Rose's Point Of View
The floorboards in my apartment had this annoying, rhythmic creak right by the radiator, and I must have stepped on it a hundred times in the last ten minutes.
Creak. Turn. Step. Step. Creak.
I was pacing so hard my shins actually ached, my thumbs jammed into my mouth as I chewed my thumbnail down past the quick until it tasted like copper. The metallic tang should have stopped me, but I couldn't. My body needed something to do with all this fear… some physical outlet for the panic that had been building inside me like steam in a sealed kettle.
I looked rough. I knew I did. My hair was sticking out in three different directions from where I'd been yanking at the roots, a nervous habit I'd developed over the past few weeks. The stale sweat from the office was gluing my rumpled blouse to my shoulder blades, making my skin itch with discomfort.
