Chapter 8
eight
MAGS
Mags’ cheeks were going to be sore if she didn’t tone down her smile.
But who could blame her? She’d just finished depositing her paycheck at the bank.
She had a sack containing a baked potato with butter and cheese she’d picked up from a food stand.
She dared not splurge on a protein topper, but the cup of ramen she planned on having with it surely contained some, and the new, gently used dress in her tote was a stunner. All positives.
Not to mention that she only had one more shift at the elderly care center and the chippers tomorrow standing between her and enjoying a fancy evening out.
Mags was grinning as she closed in on the gallery, which was thankfully closed for the day.
She would dust the front desk and client meeting room and clean the toilet while her ramen cooked.
She planned to put in a few hours working on the stunning button-up a client ordered with embroidered cuffs. Lovely, lovely, lovely.
As she went through her mental checklist, she added making a sketch for Eze’s mother’s birthday fan.
One moment, she was strolling along, and in the next, breath was knocked from her lungs.
Something heavy hit her from behind, sending her arms windmilling and causing her feet to stumble over the uneven stone of the footpath.
She teetered briefly before gravity held sway, and she was propelled down a set of stone stairs she’d been about to pass.
Her body hit every stair and rusted bit of railing as she fell.
Finally, blessedly, her forward momentum ceased. She was splayed on her back at the bottom of an outdoor stairwell that led, she believed, to the basement of the neighborhood bookstore.
She blinked repeatedly, noticing that the stars in the sky shimmered, seeming to flit around her vision in sparks and flares.
She didn’t move, knowing enough to assess her injuries first. Eventually, she wiggled her fingers. One hand was still gripping her hot potato, and damned if the thought of her fall ruining her dinner didn’t piss her off.
Next, her toes, then rotating her ankles, bending her knees, flexing her arms, elbows, wrists—deep breath—neck, back. She tightened her abs and slowly sat up, allowing her eyes to focus on the stairs she’d just become intimately acquainted with.
Thank goodness it had only been about six or seven steps, though it felt like a hundred.
It appeared like she’d gotten lucky. Her skull was free of bumps, but if the painful breaths were anything to go by, she’d bruised her ribs pretty good, her left hip throbbed, and various abrasions were beginning to smart.
Overall, she considered herself lucky. Work might be out of the question, but an extra-strength pain reliever certainly wasn’t.
She heard a moan escape her lips as she got to her knees and swallowed several times in the hopes that tears didn’t follow. She still needed to make it back up the stairs, which she assumed would be a lot slower going than falling down them had been.
She needed to move. Period.
Her ribs screamed as she made it first to her knees and then to her feet, where she swayed, the destroyed potato finally pulled free of her numb fingers to smack the stone at her feet. She tasted copper and realized she must have bitten her tongue.
“Oh, God.” She sniffled once, then twice, then a third time, until tears finally started to trickle down.
With shaking hands, she rummaged through her tote and found her cell. She should call one of her friends, but she still wasn’t ready for any of them to see how and where she was living. Tears were dripping down her cheek, the salt mixing with the blood in her mouth.
The thing was, she should call the garda.
Because this wasn’t an accident, not even a clumsy one.
She still felt the shape of big hands against her shoulder blades, pushing and shoving. Somebody did this to her.
No, surely not. Mags was being crazy because of shock. People didn’t go around shoving people down stairs.
A big dog? Possible, except she’d swear she felt long, thick fingers. Impossible. Silly. She tripped, plain and simple. She’d been distracted.
She needed a hot bath, one she had no access to, pain relievers, and sleep. But first she had to make it up the stairs, walk to the gallery, and then…walk up a full flight of stairs to her space.
“Damn it. Damn it. Damn it!”
She needed help. There were times in a person’s life when being stubborn was a virtue, and times when it was plain stupid.
She wasn’t stupid.
With shaking hands, she opened her phone and dialed.
“Margaret?”
“Eze. I need your help.”