The loud pounding on the shop’s door downstairs woke Orlando and had him sitting up in his bed. He waited for a moment because he thought maybe he’d been dreaming. The sun was just beginning to rise, so it was still fairly dark out. It was nowhere near time to open up the shop. That couldn’t be a customer knocking. When he didn’t hear anything else for too long, he lay back down with a groan.
Once awake, there was no way he’d be falling asleep again, damn it. Still, he closed his eyes in an attempt to sleep in just a little longer. It wasn’t until a few moments later as he lay there in vain, trying to catch some more Z’s, that he heard it. A tiny whimper. He opened one eye and listened intently for a few moments longer. Nothing.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered, bringing his pillow over his face.
It was the only thing he hated about his place. His apartment sat directly above the auto shop he and his two best friends owned. While it had everything he needed and was in close proximity to several bars he frequented, it was in the middle of a commercial district, not in a residential area. So, when it wasn’t delivery trucks or street-repair crews making noises early in the morning, it was people from store-top apartments like his own nearby, walking their dogs.
He heard the whimpering again of what he assumed was someone’s annoying little dog tied up while they went into the coffee shop across the street or something. With a grunt, Orlando swung his legs off the side of his bed and sat there for a moment, yawning. He was seriously going to have to consider what his friends had begun to suggest: that he invest in a real home, especially now that business was taking off. He’d need the write-off, and bringing women back here was beginning to feel like he was sneaking them into his place of work. Technically, it was his place of work, but he was a grown-ass man who was part owner of the shop, not some horny kid using the upstairs living area at his job to get laid.
The whimpering started up again, only this time it sounded different—closer. He almost ignored it as he got up on his way to take a leak when something clinked loudly at his window, making him flinch. “What the . . .?”
He turned to the window, walking toward it. Remembering the pigeons that sometimes made themselves at home just outside his window sill, he frowned, ready to shoo them off, until he saw an actual rock this time hit his window and bounce off. Rushing to the window now, he pulled the blinds all the way up and caught a glimpse of someone hiding just around the corner of the building across the street.
Whoever it was. ducked out of sight quickly when Orlando pulled the window open. He hadn’t been able to make out whether it was a girl or a guy. They’d worn a hoodie that covered most of their face.
“Hey!” he yelled out, after glancing down at the good-sized pebble that had landed on the awning just below his window.
It was then that he heard the whimpering again, and it was closer than he’d thought. It sounded like it was coming from directly below the awning, but he couldn’t see because of it. “Someone down there?”
The whimpering turned into crying—a baby crying. Confused, Orlando glanced around, up and down the street, but saw nothing. It was early, too early for even the coffee shop across the street to be open, so it wasn’t coming from there.
He peered out at the corner where someone peeked around again but ducked back out of sight when they saw him look up. “Hey!” he yelled out again. “You throwing shit at my window?”
There was no response, but then he saw it. Whoever had hidden just around the corner of that building was still there. The tip of a shoe stuck out at the bottom of the building’s corner.
Rushing around his room, Orlando slipped on his jeans and his running shoes without socks, nearly falling in the process. He grabbed the bat he kept by his bedroom door and started out but then remembered. He darted back to his nightstand and grabbed his beanie, put it on, then rushed out of his room and down the stairs on a mission.