He watched her silhouette move against the illuminated curtain window and hugged his arms tighter around his body as a chill winter wind frisked his skin. It had been three months since he had coasted back into Chicago. But he had planning this night for much longer than this.
The Croatian jerk-off was nowhere to be seen: hadn't been for six weeks. He had wondered if she had tossed him out with the garbage like she had with him: after all, hadn't he seen her with some other foreign bulk in a restaurant? And the night before that, with Carter?
Seeing the light in the bedroom go out, he smiled satanically as thought of the plan that was already playing out in his mind. Just up the fire escape, listen to her for a few minutes, enter the apartment and…
He felt a stirring in his groin as he thought about it. Thought of how he was going to remind her of who he was, of the power he had over her.
Reaching up to his cheek, he felt the thick layer of stubble covering his dirty, gaunt face. Anyone walking past would have mistaken him for a tramp but there was no one on the deserted street, no one in the apartments around hers: no one to hear her screams.
Fate seemed to be on his side with the barrenness of her life. The good doctor was out of town so he didn't have to worry about him dropping by for a quick fix: Carter was on the night shift – he'd staked out at the hospital just to make sure – and there was no sign of the Scottish kid who had been hanging around her like a bad plague.
The dim orange glow that glowed from the overhead street lamp only cast a faint shimmer on to the rain soaked cobbles, the remaining darkness masking his jerky motions across the road.
Silently, he efficiently ascended the now familiar worn metal of the fire escape. His heavy boots didn't clang on the light aluminium so his ascent was silent, stealthy. Deadly.
Perching outside the window, he peered through the gap the curtains left from where they didn't quite meet the wall and waited, watching her with baited breath. His eyes scanned her form under the thick comforter, his ears pricked for any sound that there was anyone else in the room.
Hearing none, he reached his hand out to the slit at the bottom of the window that he had left on his exit from the apartment earlier that morning after she left for work and slid it up, pausing sharply as it creaked against it's old wooden frame.
When he didn't stir, he pushed it up further and slid a leg through the gap, his body following. Once fully inside, he stood with his back to the window, his black shadow long on the moonlit floor.
He watched her, silently, enjoying the pleasure that was coursing through his veins.
And then he moved.