Shadows in the Concrete Jungle Book One: The Grey

Chapter Six

Kendra had been staring at his door for more than three minutes now.

They were on day two of their three days off, and she hadn't seen him or heard from him since she stepped through her door yesterday.

She had spent all of her first day off cleaning up her room, organizing everything into perfect places, while blaring one of the animes Noah had recommended to her, and she had spent part of today using Uber to run errands. And now she was tired, and wanted to relax, but since couldn't leave well enough alone, had decided to ask if Sebastian wanted to watch anime with her.

And that's how she ended up staring at his door. She had even gone to the cafe they had stopped at and gotten a kombucha for him, and a cold brew for herself, which she dumped into a sealed cup before tossing it into her backpack.

Her laptop had been packed into her backpack, along with the drinks, and one sketch pad with a set of pencils. For just in case, she told herself. Yeah, right. As if she hadn't been planning on taking Noah up on his offer of posing nude. She hadn't been able to stop thinking about Noah's low voice in her ear for days now, saying he would pose naked for her. So she had that intention when she slipped the pad into her bag it seemed.

But she told herself it was just to share her doodles with him.

No more stalling, she told herself, and lifted her hand to knock on the door. Three knocks would do it, three knocks were totally normal, totally normal, like how she was acting.

The rap on the door was glaringly loud, and she flinched. So much for being fucking normal.

But there was no answer, even after a minute had passed.

"Noah?" She called, knocking again. Only silence.

"Stupid, dumb boy," she muttered under her breath, furious now at herself, and at Noah, for no other reason than being flirtatious to her, and letting herself like it, and even worse, want to act on it. She was midway through turning around, when she heard a click of the door, and she froze, looking back at it.

The door didn't open all the way. Instead, it just simply popped open, and the latch rested against the striker. Very weird, and very unusual, but it was like an invitation, so Kendra pushed the door ajar just slightly.

"Noah?" she called, stepping into the foyer.

There was no response, and she took in the very sparsely decorated room. Kendra frowned. There was only the most basic furniture that every room in the HQ came with, not a single personal touch to it. No shoes in the doorway, clothes on the floor, pictures, posters, books, cups. Nothing.

She let the door close behind her, her heart ticking in her chest. Kendra knew she should not be invading his space like she was, but there was nothing personal here. She walked further into the room, past the empty kitchenette, the closed off bathroom, and into the bedroom, with a perfectly undisturbed bed sat, with only the most basic bed linens. Confused, Kendra turned away from the bed, the partially open closet door snagging her eyes, with a strange dark light glowing from it.

Just leave it, Kendra told herself, for the one second she stood there looking at it, before she pushed open the closet door, and slid open, exposing a hidden... void? Portal? She stuck her hand out to it, and it seemed to beckon to her. She had only ever heard of witches being able to manipulate space like this, but had never seen it in real life.

She would never ever admit to how stupid it was to step headlong into an unknown portal in Noah's room, but she did it anyways, and it immediately spat her out onto a hard floor, her body crashing to the ground, her left hand catching her weight, sending spikes of pain up through her arm, but leaving herself and her bag sprawling out across it, her mind spinning from dizziness, her stomach clenching. There were shouts of "Hey!" and "The fuck?!" and before her mind could right itself, hands under her arms and on her back, gently sitting her up.