The Tower (The Hunted of Harrison City Series Book 1)

ONE

In a world of liars and cheats, only the good die young. My grandmother told me that just before she died and I cling to the words, believing she entrusted them to me. Lying and cheating are inherited traits in my family, so I know she spoke from experience.

She died at eighty-four. Did that make her the worst of them or the most resilient? Either way, I hope the saying is true, because there’s only so much a good person can take.

“Don’t you have work tonight?”

Squashed into his threadbare reclining armchair, my dad glares across the lounge at me. Bent and crooked, the bottom of the chair is stuck in the open position and the back touches the floor whenever he leans too far. He reclines precariously at its sweet spot and roosts in it. His bare chest is on display—if you count the blanket of thick, dark, curly hair as bare—and he wears only a pair of skid-mark encrusted boxer shorts and a mismatched pair of socks. I stare at his fat toe, peeking through the hole in the left sock, rather than at him, as I answer.

“Yeah, I’m running late.” The second I admit it, I know I’ve made a mistake. Dad likes nothing more than to pick on flaws, and he finds enough of those on his own. I don’t have to give him ammunition too. Exhaustion must have eaten away at my survival reserves if I’m making such novice mistakes. I need rest, not another shift at Carlito’sBar.

“You’d better not lose that goddamned job.” His eyes burn twin holes in the side of my head, his mouth curves into a sneer. The words slash out across the room, and the unspoken part of the threat hits just as he intended; a sharp hint of what awaits me if I screw up. He uses a special tone just for me; a piercing knife-edge dancing between impatience and caution. He doesn’t give a damn about me or my job. He simply enjoys reminding me he won’t think twice about putting me in my place.

Despite living on my nerves, always expecting the next fight, I learned a long time ago to not take him to heart. If I let the things he says upset me, I’d have no heart left.

“I won’t!” I snap and regret my tone; I know better than to mouth off. The problem is he has a point. I am late and I seriously risk pissing off my boss for the last time.

My gaze trails across the ugly grey carpet to the frayed material of his chair, then up over his wide grin, full of crooked yellow teeth, to his eyes. They burn, not with anger, but with spiteful pleasure. My stomach twists. I’ve earned myself a slap for sure.

Plus side, he won’t bother with me now, not when he can savour the anticipation and pay me back after my shift. He’ll never risk injuring me before work. No. My shitty earnings are more important than his annoyance at my sass. After all, how else will he pay off his debts?

He drops his voice low and speaks slowly, forcing me to listen. “Get a move on and don’t forget my whisky.”

Closing my eyes to stop from rolling them, I hiss a breath out over my teeth and shove my swollen feet into my sneakers, which are still coated in flour from this morning’s shift at Butchers Bakers. I dust them off absent-mindedly with my scarf before throwing that around my neck. Both are now smeared dusty white, but I can’t make time to care.

Nor can I stop to empty my bag; anchored to the floor by its sheer weight. My first attempt to heave it onto my shoulder is a total failure. All my course texts, library books, journal, and a half-eaten cookie from two days ago stubbornly cling to the floor. These, my most important possessions, I carry around on my shoulders daily. Today the weight feels too heavy a burden to take with me to the bar.

But there’s no way I’m leaving them here either.

Sucking in a sharp breath, I swing it all onto my back and try not to buckle under the weight.

“Juliet!” Dad yells. Hot pastry smacks my head, crumbling and catching in my hair then cold, congealed mashed potato and gravy splashes against my cheek with his second throw.

“I’m going!” Chucking my wallet and keys into my jeans pocket, I run to the door, nudging TJ out of the way and stepping over Casey with her swollen diaper. I doubt anyone will change her before Mum gets home from the factory and consider stopping to do it myself, but I just can’t spare the time, not today. I’m on seriously thin ice.

“Casey needs a diaper change!” I yell as I run out of the door and slam it shut. Dad’s probably fuming, but I don’t give a damn. He’ll think I’m criticising his parenting. He’ll consider it back-talk, but I’m set for a beating later anyway. What more can he do?

The only thing that preys on my mind is Casey and the guilt that gnaws at me for leaving her in such a pitiful state.

Why does he get to sit on his fat, lazy arse while Mum pulls twelve-hour shifts at the factory and I work two jobs? The least he can do is to be a parent, change a diaper, cook a meal—something. But what irritates me most is we are all too damn afraid to address the issue. There is no criticising him. He isn’t a father. He’s a tyrant.

I flit along the corridor, plucking lumps of gloopy potato and pie from my hair and dropping them on the floor. I should care about that, about the mess, but no one cares in Olive Tower. There are plenty worse things discarded in the corridors than my father’s microwaved dinner.

