Blood On Her Hands

Chapter 38

It was time to see Darren again.

I was filled with regret for having agreed to speak with him. It felt too soon, especially after Nancy had blown up about the same thing we had fought about just the day before. I was sick of hearing about this misconstrued version of events. When I had told Kimberly what happened through video chat on my bus ride to the office, her sharp jaw nearly touched her chest. Hearing her confirm that their jealousy and suspicion was complete nonsense, made me feel more confident in my stance. She reassured me that I hadn't done anything wrong by being friends with Adonis and the fact that I needed reassurance in the first place made me want to punch Darren.

Nancy and Darren should have come to us and told us how they were feeling. I was so over the mind games. It was disappointing that I would have to engage in one of my own in order to get a peak at the company's financial records.

My nerves were so high that I couldn't make myself eat anything for breakfast. When I arrived, I had to stand outside the building and breathe for a few seconds before heading inside.

A rush of air brushed by me and refreshed my paling skin upon entering. The sight of Mike placing a wet floor sign on the lobby floor decreased my heart rate. It was always nice to see the building's friendly manager.  It had been a long while since I had seen him last.

“Hey, Mike!” I greeted him with a smile. He glanced up from the floor and removed the earpiece of his headphones to let it sit around his neck. “How’s it going?”

“Hello, Mickey.” He seemed distracted by something, like he was suffering whiplash from being ripped from his thoughts. “I’m fine. Same old, same old.”

“Is everything okay?”

Seeing Mike thrown off made my nerves sky rocket. I had been dependent on him being lighthearted and jolly to keep me sane. I hoped his anxious mood wasn't foreshadowing how my meeting with Darren would go.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, throwing up a hand like it was no big deal. He looked down, fiddling with the wet floor sign. I hovered for a moment longer and the facade wore off. “Darren . . . you and him . . . is everything, alright?”

I pressed my lips together. I didn’t know why he would think otherwise. He had no way of knowing that the two of us fought. Darren wasn’t friends with Mike like I was. He wouldn’t tell him about our fight. Whatever Mike knew he knew because he heard it through the grapevine.

“Uh, we’re working on it. It’s been a weird couple months,” I said, keeping vague in the hopes that he'd elaborate for me. I was curious about what he heard exactly. 

“Has he gotten into any trouble?”

“Trouble?”

Seeing my blank face staring back at him, he shook his head. He was retreating, going back to his work to keep busy. “Nevermind. If he is in some kind of trouble, you should hear it from him.”

I followed him to his cart of cleaning supplies, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice. “He’s been up to something? Something bad?”

“I have to get back to work." He was refusing to look at me for any longer. The wheels of his cart screeched on the floor before going back to the regular thumping of his supplies. The sound faded into my heartbeat that pounded in my ears. 

Taking the elevator up, I tried to reset from my conversation with Mike. He didn’t tell me anything new. I already had suspicions that Darren was keeping things from me. This should have only motivated me to do what needed to be done.

The elevator dinged and I heard the chatter of the office before the metal doors parted. There was someone barking into a phone about shipments and two people at a desk up front shuffling through papers that crinkled under their thumbs.