6 The Walk of Shame

Lina sucked in a cold breath and paused when the young officer took the dress strap between his slim fingers.

"Your dress is torn, let me fix it."

She watched as he walked over to his desk and got a stapler.

Lina's eyebrows tightened into a confused frown when he pushed the stapler between the strap and the dress and pushed down twice with a clicking sound.

The metal staples held the strap in place, albeit in a messy way and probably ruining the fabric of the dress but Lina smiled politely and said, "Thanks."

She intended on throwing the dress in the trash when she returned home anyway; it's not like she needed a reminder of what almost happened in that cell with that disgusting man.

She followed Officer Yin down the corridor to the main entrance of the police station.

"Lina!" called Wen ShaoQing running towards her and wrapping his arms around her.

Lina stood stiff with her arms by her side, and noticed Officer Yin smirk and watch the strange embrace.

"Let's go," ShaoQing said hurriedly pulling her by the arm.

...

On the car ride home, Wen ShaoQing drove fairly fast.

Lina lay back in the passenger seat and put on her glasses.

Phew... she breathed, seeing her surroundings come back into focus.

She picked up her purse from the floor and put on her coat.

It was after three in the morning and they had work the next day.

"I'm sorry Lina, our date got ruined..." Shao spoke apologetically as they pulled up to her apartment building in the Haidian district.

Lina crossed her arms and held tightly onto her bag strap, "It's okay Shao..."

Shao rubbed her arm but she instinctively pulled away and opened the car door, "I need to go home, excuse me."

"Wait Lina!" he called from the car as she hurried away.

She ignored him and ran inside of the building, the last thing she needed was any nosey neighbors watching them.

...

She carefully unlocked the door marked 20B and slowly opened it; stepping trepidly across the living-area and heading straight for her bedroom.

"Out late?" said her annoying brother with a potent smirk on his face.

"Yanlin, get out." she ordered him, as she removed her coat and bag and threw them onto a purple chair in the corner of the room.

He laughed and rolled around on the girly bed, "Lina, Lina... coming home from a date at four in the morning... What would dad say if he knew?"

She pushed him off the bed and he landed with a soft thud on the cream carpet.

She gave him a firm, threatening look.

"It's none of your business Yanlin, go to your room because I have to sleep for an hour before work."

Yanlin chuckled, "Okay... fine, but my silence isn't cheap. Unless you want me to tell dad about your shameful entry into the house at sunrise."

Lina rolled her eyes, "What do you want?"

"I want buy a new neon sign for the store," he said studying his fingernails, "... and my buddy said he will cut me a good deal on some new merchandise from Taiwan... but I need some seed money."

Lina closed her eyes and lay on the bed. She didn't consider the mobile phone store owned by her family as a particularly good investment, but it kept her brother busy and dad was proud of him for taking the family store so she nodded.

"Fine, my card is in my purse, take what you need but bring it back."

Yanlin eagerly pulled the small plastic bank card from Lina's purse and closed the door behind him.

Lina Liang, exhaled a long breath.

She wanted to forget the traumatic day and catch at least an hour of rest.

She kicked off her flat shoes and lay her head on the soft pillow, and just as she began to drift off into a sleep...

BEEEEEEP!

Her eyes sprung open and she squinted at the treacherous alarm clock, that taunted her with it's incessant screeching.

"God!" she groaned, slamming a hand to silence the object.

....