MEDICINE | alex rider

fifteen

The girl sat on her couch with her laptop on her lap, there was a brisk knock at the door which caused her eyes to snap up. Looking down at the time it read 2:34 am, when there was another knock at her door she set her laptop down on the coffee table. She got up, making sure to keep her steps light, she didn't know who it could be considering no one knew where she lived. And even if someone did, why would they be at her apartment at two in the morning.

She grabbed a knife off of her kitchen counter, when she went over to the door she looked through the peephole, the hall was dark so she couldn't get a good look at the person's face. Whoever it was was gripping onto the door frame next to them and looking down. She was reluctant to open the door, what if this was a setup? What if she opened the door and walked straight into their trapped.

But for some reason, everything in her was screaming at her to open the door, she knew she should listen to her head instead of her gut but when the figure lifted its arm and knocked again, she went against every better reason and unlocked the door, gripping the knife tight in her hand.

When she opened the door, she came face to face with a hunched over-- "Alex?" She asked, moving in to get a closer look at his face.

Alex looked up at Zarah with a grimace "Hey," was all he said, his voice was barely above a whisper.

"What the hell are you doing here?" She questioned, "But yet, how do you know where I live?"

His eyebrows raised before he winced "It was simple, I used your school email to get your IP address, and by getting your IP address I used it to track your location. Well not your exact location, I had to knock on every apartment on your floor until I found yours. You weren't joking about all those stairs."

Damn him, she spent a long time making those firewalls just for him to break them, now she would have to spend the rest of her weekend making new ones. She bet the bastard didn't even break a sweat. Alex stumbled forward and she caught him with her free hand "Are you drunk?" her voice full of accusation.

"What? No, of course not." She held onto him and that was when she noticed his bloodied face.

"What the fu-- did you get jumped?" What was the matter with this kid, who showed up at someone's door in the middle of the night all bloody? It wasn't like she hadn't had her fair share of beatings, but who would hurt him?

"No I- it doesn't matter, can I just stay here for the night and crash on your couch? Jack would freak out if I showed up all bloody again."

Again? Well, she guessed it made sense, considering what she did the last time she had seen him outside of school. She sighed before closing the door and setting the knife down on the counter "Come on." She moved his arm around her shoulder and helped him move.

His eyes locked in on the knife "What were you going to do with the knife?"

She rolled her eyes, while she kept her arm securely, yet gently around his side "I'm a girl home alone and some random person knocked on my door in the middle of the night, there was no way I was going down without a fight."

She could feel his eyes on her "Your home alone? Where you dad?"

She shrugged, they walked past the couch and down the hallway "He'll come around when he needs something." which was a total lie considering her father was probably taking a nice nap six feet under.

"How do you see where you're going? It's like pitch black in here."

She led him into her bathroom, "I don't need to see where I'm going, I know the layout of my apartment." she flicked on the light, illuminating his pale, bloodied face "Sit." she told him as she pointed a finger in his face.