No One Knows Us Here(57)

During those days, Leo didn’t call again. I imagined him staring into his Mirror, waiting for me to wander by a Glasseye.

On the fifth day, the snow began to melt into dirty piles of slush piled up on the sides of the streets. I got dressed in warm clothes and considered leaving. Just a quick run to the store, maybe a coffee. The danger was over.

I was standing in the entryway, but I didn’t leave. I was hovering at the threshold. Something was keeping me from stepping over it. Leo would call. He’d send me a message: you are permitted to leave. I wanted to laugh at myself. What was I doing, letting a man tell me when I could and could not leave my own apartment? I could leave. I could walk out. I should walk out. I didn’t have to do anything he said. I didn’t have to follow any of his rules.

That was where I was—glued to the floor in the entryway of my apartment—when someone knocked on the door. No one knocked on the door unless they already lived in the building—you had to be buzzed in. I threw the door open to find a young man standing before me. He presented me with a large, flat garment box with a ribbon tied around it. “Special delivery,” he said.

He looked like Alejandro. Perfectly coifed black hair, check. Nerd-cool glasses, check. Dark-wash skinny jeans, check. He wasn’t Alejandro, though. He was taller, for one, with long fingers and smooth, well-manicured fingernails. His face was narrower, too. His nose long and thin, his eyes golden instead of dark brown. Someone had taken Alejandro and stretched him out.

“Who are you?”

“Me?” the guy said. He didn’t talk like Alejandro. Nervous, unsure of himself. “I’m supposed to give this to you.” He tried to hand the box to me again, but I didn’t make a move to unburden him. I stood halfway out the door, inspecting him.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Oh—right.” He laughed, a weak little chuckle. He really was nervous. “I’m Teddy? I’m Leo Glass’s assistant. He told me to deliver this package to you. He wants to see you, tonight.”

“Where’s Alejandro?”

“Alejandro is—” Teddy swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “I’m replacing Alejandro.”

“What?” Teddy opened his mouth to explain further, but I waved my hand in front of his face. “What happened to Alejandro?”

“I just started yesterday, so—”

I held a finger up, silencing him. Then I took out my Mirror to message Alejandro. When I clicked on my Lookinglass contacts, I was used to seeing two there. Leo and Alejandro. But where Alejandro’s profile picture—the top half of his face, from the thick-rimmed glasses on up—used to be, a new one appeared in its place. Teddy.

I took the box out of his hands. “Listen, Teddy, you’re not supposed to come up here. This is off limits, okay?”

“Downstairs was open, so I just thought—”

“I won’t tell anyone, okay? Just don’t do it again.”

I took the box from Teddy and closed the door. If it was another Leo Glass–themed jogging outfit, I would freak out. The box felt heavier than a sweat suit, though.

I set the package on the dining room table and pulled off the bow. Inside the box was the most beautiful coat I’d ever seen in real life. A black double-breasted trench coat in a soft, almost shiny cashmere wool. It fit perfectly. I traipsed through the apartment with it on, feeling the softness of the fabric. In my bedroom, I admired myself in my full-length mirror, turning around, posing. I looked like a movie star playing a glamorous detective.



“Thanks for the coat,” I said when I arrived at Leo’s apartment that evening. I paced back and forth in front of him and spun around once, modeling it. I wouldn’t mention the four days imprisoned in my apartment, all alone. I had had a lot of time to think, those last four days. The question I kept mulling over was the same one I had been asking all along: Was it worth it? I had voluntarily signed my life over to this guy who watched me with Glasseyes, who trashed my coat, who told me to stay in my apartment, or else. Or else what? What was he going to do? I didn’t know what I was afraid of, back then. I just know that even after the snow had melted, I hadn’t walked out that door.

I don’t want to think I stayed because of a coat, a brand-new cashmere wool trench. As soon as I put it on, I knew I would do anything Leo asked me to do. Sitting in an apartment for four days, had it really been so bad? He had been worried about me was all. Worried about my safety. If someone wanted to pay me to sit out a snowstorm in a beautiful apartment, I could do that. In the meantime, that apartment was a safe haven for my sister. She needed that more than ever right now. It was a way out, a way forward. The only way out and forward. I didn’t see any other way but to lie in that bed I had made for myself.

And I really did love the coat.

“Beautiful,” Leo said. He placed a hand on each of my shoulders and looked me up and down. “Looks like it fits.”

“It’s perfect.” It wasn’t exactly practical. It didn’t have to be, though.

Leo bent his head down as if to kiss me, but then it looked like he thought better of it. He stared at me and I stared back, straight into the black pools of his pupils. We stood like that, eyes locked, for an uncomfortable length of time, but I didn’t let my gaze falter. “Are you ready to take this to the next level?” Leo asked me.