“I wouldn’t go out that door if I were you.” A voice stopped her just as her palms touched the metal handle. She turned, meeting a pair of grey eyes. They were housed in the thin, handsome face of a man with a mop of unruly hair, sharp cheekbones, and full lips. He was dressed in a grey janitor’s jumpsuit. She had never seen him before.

“Because the door has an alarm?” she asked.

“No,” he answered. “Because I just came in that door and if you’re the woman that’s been in the news the last three days, I think the people outside are there for you.”

She sighed, frustrated, and added in a desolate tone. “Thanks for the warning.”

She started down the adjoining hallway when the man called to her.

“If you need help, I can get you out of here.”

Persephone was skeptical. “How, exactly?”

The corners of his lips lifted, but it was like he had forgotten how to smile.

“You’re not going to like it.”

CHAPTER III - A TOUCH OF INJUSTICE

CHAPTER III - A TOUCH OF INJUSTICE

He was right. She hated it.

“I’m not getting in that thing.”

‘That thing’ was a tilt truck full of garbage.

She was wrong when she said she didn’t want the smell of oil and piss. She’d take it, so long as it didn’t mean bathing in rancid trash.

The janitor led her to the basement, a trek that had her feeling uneasy and clutching her apartment keys tight. This is how people are murdered, she thought, and then quickly reminded herself that she watched too much true crime.

The basement was full of various things—extra furniture and artwork, a laundry room, an industrial kitchen, and a maintenance room where she stood now, staring at her ‘get-away vehicle’, as the man had started to refer to it.

He seemed pretty amused now.

“It’s either this or you walk out the door,” he said. “Your choice.”

“How do I know you won’t wheel me into that waiting crowd?”

“Look, you don’t have to get in the cart. I just thought you might like to go home sometime tonight. As for me outing you, I’m not really interested in seeing anyone get hurt for their association with the gods.”

There was something in the way he spoke that made her think he’d been wronged by them, but she didn’t press. She stared at him for a moment, biting her lip.

“Okay fine,” she grumbled finally.

The man helped her into the cart, and she settled into the space he’d created for her.

Holding a bag of trash aloft, he looked at her questioningly.

“Ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Persephone said.