From Broke Technician to Luna novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: A Man With Red Eyes

By nine that night I had taken three cold showers and eaten ice from the tray with my bare hands.

I lay on the kitchen floor of my apartment in Astoria with my cheek on the tile.

The thermometer said a hundred and four.

The thermometer was also eleven years old, so I didn't trust it.

I trusted my body even less.

Every inch of my skin felt tight, and every time I thought of a pair of green eyes, the heat doubled.

Someone knocked on my door.

I got up on my hands and knees, then my feet, and went to the peephole.

A man stood in the hallway under the bad light, very pale, with dark eyes that had a red edge in them.

I had seen his face on a webcam twenty-four hours ago.

"Miss Larkin," Ansel Roth said through the wood. "I won't come in unless you ask me. I'd like that on the record."

I put the chain on.

I opened the door the width of the chain, with the mace in my free hand and the can aimed at his face.

"You hacked a security firm," I said.

"I did."

"You sent me a hundred dollars every year."

"I did that too."

"Why?"

He took a moment to answer.

"Because someone ought to remember your birthday," he said.

It was such an unexpectedly kind sentence that my aim wavered.

"You're the A.R. on the cards."

"Yes."

"How long?"

"Since you were four. The cards started when you were nine, when I was sure you'd want to read them."

"You've been watching me for eighteen years."

"Not watching. Keeping the door of the world from closing on you." He looked at the mace. "I understand the can. I'd also point out that I've had eighteen years and I've never once hurt you."

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