“You’re fine,” she whispered aloud to the empty street. Her voice trembled. “You are fine.” She turned, keeping her left shoulder mere inches from the brick wall. She used it as a physical guideline, trailing her fingers along the rough texture of the mortar between the bricks. It was a crude, desperate, entirely undignified method of navigation, but it kept her out of traffic. The walk was agonizingly slow. Every crack in the sidewalk felt like a canyon. Every sudden noise—a rattling metal grate, a distant siren, the sudden bark of a chained dog—made her flinch, her muscles locking up instantly in a defensive rigid posture. Without her cane, she felt entirely naked. The armor she had worn so effortlessly at the bus shelter was gone. The martial artist who had brutally and efficiently dismantled two predatory men was currently terrified of a discarded soggy cardboard box she accidentally kicked in the middle of the second block.
It took her nearly 35 minutes to walk a distance that usually took her five. By the time she finally reached the corner of her own street, her clothes were completely soaked through. The icy water had seeped deeply into her bones, making her joints ache and stiffen. Her palms were scraped raw from brushing against rough concrete walls, and her right shin throbbed violently where she had kicked the granite curb. But then she caught it. The smell. The faint, sweet, unmistakable aroma of stale yeast, vanilla, and burnt sugar. The commercial bakery on the ground floor of her apartment building. Harper let out a long, shuddering exhale. She sped up her shuffle, sliding her raw hand along the familiar, smooth, freezing glass of the bakery’s front display window. She felt the transition to brick, then the sharp 90-degree turn into the recessed doorway of the residential entrance.
She fumbled in her wet coat pocket with entirely numb fingers. Pulling out her keychain, she rapidly traced the familiar metal ridges of the brass key with her thumb, found the lock by pure tactile memory, and slid it home. The heavy metallic click of the deadbolt sliding back felt like the most beautiful sound in the world. She pushed the heavy door open, dragged herself into the dry, quiet lobby, and locked it securely behind her. The sudden absolute silence of the building was deafening. The smell of old dusty carpet and cheap pine saw was intoxicating. Harper didn’t walk to the elevator. She couldn’t. Her legs simply gave out. She sank down right there in the entryway, pressing her back against the cheap drywall, and slid down until she was sitting on the thin carpet. She pulled her wet knees tight to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.
