Liar's Lullaby

I pull the key out with difficulty and try again.

Same thing this time around. No click.

I hold the key up to my face and examine it. As far as I can tell, nothing seems to be wrong. It's the only key I own, so it's not like I could have pulled out the wrong one. And it's not broken or bent or anything like that.

Then I hear a callous chuckle that sends the hair at the back of my neck standing on end.

I whip around-just as Mickey steps out from the shadows of the stairwell.

He's wearing his standard corduroy vest, the one that's two sizes too small and smeared in the front with various different food stains.

He's the type of guy you can see from a mile away and know without a doubt that he smells like a sewer stuffed with Doritos.

You'd be right about that, too.

"Having some trouble there, little lady?" he muses, clicking his tongue.

"My key's not working."

He gives me a leering smile that has me backing up against the door just a little.

God, I hate this motherfucker.

"It's not your key that's the problem," Mickey tells me with obvious glee.

He runs his hand over his massive beer belly, a gesture he employs whenever he's feeling particularly good about himself. His beady, deep-set eyes drink me in.

Honestly, I preferred the cockroach.

"You changed the lock?" I ask, my voice cracking in alarm.

"I can give you the new key," he announces, "if you can give me the rent you owe."

I wince against the naked hunger piercing the insides of my stomach. "Listen, Mickey..."

"Is that a no?" he interrupts.

"It's been a tough few weeks."

"Don't you have a fancy job?" he demands.

"I'm a waitress in a fancy restaurant," I clarify. "There's a difference. My pay's still shit. I survive on tips, and lately, I haven't really been making much in that department."

Mickey's eyes skitter up and down my body.

I'm still in my waitress uniform. Black skirt. White shirt. Black, low-cut vest.

"You need to pop open that last button," Mickey advises like he's doing me a favor. "A man likes to see some real cleavage when you lean in to serve his meat."

I swallow back my fury. I'm too hungry for this. For any of it.

That moldy bread on the other side of this door might as well be manna from heaven.

But instead, I'm trapped out here starving with the devil himself.

"Gee, thanks," I reply sarcastically. "I'll keep that in mind. Now, can you just give me the new key, please?"

Mickey sidles a little closer. "No."

I wince again. Desperation and hunger and exhaustion all combining to beat me down like a trio of muggers.

Every part of me hurts-head, feet, heart.

I can't do this.

I just cannot do this right now.

"Please, Mickey. I've had a crappy couple of weeks. Just give me a little time to get you the rent."

"I've been giving you time," he snaps. "For the last few months. I'm done with it. I've been warning you for a while now. You knew this was coming. Nothing in this world is free, Charlotte Dunn."

I hate how he says my name. It makes me feel dirty, scummy.

And those eyes won't stop slithering up and down, up and down.

"I've been warning you for a while now," he repeats.

"Please," I whimper again.

I know my voice sounds meek and pathetic but the hunger is ruthlessly snuffing the last of the fight, the last of the pride, the last of the dignity that I have in me.

I'll beg if I have to.

But please, for the love of God, just give me a bite of food.

He cocks his head to the side, eyeing me up and down as though he's only just thought of something.

Except, I know better than that.

Whatever's coming next is going to be a tempting piece of bait on the end of a very nasty hook.

No one was ever nice for nothing.

"Hmm. Maybe we can work something out," he murmurs. His eyes linger on my breasts.

I stay frozen where I am as he takes a step towards me and raises his hand. My eyes clamp shut in horror and I brace like I'm about to get hit by a bus.

But the awful touch I'm expecting doesn't come.

Instead, Mickey's fingers brush against a strand of loose hair that's come apart from the messy bun at the back of my head. He tucks it behind my ear.

It's almost tender, in the weirdest possible way.

But his intentions are not.

They never are.

This is an ugly world, and men like Mickey-power-hungry, obsessed with money and control and not a damn thing else-are the ugliest part of it.

This close, I can see the wealth of nose hair in his engorged nostrils. He reminds me of a bull in heat.

I cringe away from him when his tongue slashes down across his bottom lip.

"Nothing comes for free, little lady," he sneers at me.

Don't I fucking know it.

"What do you want from me?" I ask directly.

His stubby hand reaches down and cups the bulge at his crotch. I can tell he's already erect, and my stomach turns with nausea. The hunger takes a back seat for the moment.

Silver linings, I guess.

"Get on your knees," Mickey hisses, "and make me happy. Then I might be able to give you another two weeks on your rent."

This son of a bitch.

I'll die before I give him that.

"I'm not a fucking whore," I lash at him. My face is flushed with anger.

His expression turns dark at the rejection. "No? Pity. Coulda fooled me."

The frustration of my day catches up with me in that moment. I can't fucking deal with this shit.

I get groped enough at my day job.

I don't need this shit when I come back home.

Not that it's much of a home, but still-it's all I have.

Or all I had, at least. Without it, what do I have to lose?

Fuck this place.

Fuck the cockroaches on my feet and the lights that never work and the elevator that's always broken.

And most of all, fuck Mickey himself.

This arrogant and depraved fucking creep who thinks he can say things like that to me, who thinks he can dangle his nasty cock in my face like a carrot and use my desperation to get his rocks off.

No.

Not today.

Not ever.

The slap I deliver to his smug fucking face takes us both by surprise. Mickey staggers backwards, his eyes dazed for a second before they focus on me.

And then all hell breaks loose.

"You ungrateful little cunt!" he roars.

He lunges for me, but I manage to dart to the side, narrowly escaping under his arm. I cling to the bag draped across my shoulder as I hurtle towards the staircase.

I can feel him in hot pursuit. He's huffing and panting as we both thunder down the stairs.

But I'm as fast as he is disgusting. And that fat piece of shit probably hasn't broken an intentional sweat in years.

So, by the time I burst out of the side door and back out into the night, I've lost him.

I don't stop running and I don't look back.

Not until I've put at least a dozen blocks between me and that human-sized rat.