Smash!

•ONE•

A/N: After many, many years I re-wrote the intro chapter because I have received so many mean comments about the original first chapter. A draft I wrote before I was even legal to drink. Yes, it was an impractical and unlikely plot point, but this site where people write about werewolves and being sold to One Direction as sex slaves and whatever else people feel creative about, I got so many nasty comments calling my characters hateful things just for one silly plot point to help speed up the set up.

So the first chapter was re-written.

To all the new reader giving my story a chance, thank you for giving my story a chance and welcome.

Jamie

It should smell like vanilla or frosting, but instead it smells like disinfectant. There wasn't an inch of the bakery I hadn't wiped, scrubbed, or shined. Not a grain of sugar left or a spare sprinkle that I haven't already cleaned away.

The bakery, like the rest of me, is damp from mop water and coated in sanitizer, with an added layer of sweat sticking my clothes to my skin. Closing kept me here late, hours past my supposed clock out time. By the time the next day's batches were prepped, today's leftovers stored, registers counted, and the cleaning done I finished just a little past midnight.

It takes a long moment to undo the knot in my apron strings, my hands doing the best they can with soreness and achiness stuck between the overworked knuckles. The apron is off my waist with a particularly defeated flop, as if even the fabric is worn from tiredness. There's a wave of relief, then the rest of the exhaustion I've been ignoring doubles down. Back stiff and shoulders sagging from another shift in this local bakery has the ache in my ankles from standing too long reaching up to meet the rest of my fatigue.

It's been time to go home hours ago. Double checking with the mental to do list in my head while simultaneously running over the bus schedule, I do another lap in the dark through the bakery. Even with dim light from the exit signs, it's like pacing through my own home, too familiar and memorized. The cafe and kitchen closed out, I'm out the back door with the last bit of energy I have in me.

Floors mopped, money locked in safe, lights off—the deadbolt clicks into place—doors locked.

The lights are on.

The alley brightens with the sudden glow from the kitchen lights. Looking between the door and the illuminated window, I run my mind over any possibility I left it on. No matter how sure—how certain I am that I switched off all the lights before I even grabbed my stuff, there's something in me trying to be reasonable that I hadn't. The key is still suspended in the lock, the deadbolt twisted shut and my hand is still folded around the key.

I could leave them on overnight. Deal with the ear full of running up the electricity bill from my boss tomorrow. Even as his best and only employee he'll write me up or take the cost out of my paycheck because he'll intend for us to both have consequences that will ensure I won't do it again. I'm stalling on the excuse of not going to see for myself what or who is inside that turned on the lights.If I didn't turn on the lights then someone else definitely had.

It's a small business in a rent controlled building built in the fifties. There's no central air, let alone motion activated lights or a security system. Just locked doors and windows, no cameras or precautions otherwise.

I could walk off with the unconvincing thought that I left the lights on, but I can't walk away from the fact that there's somebody inside. There's no advantage out here in the alley, just brick and pavement. The best option I have is that I'm wrong and I did in fact leave the lights on. Or in the worse case... I would have to get a hold of the phone to use the landline as quietly as possible to call for the authorities.