Descent (Black Heart Romance presents Heaven & Hell)

As I do, my confusion grows. I glance down the hall and see the same stain on the carpet just
past my door, the same passive-aggressive note from the landlord hanging up on the bulletin board at
the end of the hall—the same sights I see literally every single day that I have lived at this apartment.
Just not my door.
I don’t really know what’s going on or what I’m supposed to do, but I desperately want to be
inside that apartment, so I try my key.
It doesn’t work.
What the hell is happening?
Did my landlord change the locks on me? That doesn’t make any sense. I’m not behind on my
rent, and even if he wanted to evict me, he would have to serve me an eviction notice first.
Marie meows and looks down. She probably recognizes this is where we live and wants to
know why we aren’t going inside, but I don’t have an answer for her.
Now that I’m looking around again, I realize the door isn’t the only thing that has changed.
There’s a black security camera in the corner that was never there before. It’s pointing in the direction
of my apartment, probably so it can see down the hall.
Oh my god.
A possibility suddenly clicks in my mind—did someone break into my apartment last night?
I guess that would explain the new door and the security camera in the hall, but it doesn’t seem
right the landlord would have handled it all without even telling me.
I pull my phone out to double check that I didn’t miss a voicemail or phone call, some kind of
message from my landlord.
I didn’t, but my battery is really low so I need to figure out what’s going on pretty fast.
I adjust Marie’s weight in my arms, then scroll to my landlord’s name in my contacts. I glance at
the battery one more time—it’s red, only 7% battery left—so I need to make this quick.
Most of the time when I call Armen about something, I get his voice mail and he gets around to
returning my call sometime in the next two to three days. Mercifully, this time he actually answers the
phone.
“Hey, Armen. This is Hallie Meadows in 804. I have kind of a weird problem. I just tried to
enter my apartment and not only is my key not working, it appears that I have a completely different
door than the one I had when I left last night?
“Is this a joke?” he asks impatiently.
My eyes go wide. “A joke? No. No, I’m the one who feels like some kind of joke has been
played on me because, in case you missed it the first time, I cannot get into my apartment.”