The sludge I pull from my hair almost appeals to me. An empty feeling in my gut reaches up into my throat and I realise I’ve not eaten since my shift at Butcher Baker. The hunger gremlins in my stomach are only encouraged by the smell of food cooking in the neighbouring apartments. Saliva floods my mouth. My stomach groans a little louder, demanding the feast. Mexican, Italian, Indian, and Jamaican cuisines; all the rich aromas mingling together into a medley that should nauseate but is delicious.

Damn it. I need to quit dreaming and get to work.

The plastic, shiny coating of the elevator call button is worn rough from overuse. I hammer it and wait for the familiar rumble of the car, but the button stays dark and the shaft remains as cavernous as my stomach. I press again. Nothing happens.

Broken again?

Why is my entire life a goddamned trial?

I feel like the white-freaking-rabbit. The words I’m late, I’m late, I’m late, are on rinse repeat in my head and the thought of taking the stairs has me weighing up whether it’d be worse to stay home or turn up to Carlito’s late.

Who am I kidding?I risk getting sacked at Carlito’s, but I’m guaranteed a beating if I go back indoors. So, I suck it up and rush the five steps from the elevator to the emergency stair door, heaving in a breath to prepare. Not that a single breath will help with a twelve-floor descent.

The heavy metal door clangs shut behind me. The broken elevator is the last thing I need and the stairs, even at the best of times, are hazardous. They’re open to anyone who wants to use them, residents and outsiders alike, and hardly any of the lights work. Over the years, the bulbs were smashed, stolen, or wore out. The stairs are always dark, thrum with the whispers of strangers, and stink of piss, sex, and cannabis.

I never understood how someone can own a building and then allow it to fall to shit. Particularly a building like Olive Tower which must make a fortune in rental income. Sure, the rent is lower than it would be in any other district, but we still pay through the nose for poorly kept apartments in the seedy side of town.

What little I own, I love—cherish even—probably because I grew up with nothing. Men like our landlord, Barry Franz, inherited everything they own. Clearly, a block of apartments on the wrong side of town doesn’t register on his radar of shits to give.

Goddamn these stairs.

Stamina builders, I tell myself. You’re getting the arse every woman dreams of with each flight you stumble down.

I jog; my feet developing a bouncing rhythm that I count out in my head, but the further I descend, the more the motion becomes unnatural. My feet stumble and hop, my pace falters, forcing me to stop and begin again more slowly. I’m almost there, just two stories from the ground floor, when a low, irregular hum catches my ear and forces me to a standstill.

The hum develops nuances of pitch and volume. Voices. I slide back and press myself against the wall.

People on the stairs equal bad news. Everyone knows the local dealers use the camera-less stairs and the last thing I want is to end up on a dealer’s radar. I’ve kept myself invisible. Invisible is safe. Never make eye contact and keep moving like you’re late. Those are the keys to survival in Harrison Vale. They’ve worked for me so far, and instead of hiking up my skirt to pay my father’s debts, I work two jobs and escape the touchy-feely dealers looking for a new drugged-up whore to sell.

If dealers or pimps catch me on the stairs tonight, though, things could get nasty. One might ignore me, but two? Two make me vulnerable.

The cold concrete chills my back; the exposed blocks leeching heat through my jacket. Goose pimples prickle along my skin as I strain to listen. I only make out certain words, the ones they shout at each other in their crisp, articulate voices.

“This is a bad idea.”

“We need to handle this before it blows out of proportion.”

“Well, for the record, I don’t like it. I think we should tell Dax.”

“We’re not involving him. We can handle this ourselves.”

Two well-spoken men. They sound out every vowel to its fullest, every consonant pronounced in a combination of soft tongue-swept curves and sharp staccato. Not dealers then, and not from the Vale either. No one from Harrison Vale talks like that. Everyone here speaks with the same accent; a slow, drawling, lazy accent that belies an over-reliance on weed and conveys the intrinsic tiredness that weighs upon us as a community. Words are shortened, nicknames thrive, sentences usually hold no formal structure.

The guys on the stairs are classy, though; more like the people who live in Harrison Heights.

I dare cross to the banister, peering over the edge to glimpse what awaits me below. Definitely two men. I guessed as much from the back-and-forth chatter. One sits on the bottom step. The washed-out blue light of the only working bulb bathes the right side of his hair and shoulders.

He shakes his head and mumbles low, the sound too muffled for me to make out what he’s saying. The other man’s feet click against the concrete; one, two, three, four times, and then scuff the floor as he turns to pace back the other way. He stomps harder with each rotation.

