I was curled on a stained mattress in a cramped, drafty studio apartment I had managed to secure just three days prior with my meager, crumpled tips. I clutched the kitchen counter, my knuckles white against the chipped formica. Another contraction rippled through me, this one a violent, breathless tearing sensation, vastly stronger than the last. Panic, cold and sharp, flooded my veins.
I reached for my phone with trembling hands, my thumb hovering over the contact labeled “Mom.” Just one call. Just one plea. I clicked the button, praying for a voice, a softening, a shred of the woman who used to smooth my hair and tuck me in when the thunder rolled.
“The subscriber you are trying to reach has restricted incoming calls,” a cold, robotic voice chirped.
I dropped the phone. It clattered against the linoleum, the screen cracking down the center. I was entirely alone in a dark, unfamiliar apartment, my water had just broken in a warm rush down my thighs, and I had absolutely no one to drive me to the hospital. Fighting back a sob, I dialed for a local taxi, my voice barely a whisper as I gave the dispatcher the address of the Mercy Hospital ER.
Minutes later, headlights slashed through the heavy rain, casting long, distorted shadows against my living room wall. I grabbed my soaked jacket and hobbled out into the downpour, the pain now a blinding white light behind my eyes. I opened the rear door of the idling cab and practically collapsed onto the cracked leather seat.
But as the door slammed shut, sealing me inside, I noticed the driver wasn’t looking at the road. He was staring directly into my soul through the rearview mirror.
He didn’t put the car in drive. He didn’t reach over to start the meter. He simply looked at me, his eyes dark, sunken, and unblinking.
“I’ve been waiting for a call from this address for a long time, Elena,” he whispered, the sound barely rising above the rhythmic drumming of the rain on the roof.
The air inside the taxi was thick, heavy with the smell of stale tobacco and a cheap, suffocating pine air freshener that clawed at the back of my throat. The rhythmic thwack-thwack of the windshield wipers sounded like a countdown.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I gasped out, my hand desperately pawing at the door handle. It was locked.
The driver didn’t flinch. His gaze remained welded to my reflection. I could see him clearly in the ambient glow of the streetlights flashing by—a man in his late forties, his skin weathered, a thick, jagged scar snaking up from his collarbone to disappear behind his ear. His knuckles were bone-white where he gripped the steering wheel. I noticed his nametag hanging crookedly from the dashboard: Silas.