Of course, that's what I thought, positioning myself between the van and the road we came in by.

I'll be honest, there's nothing more freaky than realising you're not alone. Hearing movement is one thing, but footsteps are pretty obvious when they happen. As soon as I heard the sound further down the road I focussed on it, listening hard until I knew for certain where they were coming from. A rather tall and gangly man wobbled around the corner, moving in a wide zig-zag that probably doubled the amount of distance he covered.

I didn't want to stare at him but it was honestly really hard not to. He was massively drunk, to the point I could smell him even at this distance, dressed like he had just been in an explosion and with hair so oily you could wring it out into your engine.

It was painful, all I could do was wait for him to stumble and crack his head on the pavement or just black out face-down in the gutter.

I tried my best to seem professional, keeping up straight and confident, like I was meant to be there and nothing was going on. Easy.

“Y'allright mate!” Oh God. The drunk hurled himself at me, arms flailing and almost knocked us both over. “Sorry mate, sorry sorry sorrurgh...” He made an ungodly retching noise and somehow made it back onto his feet.

That was when I managed to get a look at his eyes. They were clear, way too sharp for someone that drunk. We made eye contact for a split moment before he started stumbling off again

I kept my eyes on him again, this time watching for a phone or some kind of signal to an unseen accomplice. The guy stumbled out of the cold light of the floodlights and seemed to vanish in less than a second, just blinking out of existence like a bad video edit. Yet another reminder that a lot of things were going to be different now.

“Cowell! Are we good?” A call came from somewhere behind me, the driver had gotten back in the van and had parked a little ways down the road. I gave one last look at where the man had vanished into the dark and turned to head for the passenger's side door.

“Roads are clear, but be careful. Just had a guy pretending to be pissed pull a vanishing act on me.”

The driver nodded, pulling up to the junction. I pointed out the direction the guy had gone and the driver went the other way.

The journey was made in cautious, nervous silence. I'm not sure if it better or worse that nothing happened, I felt like whoever was out there should have just gotten it over with.

We ended up in the nicer end of town, at the base of a luxury block of flats.

“Fancy.” I admired the smooth black glass facade shining from the street lights. “What are we picking up?”

“Dropping off.” The driver pointed to the glove-box. Inside was a small brown envelope with my name written on it.

“What's this?” I opened the envelope and inside was a small silver key. Something clicked in my head, looking between the building, the key in my hand and the driver, who just smirked at me.

“All yours, mate. Your stuff is already there.”

“You're joking.”

“Look I gotta get going. I'll pick you up here tomorrow, yeah?”

“Uh, yeah sure.” I stepped out of the van, still reeling.

The inside of the block had a wide common area with sofas and a vending machine at the far end and elevator doors lining the walls. Golden white tiles contrasting against a dark wood trim. This place looked more like a hotel lobby than any block of flats I had ever been to.

The key came with a little note, a number telling me what room to head to. I almost bounded into the lift, tensing my jaw to hold back an ear-to-ear grin, the whole time turning the key over and over in my hand. Somehow, given everything I had done today this felt the strangest.

It took me a few moments to work up the nerve to actually unlock the door and holy crap this place was incredible. White pastel walls with black marble trims, a huge lounge area with an actual proper kitchenette and a dining table made from wrought iron and glass. Black leather sofas and a coffee table that looked like Scarface should be doing lines off it.

The bedroom had a huge king-sized bed with a duvet a foot deep. The shower room was one of those Italian-style ones rather than a nasty little plastic phone booth.

And it was all mine! I stepped up the window with the biggest grin of all my life. Finally, I was getting somewhere. No more taking orders from insane middle-management, no more mopping up grease stains.

Watching the sunrise from up here felt great, looking down at the slowly waking city. That's when I caught the distinct smell of burning. A pain shot across my hand like somebody had just set fire to it. I jumped almost a clear foot into the air back from the window clutching my wrist and swearing.

The sun! How had I not thought of that?! I threw the blinds across, biting my teeth together. Words can't do justice to how painful that was. I had thrown myself into traffic before, falling off a motorbike and breaking two ribs at forty miles-per-hour was less painful than what had just happened.

What was worse, was how it looked. In less than thirty seconds my hand was now a disgusting grey colour with the skin coming away in flakes. I quickly grabbed my phone and sent a message to Jason.

>just burned my hand what do I do?

>sunlight hit me

How bad is it?<

>hurts like hell and looks nasty

Does it look like burned wood?<

>no more like old meat

Then you're fine, it should heal on its own.<

Get some cold water for the pain.<

>thanks

So I was stuck indoors for a day. That sucked. Oh well. At least I get to be stuck indoors in luxury compared to my old flat.

Still flexing my stinging hand I headed for the kitchen and dug out some ice from the freezer. I was honestly pretty surprised, I was expecting this place to be entirely unfurnished. But it was fully set up and ready to go, with all my stuff already here. Hell, they'd even wired up the games consoles to the TV. It was a hell of a thing, all that accomplished in under twelve hours.

I snatched up the TV remote and just hit the on button, leaving it to fill the air with the noise of whatever channel it was set to while I dug through the freezer for some ice.

The familiar over-the-top tones of the news filled the silence.

“Good evening, I'm Francesca Bryce and this is your news update for 7am.

Aidan Humphries was found dead just a few hours ago, a victim of what police are calling a 'malicious animal attack'. Mr. Humpries had numerous well-known connections to gang violence, though the investigating officers have yet to say whether or not his death is connected to the recent spates of gang-warfare throughout the Manchester area.”

Aidan Humphries. The poor idiot. He had no way of knowing what he was dealing with. Hell, even I didn't know before he grabbed me.

I shook my head and changed over to a music channel. It was done now, nothing I could change about what had happened.

The pain in my hand faded away to a constant sharp throbbing. It was vicious, felt like it was coming from inside the bones of my palm. I held a block of ice in a balled-up fist and tried to focus on something else. 

On that note. Holy hell being stuck indoors waiting for night to fall is boring. There's only so many movies you can watch before you get sick of it. At least this would help me catch up on my backlogs. 18 hours sounds like a long time on paper by damned if it doesn't feel even longer when you're just trying to kill time.

But what I was dwelling on was the fact that I didn't feel tired or hungry in the least. By now whatever adrenaline I had left had completely gone, so that wasn't keeping me awake. I just straight-up didn't feel the need to sleep. I had probably been up for something close to thirty hours by now.