The Trap Springs

Julia — First-Person POV

By morning I had stopped pretending I was going to sleep.

I sat in the chair by the window with my knees drawn up and the city doing what cities did at four in the morning — keeping its lights on, moving its nighttime people through its nighttime streets, entirely indifferent to what was happening in an apartment on its upper floors.

Ava didn't want to hurt me quickly.

The thought had arrived somewhere around two in the morning and had refused to leave. It had the specif