Insect fear

Oakland was only a few blocks away. Ryn found the apartment and cut a circular hole in the window with one fingernail. She popped the lock and seeped into the room’s shadows. The urine-and-mold stink saturated a bare mattress. The hum of a refrigerator and computer fan didn’t quite drown out the skitter-clicking deluge of bed bugs in the shadowy parts of the walls. They moved at once, poured from the ceiling like grains of sand, but left a neat ring of clear space around Ryn. They sensed death on her.


Chapter 4, Page 56