Lotus Lily Angela Chandler

she heard footsteps behind her, been absolutely convinced at one point that she was being stalked, and had made the trip down the last block at a clipped powerwalk with her keys clenched between her fingers, thinking Southpaw Man, Southpaw Man, Southpaw Man.

But she had reached the station safely, mingling among the night shift commuters unharmed. She had looked up the street before descending the stairs underground, and all she had seen had been a homeless man, staggering across the street toward the bar on the far side.

She sucked in a breath between her teeth, first resisting the urge to turn and look again, and then giving into it, turning her head very slowly over her right shoulder so she could see him, across the aisle and three rows back. He was still asleep; his face had slid a little down the pane of the bus window, pulling up the top lid of his eye to reveal a crescent of cornea. His breathing was still slow — and in his lap sat a whole, unmangled hand. She was about to turn around again and scold herself for being stupid when her eye fixed on his right arm stuffed into his coat — hiding the hand. Or maybe the lack thereof.

A flicker of real fear had begun to take the place of paranoia, and she desperately tried to place his face, to determine if she had ever seen it before. It was hopeless; she hadn’t seen the face of the hobo that night by the subway, and who in Neon Palms paid attention to the faces of the homeless anyway?

Vagues, but what if that was it? They said the Southpaw Man had a glam, something that kept him safe from notice until he was right behind you, but why would he need a glam when every Neonite worked so hard not to see vagrants by choice that it eventually became a second nature? A homeless person was the only type in the city who never looked out of place, and as a result never drew any special attention.

Her heart ran cold for over half a century, but she felt as if it had lodged itself in her throat, and when the old woman across the aisle gave her a curious look, she turned stiffly to face the front of the bus again, fear crawling on her back like a skittering insect. She was safe — she had to be. Who could look less like a monster than she did? Middle-aged, middle-class, pretty but not quite beautiful, quietly articulate and modestly dressed — there were tens of thousands of women just like her in this city, and to think that she might be suspected of anything so far-fetched was ludicrous. The homeless man was human — foul-smelling, but undoubtedly human. She had nothing to fear.

The homeless man snorted, then belched, face sliding a little further down the pane. If he was pretending, he was very good, and she tried again to convince herself that she was being silly. She shut her eyes tight and tried to clear her mind. She wasn’t such of a much as perception went, had never been all that potent even among her own kind, but her senses were still keen, and with concentration she could call upon them — could hear the quiet rasp of his steady breathing. And the steady thrum of his heart, thud-THUD, thud-THUD.

Too fast. The man’s heart wasn’t just clipping along, it was racing, and all at once she was in a paroxysm of terror, absolutely certain of his identity. Certain that she was trapped in a bus with the Southpaw Man, and that there was nothing she could do. Cry out? Make a scene? No, she would look like the aggressor, with him feigning sleep so artfully back there, and even if she didn’t simply provoke him into pouncing on her immediately, she could be detained, and he could just wait in some alley for her release. Ask to be let off the bus, go somewhere crowded? She’d give away that she knew, then, and he might simply follow her. No matter where she went, it would close eventually, and she would have to leave — he’d just have to lie in wait.

Home. She would have to go home, exactly as she had intended — she had a gun in her closet, and once she was inside she could call in at Paradisco. If she said the Southpaw Man was outside of her house, the Union would be at her door in minutes, and he would either be caught or driven away. If the latter happened, she would just appeal to Angelo to relocate her. It would cost her a few more years’ indenture, but she could cope with that for peace of mind. Yes, there — that was a solid plan.

But the last fifteen minutes of the drive felt like an eternity, constantly aware of his slow breathing and dark polecat odor somewhere behind her, and it took all of her willpower not to run off the bus the moment the door was open. She walked slowly, forcing herself to look absent, natural, and preoccupied, and when she reached the curb she even took a moment to glance at her watch — in reality, glancing over it at the bus window, where the homeless man was apparently still sleeping, his breath visibly fogging the window. He stayed there, unmoving, even as the bus door closed and it began to pull away with a shriek of gears and exhaust. She watched, nonplussed, as it chugged on down the street and turned into the adjoining avenue and out of sight.

And just like that, he was gone. Swept out of her life, and after another minute of standing she had to make herself turn in the oth-