Alanna looked at Darren with a confused expression written all over her face. ‘What is he THINKING?’ her mind screamed. ‘Is he insane? He just met me and he is inviting me to stay with him? Okay, please don’t tell me he’s working with the Russians. That would be such a waste of good looks.’
“Do you wanna stay or not?” Darren asked again.
Alanna nodded as she kept thinking to herself. ‘I thought he’d put me up in a hotel or something, give me a few bucks, you know! But this, it’s just nuts!’
“Well, are you coming or are you just gonna stay in the limo all night?” he said.
“I’m coming,” Alanna replied as she stepped out into the afternoon sun. Her eyes immediately began to scan the surrounding area for anything that looked out of place or strange. It was easy to see something out of place in a high-class neighborhood like this one. ‘The apartments here must cost a fortune!’ she thought as she walked up the stairs to Darren’s apartment. ‘Who the hell is this guy? What does he do for a living?’
Alanna was tempted to ask questions, but decided against it the second she stepped into the apartment. Old world paintings and oriental pots surrounded the foyer she stepped into. There were a few odd things in the mix; a bowl filled with marbles and keys, a few misplaced CD’s, and a photograph of a huge family.
“Nice,” Alanna commented as she walked further into the apartment. Her eyes darted into the living room where there was a black leather couch sitting in the middle of the room on top of a white, shaggy rug, and a glass coffee table in front of it. A flat screen TV was placed on the wall just in front of the couch, and a black leather recliner was at the very corner of the room beside a tall lamp and a small table full of books and magazines. Across from the recliner stood a cherry oak bookshelf filled with more books, most of which pertained to Anne Rice and vampires.
Alanna’s eyes shifted away from the living room and across the hall to the kitchen and dining room. Four black chairs centered around another glass table in the dining room. The kitchen was white with black marble counters and stovetops. She nodded her head at the coordination of all the rooms as she kept walking through the apartment towards the two bedrooms and bathroom.
The first bedroom her eyes jumped to had a thick wooden desk near a picture window that looked out into San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. A matching chair sat in front and behind it. A small laptop sat on it open and ready for use. Alanna turned her attention to the next room, the bathroom. It was much larger than she expected, having two sinks, a large shower, and a toilet made of white marble. ‘Shit!’ she thought, her eyes ready to pop out of their sockets. ‘This boy is loaded!’
The final bedroom in the apartment was the master bedroom. Alanna kept her gaze here longer than any other room in the house. It had a four-post canopy bed with a downy, soft white comforter, a night stand that matched the dark wood of the bed, a walk in closet full of clothes, a dresser, and at least fifty pictures all around the room, most of which were of family and friends.
“This is a really nice place you got here, Chris. What do you do for a living anyway?” Alanna finally asked.
“I’m in the music industry,” Darren simply replied as he walked into the kitchen and began dinner, for two.
“Oh, that’s cool,” she said.
“What do you do?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’m a bum,” Alanna smartly answered. ‘The last thing he needs to know is what I do for a living. Then we’d all be in really big trouble.’
“You mean you don’t have a job?”
“I sell stuff.”
“What do you sell?”
“You don’t wanna know.”
Alanna’s answer stopped Darren dead in his tracks. He knew what she was, and his mouth was stupid enough to ask. “Are you a drug dealer?”
Alanna sharply looked up at him as her eyes narrowed into thing slits. Darren knew what was coming. He could feel her anger all the way from the kitchen where he stood to the hallway where she stared. He began to wonder how he could have been so stupid to offer her a place to stay without asking a single important question.
Alanna eased her angry expression and walked into the kitchen to sit down on one of the bar stools near the counter. “I am,” she lied. “Please don’t kick me out because you think I’ll only bring trouble. I promise I won’t. You have nothing to fear. I’m not a bad person. I sell drugs for money, but I have never taken them. I’ve seen some of my best friends killed with overdoses. I don’t wanna end up like them.”
“I hope you’re not lying,” Darren replied as he turned back to the stove and began cooking a vegetable stir-fry.
