Peter vanished completely. I went home a few days later and found our apartment almost as we’d left it when I went into labor. There were two things missing: Peter’s old military rucksack, and his guns. A lot of guns. I couldn’t afford this place, so I decided to sell most of our furniture and move into a smaller place close to my new job as a sales assistant at a ladies’ clothing shop. I never told anyone of my loss.
July 3rd, I went to bed, struggling to get some sleep in the stifling heat. The window was open for whatever chance breeze would come by, when there came a pounding on my door. Perhaps a bit stupidly, I slipped on my dressing gown and went to see who it was. I was about halfway to the door when it was kicked open. It slammed into the wall hard enough to send a painting crashing to the floor. I was too terrified to make a sound. A man stood in the doorway, his height and the light behind him casting shadow over his face, but I could clearly see the trench knife in his right hand. Its sharp edge glinted in the light that tried to make its way in from the hall. It was a clean knife, it did not look used. But the man spoke its brutal history in his posture.
It was Peter.
“Aloha,” he snarled at me. “You killed my son. Just like the dirty bitch spy you are. You killed my son to make me weak, to make me give up my secrets so you can feed ‘em to the damn Jerries!”
Peter took steps into the apartment, I felt my own legs moving as I fled into my bedroom, slamming the door shut and locking it. I pulled the chair from my vanity and wedged it beneath the doorknob.
“Aloha!” he roared. There came a thunderous crash as he began using his feet to tear through my flimsy defense. I whirled around, eyes landing on my wallet and a worn leather bag. Snatching these things, I bailed out the already-open window onto the emergency fire escape just as Peter kicked through the door. I scaled those steps, not looking back, the vibrations of the metal beneath my feet telling me exactly how close he was behind.
Overhead, lightning split the sky, revealing dark brown-grey clouds of ugly oppressive weather. I chose to go straight across the roof to the left, trying desperately to put as much distance between myself and Peter as possible. He was much faster than me, and would catch up to me in an instant if he could see me. I hid behind a water tower and went as close to the edge of the building as I dared to see if I could find a way down. A curtain of rain came down over me as I saw there was a fire escape on the front side of my building at the opposite end from where I was. Getting to it on the roof would mean losing concealment behind the tower. At that moment, I hazarded a look behind me and was just able to dodge out of the way as Peter sliced at me with his knife. I ran like hell, forgetting the fire escape.
I reached the edge of the building, sidestepping quickly to land onto some pipes that stretched from one building to the next, my bare feet slipping in the rain as I scrambled across the opening like a hunted animal. I couldn’t hear anything anymore, not with the rain and my own heart striking against my ribs and in my ears. The rooftops were not well lit at all so I looked around for somewhere to hide. As I turned again, I felt, rather than saw, a bullet buzz past my head and bury itself into the storage unit I had just passed. I ducked low and tried to peer through the rain to see where Peter was now. I hadn’t noticed his rifle on his back before, but I saw him as I still see him, standing on top of some structure on my old apartment roof, silhouetted against the gathering clouds: a dark shape with a rifle at his shoulder, eye on his target—me. I crawled on my stomach to the edge of this roof, keeping the shed between us. This building, I think it was an office building, was about 10 stories, no fire escape.
There were, however, large ledges all the way down the front. If I could lower myself onto one level, I thought I might be able to make it all the way down and eventually hide. Sensing Peter’s looming presence behind me with the promise of another bullet with my name on it, I slithered over the edge, praying I could hang onto the cut stone with my fingertips long enough to drop onto the ledge below, and not lose my balance.
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