Reality wasn’t far away anymore. It was all too real and too close for comfort.

I still saw—and heard—that poor schmuck hitting the ground. The concrete by the pool. The whispers about him afterward fueled my insomnia day in and day out. Murdered in cold blood for seeing and saying things he wasn’t supposed to.

My second dead body was the man I interrogated and ultimately killed by proxy. He was in my company, and he betrayed me, my dead mother, and my company. The sound of the knife stabbing into his leg echoed on repeat like a busted record. Brent tried to save me from the sight of him in the sheet, but I looked at him nonetheless. Asphyxiated, he turned blue underneath the clear sheet. They didn’t hide him well enough from me.

The toilet bowl was my only solace at night. The cold porcelain kept me numb enough while I dry heaved again and again.

The knocks on the bathroom door didn’t even bother me anymore.

Knock, knock. “You’ve been in there for twelve hours. You have to come out at some point—even for some water.”

He was right. I looked at my empty water bottle that I hadn’t bothered to refill. Instead, I locked myself in overnight and took what sleep the bathroom floor would give me. It wasn’t much, but I’d take what I could get.

Knock, knock. “Are you even alive in there?”

I heard faint whispering behind the door, and someone fiddled with the doorknob. The lock wasn’t an impossible task to pick. The key was even above the door frame. They probably didn’t want to bother me until morning.

When I didn’t come out, they started knocking.

A new, twisted part of myself wondered if they thought I killed myself in here.

What would they do if I did?

The door opened, I didn’t turn to see who came in. It wasn’t Kelly—she had been gone for a while, and we all knew why. All my texts were unread and unanswered. What I wanted to know was why and what was going on with her. I saw the suspicion on everyone’s face when she was brought up or when they knew I was awaiting a call or text from her.

There were only four regular people that frequented my house: Dave, Brent, Reaper, and James. None of them knew what to do with me, how to help me cope, or come to terms with my new reality.

I thought fighting dirty business was the worst of it, but I felt like I was dealing with some secret society. In a sense, I was. I never knew about the international black market trade deals or how close to home they were.

“She’s alive,” Reaper announced.

I looked at him from the floor in a fetal position. Must have been a sight to behold.