fredbassett

“Still fucking raining,” muttered Stephen. “If it’d only stop long enough, I’d go for a swim.”

“So swim in the rain.”

“I’d get wet!”

Ryan rolled his eyes and went back to the book he was reading.

A door slammed somewhere in the building.

A few moments later, a woman’s scream split the air.

“Management?” Ryan was on his feet in an instant, following his lover out of the room, adrenaline coursing through his system. It was like coming alive again and it felt good. “Management?” There was no reply, and he held up a hand to Stephen in warning.

The entrance door flapped in the wind, like a bird with a broken wing.

Mocking laughter drifted down the stairs. “Scream all you like, lady, there’s no-one around to hear you.”

“Someone’s just made our day,” grinned Ryan. The scream turned to a painful sob. The grin vanished, and the two men took the stairs at a run, bare feet soundless on the carpet.

The would-be rapist would never know how close he’d come to being hauled through an anomaly and fed to the nearest pack of raptors, but both men decided that it wouldn’t be worth the griping from their former colleagues so Ryan contented himself with tossing the unsavoury specimen who was menacing their Management out of the window. It was quite a tall building, and the patio slabs did not make for a comfortable landing. And he was certain that Norman from Maintenance had plenty of spare glass.

Stephen wrapped an arm round the shaken Duty Manager’s shoulders.

“I’ll deliver matey down there to the nearest cop shop then beef up the security round here,” said Ryan.

The Duty Manager shot him a grateful smile. “Thanks. He might have followed me home, but I’m sure as hell not going to keep him.”

Stephen looked out of the broken window. It had stopped raining, and the perfect arc of a rainbow curved across a now cloudless sky. He fished a handkerchief out of his pocket. To his surprise, it was even clean.

Maybe there was a point to their current existence, after all.