By the time I made it to my friend's apartment, the sun was beginning to rise. My sides no longer hurt beyond tolerance, but had settled to a dull, annoying ache. The old grey haired, shriveled up woman on the eighth floor watched me wheeze my way up the entire time between long drags from her cigarette. She at least gave me one when I walked by, and I sucked gratefully on the nicotine to ignore the lingering pain.
I knocked several times on the door to Jenna's apartment, already loud music could be heard blaring within.
"Lucy! There you are! How are you this fine morning?" Jenna opened the door and the disjointed music consisting mostly of noise hit me full force in the face.
"Great. Got assaulted by some creeps. But I made thirty seven dollars in quarters." I slung my bag around and jingled the heavy change. It was now that Jenna noticed the blood on my shirt and her eyes nearly popped out of her skull.
"What happened? Are you okay?" She nearly shrieked and drug me inside her apartment.
"Yeah, I'll be fine. Two of them won't be. Maybe it will be on the news." I grinned from ear to ear as Jenna steered me into the kitchen. She prepared a bowl of stale cereal for me as I filled her in on the details.
"Hold on, DON! Turn down your FUCKING music!" Jenna screamed at the top of her lungs as I shoveled a large spoonful of oats in my mouth.
"What?" A muffled voice responded several moments later.
"Oh my GAWD-" Jenna stormed off angrily, there was a loud yelping noise and then the ear splattering music was turned down. Don came trailing in after her, eyes already glazed over with a stupid look on his face.
"Hey Lucy, what's up." He gave a vacant chuckle and fell down into the seat next to me.
"Anyway, continue with your story, Lucy." Jenna rolled her eyes and leaned against the counter.
"Alright, well, I was down off third street, it was just a few hours ago. I was breaking open the meters and like, three guys appeared out of nowhere and ran at me. I ran from them, then they cornered me in an alley." I cleared my throat and swirled the food in the milk.
"Didya stab em in throat?" Don laughed to himself and spun around in his seat.
"Yeah. One of them." I shrugged. Both of them reacted quite differently, Don gave me a high five while Jenna freaked out and went on a small rant of her own.
"What if you get charged with murder? Did anyone else see it?" She gasped deeply and clutched on to the counter as if someone was going to drag her away.
"Well, why do ya think I left? And I don't think so, someone might have seen me chasing the third guy who got away but I'm not really worried about it." I shrugged again, wishing I had just kept the whole ordeal to myself.
"You are so hardcore now. No one's gonna mess with you ever again." Don whistled between his teeth.
"I wonder why they attacked you. Probably some freaks thinking they can just assault any girl they want. Now that I think about it, it's a good thing you put em out of commission." Jenna nodded to herself.
"Only two of the three. One of them is still out there." I pointed out, gulping down the rest of the milk in the bowl.
"Yeah, but think about the odds of that guy ever finding you again. It's a big city, and random violence happens all the time." Don had a weird moment of clarity through the drugs clouding his brain.
"Ugh, all this talk has got me feeling antsy. You want a hit, Lucy? Best way to start the day after breakfast!" Jenna perked up after a moment of heavy silence, she clasped her hands together and gave me a huge smile.
"Nah, I'm good. I'm gonna take a nap before hitting the shopping districts, I just have to sit there and people put wads of cash at my feet." I yawned as the exhaustion finally hit my bones. Besides, the type of substances they put in their bodies didn't react too well with me. Put me more on edge than anything, brought up and amplified these deep, twisted voices inside my head.
"Ooh, can I get her hit then?" Don asked as he followed at Jenna's heels like a devoted puppy. I shuffled my heavy feet into the living room, collapsing onto the stiff couch held together by duct tape. Even with the music still playing in the background and the loud noises of the city trickling in through the window, sleep hit me like a brick to the face.
