The Handsome Devil

Chapter 35 - Inside the squat house

They followed the red sedan through the city for about an hour, until it parked in front of a seedy block of flats. The girl has never seen this part of Prague and it made her feel rather uneasy.

Out of the fourteen windows she counted, more than half was missing glass, and few others were barely held together by a duct tape. The façade had cracks branching all over,with bricks showing in spots where it crumbled entirely, and the sides of the building were heavily covered in graffiti tags.

The driver of the car parked in the front before getting out and walking inside. Finally, she caught a glimpse of the mysterious driver. It was a skinny man dressed in cargo shorts and long T-shirt with colourful logo in the chest area, and even though there was a fair distance separating them, she felt no sense of familiarity about him.

"Let's go" Max hissed and got out of the car without giving her time to protest.

For a second, the girl hesitated. Conflicting feelings were fighting inside her. On one side, there were too many red flags surrounding the man and the building, which didn't slip the attention of her self-preservation instinct. Nonetheless, on the other side was her ever present curiosity that urged her to shed some light on the events unfolding in front of her eyes.

And as per usual, the curiosity eventually won.

She caught up with Max and they entered the building just in time to see the man turn to the stairwell. His long strides didn't allow her to properly take in her surroundings, but she saw enough to conclude that the interior is as roughed up as the exterior.

Her mouth opened in preparation for showering him with questions, but the palm of his hand managed to silence her instantly. Perhaps it was the eeriness of the whole situation, but she decided to wait with expressing her wrath for more convenient moment.

Quietly, they climbed to the third floor and followed the man to the end of the long narrow hallway before he disappeared into a flat that was missing its front door. The devil nudged her to move ahead, but her feet remained glued to the floor.

You could hear music blasting out of the flat, and in its background, she recognised several different voices talking and cheering. Needless to say, her curiosity was ready to give up there and then.

If only the devil let her.

"Go" The coldness of his voice sent chills down the girl's spine.

"W-What's going on in there?" She asked in timid voice while pointing towards the door.

"A party, I guess" He gave her a disinterested reply before motioning ahead.

"Why do we have to go there?" Deya's eyes were failing badly in hiding the question she longed to ask.

Will you get me hurt again?

No matter how much time has passed, she wasn't ready to blindly trust him. Not after what happened on her first mission.

"We'll watch." He hissed after a short pause. She could see his jaw faintly quiver as if he was holding himself back from saying more, and it made nothing but power her anxiety.

Cutting the questioning short, Max grabbed her upper arm roughly and dragged her in.

The first thing that hit her was the array of intensive odours. There was the cigarette and marijuana smoke, an undertone of what she believed to be piss, and a pinch of chemical smell she couldn't quite place. The longer they were inside, the harder it became to keep her stomach from turning inside out.

Her eyes cautiously scanned the room. If she was to judge by the little of furniture it held, it was living room with something that might have resembled a kitchen unit, at some point of time, situated in its corner.