[Fight/Flight]
Jayda knew her luck was a little finicky –everyone's was- but there comes a point in everyone's lives when something happens and one finds oneself looking up at the ceiling and shouting, "Oh, come on!"
... Which is precisely what Jayda did when the men and women in suits and slacks, armed with microphones and camera men and tape recorders, started spilling out of the elevator, like friggin' locusts and frogs upon the Egypt that was the fifth floor hallway.
The reporters had found her.
"Miss Anderson! Miss Anderson! You were the last person to see Andreyev Kozlov alive –do you have any comments about his death?" Someone within the horde called, speaking with the local Moscow accent. Jayda started fumbling with her keys, thanking every deity she could think of –and making some up along the way- that she was at the opposite end of the hall from the elevator.
God, she didn't want to talk to these people! What the hell did they want? She knew Kozlov for all of one hour outside of her biology class, and it wasn't even an hour worth remembering! Why wouldn't they leave her alone?
Fifteen feet. Not that that meant much –the vultures were approaching rapidly.
First they'd all but mugged her in the street, then they hovered around on campus –her professor asked her to leave so that the reporters would stop disrupting the class, for god's sake! Do they realize how humiliating that is? Do they? Goddamn- and now they'd followed her into her apartment complex. That had to be harassment, damn it!
Ten feet.
Bugger! She'd dropped her keys! Kneeling and swiping the cluttered key ring from the floor, she went back to desperately fumbling for the right key.
"Were you involved with Andrevey Kozlov prior to his murder?" Whoever that lady was, she was from out of town; she spoke with a regional accent Jayda hadn't heard before.
Five feet. Focus! Focus!
No time!
"Were you dating him, Miss Anderson?" Another Moscow resident, this one male, wanted to know.
"Are you pregnant?" A woman with a nasally voice shouted from the back. Jayda couldn't quite stop the expression of horror that flitted over her face, and it sent them into a frenzy.
'You must be joking!' Something hysterical shrieked in the back of her mind, and her mind flashed back to wine and steak and tooroughtooroughcan'tbreathecan'tbreathecan'tbreathecan't-
An arm hooked around her waist from behind –she might have screamed- and in that tiny sliver of time between one moment and the next, she was dragged from the hallway –she might have struggled- into the apartment directly behind her, her back flush against the front of her sort-of-not-quite-friend-saviour-kidnapper. She wasn't sure which sort-of-not-quite-friend it was.
The door slammed shut, the interrogatives and interrogations muffled on the other side of two inches of oak. As fists started banging on the door, muffled shouts getting louder and clearer and more and more reminiscent of crows, an arm appeared in her line of vision, sliding deadbolt lock home and putting the chain in place. Her knees might have given out a little with the tidal wave of relief that hit her, but if they did, she didn't notice; her mind was focusing on her rapid heartbeat and the way the world spun a little too much.
Saved.
"You can stop clinging now, zayatz." A voice murmured in her ear, and she'd never been happier to hear that familiar drawl.
Abruptly, Jayda realized that she had a death grip on the poor man's arm and let go as if burned. She mumbled an apology, felt her face burn a little, and stood, peeling away from her saviour-kidnapper. She turned, opening her mouth to thank Yuriy, and then stopped, because no one was there. He was gone and the apartment was eerily dark, curtains drawn against the midday sun. She hadn't even heard them move... Moreover, she didn't think the others were in; she probably would have heard them by now if they were.
Tentatively, she moved a little further into the apartment, "... Valkovich?"
"Wait here. They will leave soon enough." The redheaded man's voice came from a room to her left, the door ajar, and the contents within smothered by darkness. Despite that, she felt his eyes on her, and the hairs on the back of her neck tingled -not quite standing on end, but definitely thinking about it.
"... Thanks." She told the dark room. She didn't get a response. The weight of eyes still lingered.
Deciding there was nothing for it now, -like hell she was going back out there- she took her shoes and jacket off, set her purse down, and took a seat on the couch.
And waited.
Russian Translations:
Zayatz: Rabbit or hare.