“I’m not. Trust me,” Alanna pleaded. He looked back at her and caught her gaze. How could he resist such a beautiful pair of eyes?
“I trust you,” he mumbled. “Why don’t you wash up before dinner? You looked like you’re dying to take a shower.”
“Oh, yeah! But I don’t have any clothes to change into.”
“I’ll let you borrow something that my ex-girlfriend forgot. I think it’ll fit you.”
Alanna walked out of the room, her body aching to feel hot water again. She strode into the bathroom and immediately discarded her clothes. Stepping into the shower, she turned the water on and felt it ice cold on her skin. ‘At least its clean,’ she thought. It gradually turned warmer until Alanna felt comfortable. She stood there, the water flowing over her body as she closed her eyes and thought about how good it felt.
Darren, on the other hand, had left the kitchen to find the clothes he had promised Alanna. Rummaging through his closet, he found a plain cotton tank top and a pair of faded denim shorts that looked like they might fit her thin, muscular body. He knocked on the bathroom door and yelled, “I’m leaving some clothes by the door. You can get them when you finish!”
“Thanks,” Alanna yelled back as she started to shampoo her flaming red hair. ‘I really need to change colors,’ she thought. ‘I think I’ll do a dark purple next.’
Finishing up her shower, Alanna stepped out and grabbed a towel from above the toilet. She dried herself off then went to the door and grabbed the clothes Darren had left her. The shirt fit, but the shorts were a bit tight. She didn’t mind though, she loved the look. It felt more comfortable than the black track pants and sweater she had been wearing for the last week in the heat wave San Francisco was experiencing.
Darren looked up from the stove to see Alanna walk into the kitchen in what he had given her to wear. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at her with wide, bright blue eyes. Her hair was no longer the mess it used to be. It hung loosely over her shoulders, still dripping wet. The tank top was a perfect fit, showing off the curves of her body. The shorts looked a little tight, but made her long, slender legs look muscular.
“You’re staring again,” Alanna pointed out.
Darren closed his gaping mouth and turned around, his face bright red from embarrassment. ‘She caught me again,’ he thought to himself. ‘I have to stop that.’
“It’s okay, actually. I don’t mind. I like it when a guy stares. It’s a compliment,” she replied, sitting down at the stood again. “So, what’s for dinner?”
“Veggie stir-fry, steamed rice, and I haven’t figured out dessert yet,” Darren replied.
“Oh, finally, real food!” Alanna exclaimed. “I haven’t had a home cooked meal in so long. I’ve been living off of table scraps and junk food in the last few months.”
“I don’t understand. You look as if you haven’t touched the stuff. I mean, look at you. You’re skin and bone.”
“I run a lot, from other dealers and people who think my stuff is crap. It sucks to be out on the street without any protection and the other person has a gun in their pocket. You have to be a sprinter to get away.”
“Sounds like it happens to you often.”
“It does. I’ve been hit a few times by stray bullets, but nothing that a bandage couldn’t patch up, unless you count the LA incident where I was hit in the stomach and stuck in the hospital for a few months. Didn’t stop me from dealing though. I needed the money. It’s good pay, but when you constantly buy more than you sell, it gets to be a pain in the ass. That’s why I’ve been living on the streets for the last few months. My brother and I have encountered a few more problems than we expected, and now we have to deal with them.”
“Where is your brother anyway?” Darren asked as he set a plate of food in front of her.
“I don’t know,” Alanna said, her eyes suddenly turning somber and cold. ‘God, I hope Dmitri calls Rogers.’
The two of them ate dinner in silence, and afterwards, it was off to bed. Alanna could feel her eyelids become like heavy bricks as Darren set up a bed for her on the couch.
“Good night,” he told her as he walked into his own room.
“Night!” Alanna called to him. The moment she heard the door slam, she immediately picked up the phone on the coffee table and called her superior.
“Hello?” Rogers urgently answered.
“Did Dime call?” Alanna frantically whispered.
“No, but Vladimir did,” he replied.
“Shit,” she began to cry. Her heart sank lower than when her mother died.
“He’s holding Dmitri hostage.”