Page 77 of So Thirsty

“Do you have his number, or was it in the phone that you threw out the car window?”

She opens the curtain. “There’s a chance I didn’t think that through.”

The man has moved closer to the motel, but he’s keeping his back to us. He wears a sweatshirt, hood up.

“Why is he walking backward?” Naomi asks.

I close the curtain. “They like games. What if they’re playing some weird cat-and-mouse game? What if they let us go so they could chase after us?”

Truth or dare.

“They had that guy locked in the basement. What if they torture people? What if that’s their thing?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she says, opening the curtain. She screams.

He’s at the window. He’s right outside.

He turns around.

It’s Ilie.

“Hello, loves.”

I close the curtain, check the dead bolt.

“What do you want?” I ask him through the door.

“We thought you might be thirsty,” he says.

Naomi and I look at each other. We are thirsty. So thirsty. But this doesn’t sit right with me.

“Why did you follow us?” With the aching in my throat it’s difficult to shout through the door.

“You don’t want to stay, but it is not good for you to be on your own,” he says. “You get those guys.”

“What?”

“Those guys. You get three guys. Second one very bad.”

“You’ve been watching us,” I say, clutching Naomi’s arm. Her expression is unreadable.

“Not the whole time,” he says.

Naomi laughs, and I smack her leg.

What? she mouths. That’s kind of funny.

They watched us murder, I mouth back.

She cocks her head.

“They saw us murder that guy,” I whisper.

“May I come in?” he asks. “I have a drink for you. To share. We got from hospital, not from human. Well, originally it came from human. They gave it on purpose. Not for this, but…”

“Leave it at the door,” I say, pinching my throat.

“You don’t want to hang out?” he asks.