Slide 5: Unseen
She almost didn't notice the gun until she was pacing back through the living room. The windows were all shut and locked, the rooms thoroughly inspected behind curtains, in closets and cabinets and behind shelves, everywhere she thought could hide a person and all the places that couldn't. Clenching and unclenching her fists anxiously, she hesitantly sat down on the couch, curling up with her hands around her knees.
There was a gun on the coffee table. A practical handgun, smaller than typical law-enforcement weapons, but etched beautifully in black-on-black along the grip and barrel. She stared blankly at it for a moment before the sheaf of papers tucked under it registered.
She went to go get a freshly washed microfiber towel from the dryer, trying to choose the one fabric that probably wouldn't leave evidence. She'd seen CSI, she wasn't about to get pegged for a murder. Covering her hand in it, she picked up the gun and gently moved it a few inches to the side. It really was gorgeous, well weighted, and if she remembered her training in picking guns, a pleasure to shoot.
Washington State Permit to Carry a Concealed Weapon. It was a small certificate, unobtrusively official. A threat? But as she took in the information printed in a passable imitation of her own scrawl, she realized that it was a notification. A registration for a gun she had never bought, a permit she had never filed for, had been approved. Someone had bought her a gun and made sure she could carry it.
The small note tucked in-between the various official papers was written in a spiky scrawl that spoke of someone who had once been taught proper calligraphy and found it irritating. This works a bit better than mace, hm? Do carry it. Snatching hobos into the night is not my idea of a good time.
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"You okay?" Will reluctantly traded coffee for cash, peering at her downturned face anxiously. She shrugged, sighing as she looked up at the ceiling.
"Will, have you ever had...I don't know, a stalker or something?" She frowned down at her coffee, squeezing the cup too tight. Her knuckles were turning white.
He pulled her receipt out of the machine, flipping it over to write neatly on the back. "Listen, you just call me if you need a hand, okay?" She nodded, mumbling her acquiescence as she took the receipt. He watched as she pushed open the door, looking tired but otherwise normal until someone brushed past her and she froze, flinching. She stood a moment, eyes wide, until she blinked, shook herself slightly, and continued.
Something was very wrong.
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"Will!" A pair of pale fingers waved in front of his eyes as he watched the young woman walk quickly down the street. "Will! You okay?" Clarissa peered at him anxiously, leaning up on the counter towards him.
He shook his head to clear it, blinking at her. "Yeah." He cleared his throat. "Yeah, just worried about a friend. What can I get you?"
"The girl?" She followed his gaze, picking out the figure easily. "She okay?"
"I don't think so."
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She stood in the graveyard like she had so many times before, dressed in black. Mourning, they all said. How awful, to lose someone so close to you. It shouldn't have been awful, to lose someone who hadn't spoken to you in years, but it was. She gritted her teeth, fidgeting with the handle of her umbrella as she stood by the grave.
Whispered condolences, as if the dead would hear them comforting her, slight touches as they passed her and went back to their cars, went back to the house. She stood by the grave, the earth turning to mud around her, her full skirts swaying in the wind. The wind gusted, buffeting her umbrella, and she fell forward onto her knees, kneeling at the foot of the newly turned earth.
She couldn't even hear her sobs above the rain.
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She whimpered, convulsing without waking, struggling with the sheets as she tried to curl into a ball. A figure stepped out of the shadows, stood by the edge of the bed, watched as tears rolled down her cheeks and she gasped little strangled breaths. A hand found hers, holding it tightly as she shook.
When she screamed, sobbing, and woke, there was a steaming cup of tea on her beside table, the lamp already casting a reassuringly solid pool of light over the bed.
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"So when you've finished setting up today, it should look something like this…" She turned towards the board, catching up a marker and leaning up on her toes to sketch the apparatus. For a moment, she was too caught up in making sure she hadn't forgotten anything to realize that even the usual background chatter of her class had fallen silent.
"Ma'am?" Sally's voice broke the silence and for a moment, Adele stood with her back to the class and sighed. "Is that a gun?"
Adele pulled a face at the whiteboard, composed herself, and turned back to the class. Several of the girls were wide-eyed, most of the boys looked impressed. "Yes, it is." For a moment, as she surveyed the students sitting at their lab benches, it looked like there were going to be more questions. But they sat in silence for a few moments more and she smiled cheerfully, clapping her hands. "Alright, get to it. I'll come around and check your set-ups when you've finished."
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Hey, I'm working the evening shift tonight. Want to come by?
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She was perched on a chair dragged behind the counter, an actual mug in hand, watching the last evening rush wind down. It was a little relaxing, listening to the chatter and just watching everyone else live their lives. As it turned towards seven, the people thinned out and Will leaned against the counter across from her, watching her silently. She looked at him questioningly and he sighed. "What's been going on, Adele? Really."
She looked down at her coffee and, without looking up, moved her jacket aside. He drew a breath sharply and she sighed. "Really?" And she told him. She told him about how she had turned off the light and there had been a guy in her apartment, how he did the dishes and how it had been really weird. She left out his name. As he stared at her, sinking to the floor as the sun set outside the shop walls, she told him how she had been followed, how she had turned around and no one had been there, how scared she had been, how there had been a gun, her gun, on the coffee table.
How she had been having a nightmare and woken up to a cup of tea and the lamp on.
"I'm just not sure whether I should be freaked out or comforted, you know?"
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"Magnus?" Will stood in the doorway, watching Adele walk down the street, cell phone pressed to his ear.
"Will? Something wrong?" She didn't sound tired at all, despite the late hour. Probably caught up in her files and her research again, as per usual. He wondered if Henry and Ashley would steal her files and make her go to bed without him there to do it. For a moment, he felt homesick.
He shook himself, frowning and turning away from the door. "I just had a friend tell me something strange and I was wondering if you had heard anything."
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Weeks passed. Midterms came and went. Adele almost got used to finding notes and other surprises around the house. At first, it had been simple. A small slip of paper tucked under her hairbrush, reading only "Good morning." It had made her smile. Then one morning she got out of the shower and walked into the kitchen to find a freshly toasted bagel and cut fruit ready for her, a note tucked under the plate. "Have a good day at work."
It became a near daily occurrence and she almost, almost got used to it. To walking to the door to find her scarf draped over the doorknob, a small note saying it would be cold today perched on top of it. Or the dishes done when she got home from work. Homework left out of the coffee table overnight graded by morning.
It was the small things in life that mattered the most, so they said. And even though she still glanced around nervously, even though it still scared her a little bit, it had been such a long time since anyone had taken care of her like this. She started to look forward to finding them; to scribble little notes back, her rounded script so soft next to his jagged letters.
Some nights, sitting on the couch with the television muted, she almost hoped he would saunter into the room and sit down next to her. She was softening, her guard loosening, but he never came and she never invited him. Until, as she rushed out the door to work one morning, grabbing her coat off the entryway table ("Don't forget your coat."), she stopped for a moment and, grabbing a pen out of her bag, wrote a message back in her own neat handwriting at the bottom of his note. It lay on the entry hall table as she slammed the door behind her, footsteps pounding down the hall.
"Want to have dinner tonight? I'll cook."
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They stood in front of the pantry, his arms wrapped loosely around her neck and shoulders. She found, to her surprise, that she wasn't nervous as she leaned back into him. Something deep inside her, instinct, told her she probably should have been.