Magda heard the man’s thoughts before she saw him, and she only had a split second to react before the bullets hit. They should have killed her, but stopping them takes no more effort than stopping her mother’s knife. It’s playing dead and looking convincing that’s the hard part; it takes everything in her power not to fall apart on the spot. She sings to herself in her head until she hears him leave and his thoughts shift away from her, but she lays on the bathroom floor for another five minutes for good measure. Either that, or she’s too numb to get up.
She doesn’t remember forcing herself upright, nor does she remember pulling out the flip phone that Beth had given her with shaking hands and dialing the number that she’d gotten from Sam. But the next thing she knows, she’s doing just that. It must be instinct, because she knows there’s only one person in the world who’s willing to listen to her. She can’t even cry; this must be shock, maybe. Or something. God, someone’s tried to kill her twice— three times, if you count the poisoned stew— in the past 24 hours, and she feels like she’s going to throw up the half a bagel she forced herself to eat at the bus stop.
It feels like an entirety before she hears the phone pick up on the other end, and the sound of it is the most wonderful thing she’s ever heard. “S-Sam?” she manages, her voice small and far away. “I...I...there was a man, and he...he tried to kill me.” // @exblccdjunkie ♥’d (for magda)!
