Ineffable ? Joost Klein ?

When Elke heard the door open and close, she thought that Joost had let himself in.

It was strange considering he always knocked and waited for her to answer. She had mentioned that as long as he texted before hand, Joost could walk into her apartment without knocking. They were close enough to now establish this but Joost was yet to feel comfortable doing so.

Turning over in bed, Elke rubbed at her eyes. Her series of naps had made her feel better and the midday hour was pleasant to wake up to. She was all the more relieved to know that Joost had come home early. With some hours of sleep behind her, Elke could enjoy Joost's company and spend time with her new favourite person.

She sat up and grabbed her duck plushie from next to her. She reached to put it on her bedside table to wait for her to make her bed. But as it slumped against her lamp, Elke froze at the muffled voices outside her bedroom's shut door.

'Check the cupboard. He said it was in a backpack.'

'Nothing. Check the kitchen.'

Elke couldn't move. With her arm outstretched and her legs under her duvet, the girl was frozen. As her haziness cleared, Elke realised that Joost didn't even have a key. She had locked the front door before she got back into bed that morning.

What she had heard at her front door wasn't Joost letting himself in at all. It was someone breaking in, only there was no mighty crash of them kicking her door down or breaking the lock. And the worst thing of all was that they were looking for the money that was in the back of her car.

All Elke could do was panic. Her shaking hands yanked the duvet to the side and her first instinct was to look to the window. The street continued in its life of city cyclists and delivery drivers. No one had any idea what was going on up on the 4th floor of the apartment building.

She would never survive the jump. There was no escape out of her bedroom without being seen. She knew there was two of them and that they were men. Elke would stand no chance against them if they were violent or aggressive. She had nothing to defend herself with. Elke was hopeless.

It was only a matter of time before they checked the bedroom. In a moment of desperation, Elke flattened herself against her pink rug. She crawled underneath her bed, thanking her past self for hoovering under it before she found the money. The footsteps bounding towards her door made her shimmy faster but paused to grab her phone from her bedside table.

Just as she retracted her arm back under the bedframe, the door opened.

Laying on her front, Elke could see the two pairs of shoes from beneath her bed. She watched in horror as they paraded around her bedroom like it was their own. They opened drawers, went through her vanity, her bedside table, even picked up her plushie. A mumble was heard before Elke heard its impact on her unmade bed. The plop was too soft for Elke to feel it through the mattress but its contact was just as telling.

'Where the fuck did he put it?'

'You don't think she found it, do you?'

'Acid would have known by now.'

'Or maybe this chic is smarter than the cunt made her out to be.'

As the two voices conversed, Elke tried to see her phone screen through her pooling tears. She was terrified and appalled. She hated Roan for involving her in his poor decisions and consequences. She hadn't slept properly for weeks because of him and now, she was hiding under her bed while two strangers tore through her apartment.

She couldn't call the police without talking, alerting the men in her bedroom of her presence. It was obvious they thought she was at work with it being the middle of a Wednesday. If they found her, Elke feared what they would do to her when she inevitably gave up where the money was.