Too Late: Day 9

 Word Count: 54,010

Summary of Events:

Amarina's mum talked to her about her no longer attending school — owing to the increase in bullying from the shaving foam attack — and surprisingly didn't urge Amarina to go back to school, but recommended she spend that time working. Callan was able to have a conversation with Amarina that involved no profanities, but left him feeling troubled when she declared that his promise to help was meaningless because he was a man. Amarina headed home from work, but was stopped in her tracks when she saw the monster outside her house, so she hid in the entry hall of the Highbury flats. Callan arrived home in a deluge of rain and, after shaking excess moisture off his umbrella, startled to see a young woman in the entry hall . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

He’d hardly ever seen someone in the hall before, and thus stared at her for a long moment, taking in her appearance.

Her hair was the colour of milk chocolate, her complexion was light — but not pale — and her face had a lovely sculpture to it.

She was wearing a lightweight green raincoat over black clothes that looked like what a waitress might wear, complete with the rather comfortable, dark-coloured shoes, and was looking toward the doors that led inside.

“Excuse me,” he said.

It looked like she flinched before looking at him somewhat warily.

“Are you here to see someone?” he asked.

“No,” she replied, looking away.

Callan nodded and fished out his keys.

“I’m just getting out of the rain,” she said.

He halted in his advance toward the doors further in. To get out of the rain.

The song. He looked over his shoulder to see she’d turned her head to look toward the doors that led outside.

Could this possibly be the little ant? He couldn’t help wondering.

Regardless, she was pretty, and she looked ill-equipped to go anywhere with the rain bucketing down like it was outside.

He felt badly that he looked a little unkempt, he was actually developing a shadow of stubble on his jaw that made him look like Da without the few grey hairs at his temples, which was a little bit strange as far as he was concerned.

“Do you need a place to stay?” he asked.

“No,” she replied, not even glancing toward him.

If it kept bucketing down like this Callan wasn’t sure that she was going to be keen on spending the night on that bench, which had no padding — nor did he suspect that his fellow residents would altogether appreciate her doing so — and he certainly didn’t want her to be forced out into that deluge.

“Well if you do, owing to the weather, you can buzz me,” Callan said. “It’s zero two seventeen.”

She gave a bit of a curt nod, and he wasn’t altogether sure that he really blamed her; they were strangers.

Too, he was probably being foolish if he thought that young woman was, in fact, the very same one who’d been leaving notes about Islington suggesting that she was depressed and verging on suicidal.

Still, he did have hope that she was.

Nonetheless, he unlocked the doors and let himself inside before making his way to the stairs and up to his flat.

If anything, it would be rather uncanny if the little ant lived close enough to Highbury to shelter in its entry hall in the midst of an intense deluge.

But was it? He’d found the first lyrics in the midst of the old pitch. Surely it wasn’t unreasonable for her to live nearby.