Page 3 of Antihero (Tregam’s Fractured Souls #3)

But here, now, it could be the noise this woman made, or it could be the slight blush that pinks her cheeks as she decides whether to leave immediately.

It’s certainly not what she’s wearing- the over-bleached shapeless shirt, the canvas pants, and the cream rubber gumboots of the cleaning crew.

She's got a bucket in her blue-gloved hands. “I didn’t realise anyone was in," she’s stammering. "I’ll come back later…”

“No.” I shrug to let my shirt fall more comfortably and grab my worn paperback as I walk towards the door. “I should go have lunch in the dining hall anyway.”

Maybe it’s the scent of her while I briefly look down on the top of her head as I pass, like citrus soap. I like shorter women, too. Whatever the reason is, suddenly I feel a familiar tugging low in my belly, something like excitement, and my gaze lingers too long.

She gives me a soft smile, a flash of large grey-blue eyes, and her cheeks pink again.

I leave. Her jacket is hanging outside. I glance back through the door as she sets her bucket down.

Her back is to me. Her honey-coloured hair has frizzed around her face with the humidity, and she wipes at her brow with the back of a gloved hand, blue and shiny with bubbling detergent.

I don't know why I do it. Force of habit, maybe. Sticky fingers are hard to keep clean.

I slip my hand into the pocket of her blue polyurethane jacket, which has 'Property of Eternal Light' stamped on the inside.

I come out with a ring crowded with a dozen keys, and remove one of three identical ones.

It would surprise you how many people keep their 'spare' keys with their mains, and I assume it’s the same case here.

I figure it can’t hurt to have a key to the asylum. Not for anything untoward.

Just in case.

***

I see the cleaner more after that day. Like she's always been there, and I just wasn’t looking until now.

It’s not even just her looks; although she seems prettier each time I catch sight of her.

There's just something about her, like an aura, even when she's doing something as simple as dusting cobwebs.

I can't put my finger on it, and I certainly shouldn't put a finger, or anything else, anywhere on her.

We exchange looks and smiles over the next week or two.

I know I'd be an idiot to take it any further than that. I do nothing as contrived as being shirtless when I know she’s coming—even if I long to hear her make that noise again, to give myself just that bit of satisfaction.

To take something for later, when I'm feeling cooped up, and exercise isn't diminishing my frustration.

When I go to leave my room and let her clean, two weeks from the day she started haunting my waking hours, she asks what I'm reading. I turn back in the doorway. "Uh, just something from the town library." I flip the book to check the cover. “‘One Hundred Years of Solitude'.”

She smiles, ducking her gaze. Her hair is thick and wavy, and pulled back into a taut braid, though the walk up here seems to have tugged frizzy strands free.

"The library. I've read every book there.

I'm afraid if you stay here long enough, you'll find they don't get new books often. But that’s a good one. "

The book is old and worn. Maybe by her. "Well," I smile. "I suppose I ought to read slower and savour it."

She laughs, looking at the floor as she does. I finger the pages, not sure what to say, how to speak to her for longer, and why I want to. She seems much too innocent, too pure, for something like me.

"I'm Paige, by the way," she says. I already knew that, had spied it on her name badge pinned to the shapeless white shirt. Paige M.

I open my mouth, but a noise in the corridor that I’m half backed out into draws my attention.

The main security guard for this ward—a tall guy named Declan—who should be doing the circuit patrol, is instead standing in the my neighbour's doorway.

He seems to tower over the small, skittish woman named Beth.

He's casual, leaning on her doorframe, arms crossed like he's got nowhere in the world to be.

Beth has pressed herself as far back as she can into the opposite side of the frame.

Her hands clutched white-knuckled over what looks to be some sewing.

"Come on. Why don't you knit me some socks or somethin’, huh? A little thank you for keeping this place so safe."

She clears her throat, but her voice still doesn’t strengthen. "I can’t… "

The psychiatrist, in her neat black pencil skirt and a binder under her arm, appears at the nearer end of the corridor, her small heels clacking on the tile floor. Beth's eyes widen in something like relief as Charlotte comes level with her and gestures her ahead for their appointment.

“…John, isn't it?”

Coming back to myself, I realise I've been staring off into space while Paige stood there waiting.

“Uh, yeah.” I clear my throat, stepping back out of the room, more conscious than ever of not crowding her like some predator. “I'll leave you it.”

Turning away, I leave with the impression that she wanted to say more.