Grabbing it, she hauled it into her lap and pulled it open, wanting to see that everything was still there. Intellectually she knew that a guy with as much money as Xavier wouldn’t want to take anything from the ragged backpack of a homeless woman, but you could never tell what some people would do.
Some people were simply greedy and saw anyone as fair game.
She didn’t have much, but what was in there was important to her. It was dangerous to have things that were precious to her, especially when she had nowhere safe to keep them, but some things she simply hadn’t been able to bear to part with.
A second pair of panties that were old and faded and full of holes, but were, at least, clean. A ragged paperback science fiction novel that she’d found in the tiny shelter library and that Tony had said she could have—she read it a lot because it was about planets and spaceships and laser guns, and not about danger and poverty and being cold and hungry all the time. She also had a magazine she’d found on the subway, once glossy and smooth, now worn and crumpled. It had pictures of beautiful houses in it and she kept it for ideas about what she’d do with her own place once she had one. Then there was the faded photo of her mother that she’d taken with her when she’d left her grandmother’s place. And finally her most precious item of all, a delicate chain that looked like gold, but probably wasn’t, with a bluebird on it. She’d found it the night she’d been attacked, right after, when she’d stumbled into the little alley she’d eventually claimed for herself, just lying on the ground. It had obviously been a necklace, but the chain had broken so now it was merely a piece of chain with a bluebird charm.
It was the bluebird she liked. Because birds could fly away, she’d taken it as a sign that one day, she would too. She’d fly right off the streets and up into the sky.
Mia slowly put her things back into the backpack and looked around again.
The room was huge—like everything in this place—with two white walls, the rest a broad expanse of windows. The carpet on the floor here was just as thick as in the rest of the apartment, but it was white, rather than charcoal. The bed, too, was white, as were the sheets and the comforter.
Out the windows, snow swirled in the air, blocking the view.
It was like being in a cloud.
Putting the backpack on the floor, Mia got out of the bed and went to the door, pulling it open and peering down the hallway. There was no one around, silence hanging heavy in the air.
Cautiously, she went down the hallway and through into the living area.
That too was empty, the windows of the living room white with snow and cloud.
Moving over to them, Mia stared at the whiteness beyond the glass. The silent whirl of the weather outside made her feel oddly disconnected from it, as if she’d been transported to another world like the one in the pages of that science fiction book.
It was weird. She felt . . . good. Which wasn’t normal for her when she woke up. Usually her back ached and her hands and feet were sometimes numb, but that wasn’t a problem this morning. If it was morning, that was.
Most of the time she woke when the sun came up, the sounds of sirens or garbage trucks her alarm clock. She was also used to sleeping lightly, in case someone crept up on her, but she had the feeling she’d slept both deeply and heavily the night before.
It made her uneasy.
Turning from the window, she took another look around the room, disturbed by the silence.
Where was Xavier? And what was she supposed to do now?
She wanted to leave as quickly as possible, because the longer she stayed here, the more difficult it was going to be to go back to the streets. Yet, she couldn’t leave because her clothes were nowhere in sight.
On the low coffee table with all the magazines on it, was a piece of paper with a pen tossed carelessly beside it. Curious, she went over and picked up the paper.
It was a note covered with a bold, black untidy scrawl. She could barely read the words and had to concentrate hard to make sense of them.
I have to go out. Don’t worry about your clothes, they’re being cleaned. Eat anything you want in the kitchen and watch some TV. I’ll be back very soon. X.
PS. If you leave with my robe, I’ll be very unhappy.
She frowned at the paper. The last bit was probably a joke, but she couldn’t quite tell. Sure, she wanted to leave, but obviously going out into the snow in only his robe wasn’t a good idea—even she knew that.
Putting down the paper, Mia looked around again, marveling again at the whole place. The thick carpet, the massive windows. The white leather couches and the sleek shelves, the banks of electronics and the flat, black expanse of what must be the TV on one wall. He’d said something about the controls last night, but she had no idea how to work them, not when she could barely use a computer.