CHAPTER TWELVE
Cici checked the time on her cell phone, almost groaning out loud at how slow the time was going. It was nearly the end of her shift, but it wasn’t coming quickly enough. It never seemed to come quickly enough, and the more she checked the time, the more it seemed to slowly go.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked, brightening her face on purpose and trying to keep up that customer-friendly pep that the manager was always on her ass about. He was such a killjoy. And a Scrooge, too. She was pretty sure a pay raise was not in her foreseeable future.
The guy smiled back, pointing at the coffee machine behind her. “Can I get a coffee?” he asked. His usual request, whenever he came in. He had a bundle of items in his hands, too, and she’d seen him already pull up to the pumps outside. She rang up the coffee, the few things he’d picked out, and the pump total and then turned to make the coffee while he paid.
“Late one for you, tonight,” she commented, since it was something to say. To fill the silence. He didn’t reply – which she mostly expected anyway, since he was always so quiet. She glanced over her shoulder and saw him nod with a shy smile, acknowledging the truth of her words.
Well, okay then.
Cici placed the coffee down on the counter when the machine was done making it, trying to plaster on that smile again. It was difficult, sometimes. She tried to be nice, but when people were so introverted like this… if it wasn’t for the fact that she had heard him say a few words here and there, she would have thought he didn’t speak English or something.
“That’s thirty dollars and seventeen cents total,” she said, reading off the monitor of the till.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, using his card to pay for it all and then starting to gather it up into his arms. He didn’t bother asking for a bag. She was about to offer one, but it seemed almost strange to break the quiet of his presence again, and then he was turning and walking away with everything held against his chest – except the coffee, in one outstretched hand.
There was no one else in the entirety of the gas station. Cici made a coffee for herself and sipped at it, blowing off the steam to try to cool it quicker, as she watched him walk back to his car and get inside. He settled all of his things down on the passenger seat under the illumination of the overheard light, put his coffee to one side in a holder, and then started his engine and drove away.
Well. Even a silent regular was better than no one at all. Cici sighed, taking another sip of the coffee. By the time she had finished this, her shift would be over, and she could make the walk home. She just had to hold off the crushing boredom until then.
She glanced around the inside of the store, seeing nothing that needed doing. The displays were all fine, and her incoming coworker, Chris, was a stickler for organization anyway. He loved doing that kind of thing. Given that he had the graveyard shift and would probably only serve a handful of people all night long, she wasn’t going to take that away from him. She leaned over to swipe a magazine from the rack by the counter, reading a few pages without much interest. It was all celebrity gossip. Anything she was actually interested in, she had seen on social media already.
The opening of the gas station door made Cici jump, almost spilling the last mouthful of her coffee all over the magazine. She looked up and saw Chris and rolled her eyes at herself for being so jumpy.
“Hey!” he called out, heading over as she hastily stuffed the magazine back where it had come from. “Good shift.”
“Mm,” Cici said into the coffee cup as she finished it, throwing it right into the trash can after. “Just normal. Nothing out of the ordinary. Kinda slow towards the end.”
“Yay,” Chris said sarcastically, standing to the side to let her come out from behind the counter before he went in. “Sounds like good times for me. Well, have a good night.”
“You, too,” Cici said, smiling briefly. She paused in front of the counter to take off her nametag and slide on a jacket against the cold, holding her purse between her knees, before grabbing it again and slinging it over her shoulder. “See you for changeover tomorrow.”
“See you then,” Chris nodded, with that kind of grimly humorous look that only two employees in a dead-end job can share.
Cici walked out into the night, shuddering as the first breath of cold air ghosted across her skin. It was definitely bracing. But at this time of night there were no buses, and even if there had been one, it was free to walk home. Cici wasn’t trying to spend all of her aggressively low paycheck on unnecessary things like the bus, even if it was cold. The walk would get the blood flowing and warm her up.
She wrapped her arms around herself, holding the jacket closer as she stepped out of the range of the gas station’s lights and into the darkness. She knew the way back by heart at this point, including the shortcut across the field by the station and the exact angle to take in order to avoid tripping over some of the artfully placed rocks from the shore. She took a deep breath, smelling the ocean on the breeze. It was nice sometimes to remember that she had it good, living somewhere like this. Not everyone got to work a dead-end job in a beautiful place like Pacific Cove.
It was a still, calm night. She could hear the crunching of her own footsteps as she walked across the grass and stones, see her breath pooling white in front of her. While her face was cold, at least the rest of her was wrapped up, and her hands were tucked in under her upper arms. It wasn’t unpleasant at all. In fact, without the headlights of cars on the road, it was pretty peaceful. The kind of night where you can look up and admire the stars, which she did.
There was a crunch behind her, and Cici whipped her head around, staring back into the gloom.
She could see the lights of the gas station in the distance, already far enough away that they were getting smaller. Between her and there, there was no sign of a silhouette, nothing blocking out the lights. She paused anyway, looking carefully, her heart racing. Hadn’t she heard a footstep?
She turned back and carried on walking, telling herself she was being stupid. It was probably a rabbit, or something. Some little nocturnal animal making its way out for the night or coming home after a long day of whatever it was little animals did. She walked a bit quicker, all the same. It was a good reminder that she was totally in the dark out here, unaware of her surroundings. She started kicking her legs forward a bit as she walked, too – she knew from hard-earned experience that it was far less painful to hit the end of her boot on an unexpected rock than to trip over it.
She really needed to calm down. It was probably that coffee she’d had so close to the end of her shift, but Cici couldn’t shake this awful feeling that she was being watched. Followed. She became so aware of her own movements, of what they would look like to someone who was observing her. She didn’t want to look like she was scared.
But she kind of was.
Cici’s senses were all on alert suddenly, making every moment heightened. She could swear that she could hear the distant humming of the gas station lights, even though she was so far away now she hadn’t even noticed it before. Somewhere out on the coastal road, around the bend and out of sight, the swish of a car’s tires on the road. The small noises of a few birds out in the distance, maybe over the water. And the water itself, distant but there, always there no matter where you went in town.
And above it all, the sound of her own urgent breathing and her rapid heartbeat pounding in her ears.
Cici walked faster, thinking it would be better anyway if she got home fast. It was getting colder than she had expected, after all. She half-turned her head to the right again, looking over her shoulder, straining for something…
And to her left, there was a rustle.
Like someone had suddenly darted to the side and into a bush to avoid being seen as she turned.
Cici was done waiting to find out if she was right about someone being there. She rushed forward, breaking into a jog across the grass, very aware even as she did so that there was every chance she would stumble and fall if she didn’t take enough caution. She fumbled for her cell phone in her pocket: the light would show anyone who was around exactly where she was, yes, but if they already knew then she had nothing to lose from seeing the way ahead of herself. She needed to see. She needed to get out of here and back onto the road, and in sight of other people driving by if there were any. And if not, then home, home as fast as she could run.
She was just managing to get it out of her pocket when something caught her – something right around her waist, like she’d run into something – heavy and hard – no, flexible – an arm –
Someone had grabbed her around the waist, arresting her motion and plucking her right out of the air, pulling her back towards them.
There was something over her mouth, too, something she realized when she tried to take a breath and couldn’t. Cici’s lungs fought the unnatural feeling, immediately going to take a second deep breath through her nose and mouth, and all she got was a sweet smell that reminded her somehow of the hospital. It filled her senses entirely, a poor substitute for air, and…
And…
Cici fought to hold on, to grasp the train of thought. She could smell the sweetness, and her head felt dizzy, and her legs – her legs were gone, and…
Cici spiraled down into darkness, losing track of everything, consciousness pulling away from her like a silk scarf caught by the wind.
***