From what I can tell, they’re not faces I’ve seen around the area or even people I expect in this neighbourhood. The walker is tall and angular. His body is trim and fit in his grey suit pants and crisp white shirt. He holds a matching suit jacket, scrunched at the neck, within his fist. His knuckles are white and his shoulders taut.

I lean further, holding my breath, desperate not to be noticed but nosy enough to take the risk. Flakes of peeling painted metal bite into my palm as I grip the banister. I have a clear view of the second man when my foot slips and clangs off the base rail. Tolling like a bell, the sound reverberates up the narrow shaft and echoes back down, pinpointing my position. Scared to breathe, with my eyes shut to the sound, I wait for a yell, but when the echoes die, there is only silence.

An iron tang of blood bursts across my tongue. I release my lip from between my teeth and dare to look. Two pairs of emotionless eyes stare up at me, one set hazel and the other blue, both so cold I shudder.

“Who the fuck—”

I don’t wait for them to finish asking the question. For reasons I can’t even explain, I run straight up a flight and through the metal fire door to the third floor. Not stopping, I dart into the corridor, identical to my own nine floors above, and around the corner to cower beside the padlocked waste chute.

Olive Tower is simple in its design; half a dozen apartments on each floor, punctuated at either end by a mirrored wall. It is tacky and, over time, the mirrors were shattered or graffitied over, but someone on the third floor clearly likes them. Here they are polished and untouched, creating an illusion of one long corridor and disguising the fact that the corridors are horseshoe in shape. I take advantage of the view, waiting for the reflection of my pursuers to crash through the fire door.

Why did I run? Was it the embarrassment of getting caught eavesdropping, the frigid intensity in both pairs of eyes, or the voice in the back of my head warning me to hide? They don’t seem like people who I’d normally run from, but they don’t seem like people I want to get close to either. Still, they spotted me. If they aren’t already coming after me, they’ll be waiting. There’s no escaping it.

I watch and wait, the digital seconds flick by on my wristwatch. After two minutes, a man appears — the one I didn’t get a clear look at earlier. I see him now; casually dressed, fair hair, and a scar that clefts his chin. He barges through the door and halts in the middle of the floor, turning left and right and glancing up and down the length of the corridor. He steps toward me and then, seeing nothing but his own reflection in the silvered glass, turns back toward the stairs.

“Not here, either.”

“Shit. We don’t have time to chase trouble.”

“She could be a part of this. I want to be sure.”

The man exits and the building falls quiet again. Ten minutes roll by. Two loud bangs echo up the waste chute, punctuated a few moments later by a third, louder, rattling bang. Possibly the ground floor fire door? Have they gone? I wait another five minutes to be safe and then I can’t wait any longer. I can’t hide all night. If I want to keep my job, I need to quit behaving like a scared little girl. Face this head on.

With every step I take toward the stairwell, I expect the door to swing open. It’s so inevitable that a wave of expectancy builds within. Even as I push the door open, thrusting it against the concrete wall to squash anyone hiding behind it, I expect twin faces, each with ice and shadows in their eyes.

But there is no one.

Nobody waits for me.

No one comes looking despite the noise I made with the door.

I listen hard, even risking closing my eyes to enhance my focus on the sounds in the stairwell. The dull thud of footsteps echoes down the shaft, moving fast but growing quieter. Someone climbing perhaps? But the noise dissipates and is gone before I can be sure I truly hear it.

Swallowing deep, I descend a flight. There are no voices, no pacing footsteps. Have they left? I descend another flight and peek over the edge. In the circle of blue light, I see nothing unexpected. They’ve gone. I overreacted. Not for the first time, and probably not the last either.

“Idiot.” I suck in a deep breath and let it out with a shaky chuckle. Followed by another sound, though this one isn’t mine.

It’s his.

A low groan reverberates. My feet resist my brain. Every hair on my body stands alert. My ears strain to understand what they’re hearing, and my eyes scan the dim environment for dangers. Part of me wants to stay away. The charged atmosphere in the lofty space is evidence enough that something is terribly wrong, but my feet continue to carry me forward despite my brain crying warnings.

I find him on the floor. He’s slumped against the wall with his right arm and head on the second step. He’s a contradiction. A beautifully dressed vagrant; just another person looking for a safe, dry spot to sleep in the Vale… if it wasn’t for the stain beneath him.

A dense red pool flows outward. It drips from the first step, in tiny splashes, to the floor; thicker and darker than expected. It’s black where it concentrates in a pool. It takes a moment to understand what I’m looking at.

Blood.

The man on the stairs is dying.