place is nasty. I don’t want to breathe in here. It smells like dirty diapers and week-old trash. Probably full of rats, too.”
I shuddered. “It doesn’t seem like anyone’s been in these apartments for a long time. Let’s go. This place gives me the creeps.”
We’d just spun around when the door to the street suddenly opened, briefly illuminating our decrepit surroundings. Almost immediately, the light was obscured by a shadow. Silhouetted in the entrance stood a tall, thin man in a long black trench coat. I instantly recognized the body shape and dark glare. It was Justyn!
My heart pounded and I sucked in a quick, fearful breath. Makayla seized my wrist in terror. “That’s him, isn’t it?” she hissed in my ear.
I nodded. He kicked away the brick that served as a doorpost, and the door slammed behind him as he shone his own flashlight at us.
“Do I know you?” he demanded. I squinted as he directed the beam at my eyes. “You,” he growled, then jumped down past the broken ramp and strode menacingly toward us.
“Hold it right there, mister.” Makayla blinded him with her flashlight. She brandished her knife in her other hand.
Justyn narrowed his eyes and his eyebrow rings glinted. “Oh, what a cute little knife.”
Without warning, he charged at Makayla, knocking her on her back. The flashlight fell out of her hand, clattered onto the concrete, and rolled in the direction of the entrance. Makayla became a dark heap on the floor.
“Makayla!” I reached down to help her, but Justyn’s hard fingers dug into the soft tissue of my forearm and I cried out.
“Why are you getting up in my business?” he snarled close to my face, his foul breath assaulting my nostrils. “I’m done with all you interfering bitches.”
He dragged me toward the stairs. I tried to pull back, tried to pry his fingers from my arm, but his grip was viselike. I kicked at him and twisted my body this way and that, but he was incredibly strong for one so wiry.
“Let me go!” I screamed. “Help!”
Without warning, his hold on me loosened and he crumpled to the ground. Makayla stood over him, holding a brick. She dropped it and grabbed my hand. “Let’s get out of here and call the police.”
“You hit him with a brick?” I asked dazedly. “Did you know that that’s how he killed—”
“Come on!” she commanded, yanking my arm. I hobbled, trying to keep up with her as we ran to her car. My leg was throbbing.
Once we were safely locked inside, our hearts pounding, we assessed my injury.
“That looks nasty,” Makayla declared. “All those splinters.”
Ignoring the pain, I opened my cell phone to call Sean.
“Sean!” I exclaimed when he answered. “We found him! We’ve got Justyn. For real this time.”
“Slow down, Lila. What are you saying? And who’s ‘we’?”
I took a deep breath and described what had happened.
“So he’s still in the building?”
“Makayla hit him with a brick. He’s unconscious.” I sent an apprehensive glance at Makayla. “Or dead. You need to come now.”
“Stay in the car with the doors locked,” he commanded, his voice tight with anger and worry.
When I hung up, Makayla spoke in an unsteady voice. “I don’t think I hit him hard enough to kill him.”
I squeezed her hand. “Even if you did, it was self-defense. He was going to murder us, I’m certain of it.”
We sat like that, silent and holding trembling hands, until sirens heralded two police cruisers. They pulled up in front of the building. Sean stepped out of one of them and approached our car.
“Are you two all right?” he asked when Makayla rolled down her window, letting in a blast of cold air.
“We’re safe enough, even though we’re both shaking like leaves in the wind.” She glanced in my direction. “Her leg’s hurt, though.”
Sean hurried around to the passenger side and yanked open my door. He inspected my flesh, speckled with a multitude of splinters and starting to turn a bluish purple. “That looks painful.”
I shrugged. “It’ll be fine. I kind of deserve it for not being more careful.”
He hugged me tight and then held my gaze. His rugged face and kind blue eyes were a balm. “I’m glad you weren’t seriously hurt,” he said. I knew he was angry, but he was also too relieved to chastise us. In a flash, his demeanor changed and his gaze slid toward the decrepit apartment building. “Is he inside?”
At my nod, he said, “We’ll take it from here. We need your statements, but I think you need to get your leg checked out, Lila. Makayla, are you okay to drive? Can you take her to the ER?”
“Yessir, Officer,” Makayla said with forced bravado.