Downworld

Chapter 5

I'd thought I'd gotten rid of him for good. I was wrong. About a week later, I woke to the sounds of people moving around in the apartment next to mine. That apartment had been empty -- and more importantly, quiet -- up until that morning.

Sour at missing that extra half an hour of sleep, I lay in bed for a while, then made myself get up for another tedious day of pushing dirt around for people with more money than time.

'New neighbor,' my roommate said over breakfast and coffee. He'd said it suggestively, as if I didn't know from the noise. But at the time, I thought nothing of it.

Then I stepped out into the hall. His presence, and my guardian's pleasure, hit me so hard I almost had to rush back inside and throw up. I didn't though, I swallowed down the bile and locked the door, trying to pretend Malik wasn't just inside his -- open, devil fuck me -- apartment door.

My guardian tried to get me to go in, but I wasn't going to listen to it. The result was that I stood frozen in the hallway, internally fighting with my guardian.

I took too long. Malik came out instead and my guardian settled itself into a ball of tension at the back of my neck, smug.

'Hi,' Malik said, with a smile. The bastard was always fucking smiling, as if I didn't already know how perfectly white his teeth were. 'How are you?'

I swallowed, and decided it was safe to speak. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?'

He shrugged. 'I'm not giving up on you that easily.'

'I'm not a bloody pet project.'

'No, you're not,' he said, seriously. 'You're someone I'd like to get to know better. Tinder agrees, by the by, that I shouldn't give up on you.'

Fuck. I was so fucked. Tinder was also too when I got my hands on her, I thought she'd given up on project fix Jay.

'How the hell can you even afford to rent this place?' It wasn't a great apartment, but it was in a decent area. I'd certainly not be able to afford it on my own, and as far as I knew, Malik didn't even have a job.

He shrugged. 'My dad lent me some money.'

Of course he bloody did. Because nobles were given glitter and rainbows for life, while the rest of us unlucky bastards had to scrape along just to survive.

I took a shaky breath. I wanted to punch him, but my guardian would never let me do that. Instead, I turned and stomped away. I was angry enough to override my guardian's thoughts on that.

'Where are you going?'

'To work. Unlike you, I don't get everything handed to me with silver platter. All I get handed is bullshit and asshole nobles who won't leave me alone.'

I'd start looking for a new apartment tonight. After I found one, I was going to kill Tinder.