“Who is it?”
He recognized Fiona’s voice on the other end, barely. “Kieran. I brought you something.”
There was silence for a few beats too long, and he grew anxious. He shifted from one foot to the other before pulling his phone out of his pocket and texting her.
K: I need to see you, flower girl.
Another few seconds went by before the door finally buzzed and he grabbed it, moved inside, and bounded up the stairs two at a time until he reached the top. The small hallway had four doors in it, leaving him unsure of which was hers until one on the right swung open. Fiona stuck her head out, then stepped fully into the hallway and closed the apartment door behind her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, glancing around nervously, her voice low. She was trying to smooth her hair, which was in a messy bun at the back of her head. She blushed deeply when she saw him looking, and her bright pink cheeks made her only more attractive to him.
“I brought some soup for Shea, because you said she was sick. Isn’t that what friends do?” he told her, holding up the bag for her to see.
“Oh.” She looked hesitant for some reason, maybe even sad, before glancing back toward her closed door.
He frowned, feeling like he was missing some part of the equation. “Is everything okay?”
“Um, yeah. It’s just been a hard day. I didn’t mean to encourage you to come here with our texting. It was just nice to be in touch with someone else today. It’s really not a good time for you to be—”
A loud scream came from inside the apartment, interrupting her attempt to brush him off. Fiona blushed even harder, not looking back at the door.
Kieran stood taller with alarm, staring at the wooden door behind her. “What’s going on in there?”
Her eyes went wide as he strode past her. “Nothing!”
Fiona tried to stop him, but he just ignored her hand on his arm as he turned the doorknob. A high-pitched shrieking hit him the moment he entered, and he turned back to see Fiona wringing her hands nervously.
Placing the soup on a table by the door, he stepped farther into the apartment and took stock of the situation. The small apartment was completely covered in scraps of paper. It looked as if someone standing in the center of the room had just ripped apart several reams of paper and tossed the resulting confetti in every direction. It was hard to tell what else was going on, with paper covering so much of the small space.
Fiona began to pick things up, tidying everything, but the frazzled look on her face told him this was too much for her. Something had happened here that she didn’t know how to fix. He understood now why she had been trying to push him away tonight; she clearly was hiding something.
And he wasn’t going to leave until he knew that both she and Shea were safe.
“Where’s Shea?” he asked, concerned about the child’s safety. Honestly, it looked like someone had ransacked the apartment.
“In our room.” Fiona pointed toward a small hallway at the other end of the apartment.
They share a room? Pushing aside his dislike of her tiny apartment in a treacherous neighborhood, he stormed back to the bedroom to find Shea. Opening the bedroom door, he found the little girl sitting on the bed with her hands covering her ears. Her legs were folded up so her knees were pressed to her chest, and she was rocking back and forth. She was muttering something he couldn’t understand, then screaming intermittently. The bedroom, thankfully, was not in the same state of disarray as the rest of the house, although the bed was unmade.
“Shea! Are you okay?” He approached her slowly, his hands up in his best nonthreatening stance.
She started screaming again and rocking faster, keeping the distance between them.
“Kieran, please.” Fiona stood in the doorway, a mixture of fear and embarrassment on her face.
“What’s going on here, Fi?” He turned to her as he tried to figure out what the hell he’d just walked in on. He hadn’t meant to yell at her, but it was impossible to be heard over Shea’s screaming any other way.
Fiona motioned for him to follow her out of the bedroom and back into the main room. The screaming was still obtrusive but not as deafening.
“Seriously, Fiona. What’s happening right now? Why don’t you look as shocked as I do?”
“Because this is normal for me. This is my life, Kieran.” She sighed, fidgeting with her hands again. “I don’t know what’s wrong. She ripped up a few of her notebooks, wouldn’t explain anything to me. She’s been like this all day, and she won’t let me near her to figure out what’s wrong.”
“You’ve just let her scream all day?” Kieran gaped.