Page 76 of Terror at the Gates

She looked serene and focused.

Maybe she hadn’t heard me at the door.

I knocked on the window.

Her head snapped in my direction, eyes narrowed. Iflooks could kill, I’d be a dead motherfucker.

“We’re closed,” she said. I could barely hear her muffled voice.

Closed? No one here ever closed.

I knocked on the window again. I was desperate. I’d been ostracized by my other contacts, and this was my last one.

Her response was to blow out the candle.

“Hey!” I yelled. “I know you’re still in there!”

It was like she didn’t understand object permanence.

I dropped down from the pillar and knocked on her door. I had to hand it to her though; this lady was a trooper. It took me five full minutes of knocking before she came to the door.

She was probably close to my mom’s age, with graying blond hair. She kept it low and twisted into a bun at the back of her head, though a few unruly wisps had torn free and floated around her head.

I had forgotten her name, though it was possible she’d never given it.

She glared at me, just as angry as she had been when I knocked on her window. I couldn’t really blame her. I was being annoying as fuck, but I needed help.

“I saidwe’re closed.”

She tried to shut the door, and I tried to pull a Zahariev and shove my foot in the opening but quickly pulled it out as a sharp pain went straight to my brain.

“Mother. Fucker!” I said through my teeth, hopping on one foot as I rode each throbbing wave of pain. That was the last time I tried to do anything like Zahariev.

The woman cracked a smile before shutting the door in my face.

“No, no, no,” I said, slamming my palms on the door.“Please!”

I hated begging, and I felt ridiculous. I doubted the woman could even hear me, but I refused to give up just yet.

I slid my backpack off my shoulder and dug inside for my journal.

“Look, I’ll trade whatever, but I need some information.”

I slipped the journal under the door, open to the page with the blade. I let it stay there for a few minutes. Just when I was about to give up and take the book back, she yanked it from my fingertips.

I waited, barely breathing.

What were the chances she kept it and never answered?

I started to consider the odds pretty favorable when I heard the knob turn. She opened the door again, eyes assessing as she sized me up.

“Who are you?” she barked.

“My name is Eve,” I said.

She narrowed her gaze like she didn’t believe me, but I wasn’t about to give her my real name.

“Interesting choice,” she said. “Did your mother think it was pretty? Or did she intentionally name you after the woman who committed the first sin?”