What Kind of Man || Jim Moriarty

Five

As the front door slammed shut behind her, Lucy had to tell herself to take one last deep breath to calm her shaking hands. Her coat was messily thrown on, her handbag hung by her side and the eye make up which had been neatly applied this morning was smudged and water damaged.

She had done just as Samuel had said after he had hung up on her for the second time. She had stood, ran back upstairs where Mrs Samson had become unconscious, found the gun and wiped it down using her cleaning supplies. She did the whole thing before dropping it back on the bed, not knowing where else to put it. For a moment the idea of making it look like a suicide and placing the gun in Mr Samson's hand crossed her mind; but she decided against it. Samuel just told her to get out, so she did. She returned to the ground floor, put her coat on, picked up her bag and left.

But as soon as she got to where she was now, on the front step of the Samson's house, the air had hit her hard. Lucy stuck to the spot and she struggled to keep the tears at bay. She had to leave, she had to get out of there. Now.

Lucy raced down the stone steps, throwing her bag up on to her shoulder, and out through the iron gate. Her aching feet carried her down the street faster than normal, but she wasn't paying attention to her surroundings. Cars drove past her and each time her head hung lower to the ground, hiding her face. Lucy just wanted to be home, in her bed and asleep. She wanted to go back to this morning and never get up. But that wasn't possible was it? She had to get on with it, and it would help if she would stop being so jumpy and stressed.

She had shot someone...yes...well no...she had shot two people. People she worked for...people she stole from. Stole. Oh fuck.

Stopping dead in the street, Lucy's hand went up to her neck and her fingers instantly found the thin gold chain she had secured there earlier. Her other hand went over her mouth as a sob escaped and she stumbled back a few steps. She had just wiped her fingerprints off a gun to try and hide the evidence linking the crime to her, yet there she was fleeing the crime scene with the stolen property still fastened around her neck. Lucy looked back down the street in the direction she'd come from and frowned, it was too late to go back now. She could risk returning the necklace or she could risk keeping it. She didn't know which was the greater risk, but knew that if she returned it she would have to spend time cleaning her DNA off that too.

Lucy set off down the street again, this time even quicker, hugging her coat around her tighter and higher in an attempt to hide the necklace. She didn't feel comfortable going for the tube. But when she reached the station, she forced herself to hold her head high and walk confidently down the stairs and onto the platform.

If was funny. On any normal day she could have sworn not one person batted an eye her way, not even a glance from a mere toddler in a pram. She felt like a nobody. Just drifting through life with the odd drunken guy hitting on her or the odd stranger asking her the time. But now. Now it felt like she couldn't even stand and wait for her train without everyone watching her every breath. She would look up and feel like all the other people on the platform had just looked away, like they were judging her and knew what she'd just done.

She had never felt more dirty, as if the blood was quite literally on her hands.

She managed to keep her head down for long enough however, choosing to stand right by the door of the train once it arrived and being the first to jump off when it rolled into her home station. It was only a short walk to her small apartment, five minutes tops, and when she climbed the stairs and was finally able to shut her front door behind her...she broke.

Lucy sunk down to the floor right there in her living room, hands coming up to cover her eyes. All the possible outcomes from here on out just kept swirling around her head and behind her eyes. She could see herself getting taken away in under an hours time, officers banging at her door, her parents being contacted. It was all straight out of a nightmare.