A cold sickness crawls up my spine as my fingers tighten around my coffee cup, the ceramic threatening to crack. I can’t help it, I keep looking at the stain, at the obscene, filthy marks left behind. My pulse hammers in my ears, louder than myshallow breathing. Whoever did this… if they think they can smear themselves on my world, press their filth against my glass and watch me choke on my own fear, they have another thing coming.
If they think they know me.Níl tada ar eolas acu.(They don’t know a damn thing.)
However, I feel… curious. I hate that I do. I knew I was being watched. That crawling itch along my spine, the heavy breath I swear I’ve felt on my skin when I close my eyes at night. Now I’m certainit’s him.Mr. Piercing Green Eyes.
My thighs squeeze together at the mere thought of him, the image of those eyes locked on mine, devouring. I can almost feel them now, dragging across my skin the same as a rough touch. I can't decide if I hate it or crave it. I bite my lip and heat coils low in my belly. It’s wrong and shameful, still the more I tell myself to stop, the more my mind wanders back to him.
Disgusted with myself, I shove the thought aside and stomp back inside to grab a bucket and a cloth. I can’t be this woman. I’m not some helpless thing who lets herself be marked and watched like prey.Cad é an diabhal atá cearr liom?(What the fuck is the matter with me?)
Angrily I set my cup down on the counter, harder than I meant to. The tap hisses and spits when I turn it on, the bucket filling too slowly for my liking. My mind isn’t here. It’s still stuck on my stranger’s face and the weight of his presence that lingers like a bruise I can’t stop pressing. I hate how it burns beneath thesurface long after it should have faded. Worse than that, I hate that a part of me, a secret, treacherous part, wants more.
With the bucket in hand, and a cloth slung over my wrist, I step back outside. Half hoping the filth on my window would have vanished and that it was just a sick dream. However, it’s there, brazen, and obscene. Is he leaving his scent to mark his territory?
Something furious twists low in my gut. I stand frozen.
Clang.
The bucket crashes to the ground, water sloshing over my feet. I can’t do it. I should scrub it away, but my feet won’t move. Every fibre of me screams,clean it.But, my hands stay at my sides. If I wipe it away, does that erase the truth? Does that make me clean or just blind?
Would you believe I nearly killed a woman today? An innocent, soft-spoken old lady who trusted me to keep her safe, to heal her. I handed her the wrong medication, watched her lips part to thank me, then I froze.
My mind wasn’t on the job. It’s never really on the job anymore. It’s somewhere else, tangled up in Croía. In the twisted heat that coils through my veins every time I think about her. When I realised my mistake that the pill could stop her heart. I didn’t panic. Not at first. No, what terrified me most was the thrill that slid down my spine like a lover’s whisper. The idea of ending her.An chumhacht ag crónán i mo mhéaracha.(The power humming in my fingertips.)
Thankfully I caught myself in time, forced a smile, snatched the pill back with a muttered apology about pharmacy errors. I saved her, but the truth is, I didn’t know if I really wanted to.
As soon as my shift at the hospital ends, I find my feet dragging me straight to Croía’s house, as if I don’t even get a choice anymore.
No more hiding though. I tell myself I’m going to make myself known to her this time. No more shadows. However, the closer I get to her door, the more my resolve bleeds out through my sweat-slicked palms. My heart is hammering so hard against my ribs it feels like it wants to tear free.
Each step feels like I’m wading through mud, thick and heavy with every shameful thought I’ve ever buried inside me. I keep trying to rehearse it in my head. How I’ll say her name, how I’ll explain myself. My mind goes blanks the second I imagine those blue eyes slicing through me. I push my hands into my pockets to hide the tremor and force my feet forward, my breath hitching in my throat until it burns. I can taste the copper of my own panic on my tongue.
Fuck it. I’ll just have to wing it and say what spills out when I see her face to face.
The thought alone feels as if I’m swallowing glass. I want to run, but I want to knock. I want to kneel at her feet and beg her to see me, to really see me and never look away again.
I’m full-on sweating by the time I reach her house, drips trickling down my back, my palms slick and useless. The place is darker than usual tonight. The windows look like hollow eyes staring back at me, empty but somehow watching all the same. It forces me to slow down and scan the shadows, listening for anysign I’m not alone out here. There’s nothing. No movement. No flicker of a light or hint of her behind the curtains.
Still, I force myself up the steps, scraping every shred of courage I can find from the bottom of my rotten insides. I knock, once, twice. Hard enough that my knuckles sting.
Silence.
Doubtful, I knock again, harder, the sound echoing down the empty street as if it’s a threat. Still no answer. After all this, all this fever in my blood, this reckless hunger boiling my veins, she’s not even here. I press my forehead against the door for a second, my eyes squeezing shut, breathing her name as though it’s a prayer that sticks to my tongue. This is my luck. I finally drag my monstrous longing into the open and the only witness is the cold dark wood of her door.
Part of me wants to wait, the other part wants to break the lock and slip inside. Just to be near her warmth, even if she isn’t here to know it.
Hesitant, I slip my hand into my pocket and feel the familiar weight of my Swiss army knife. The disappointment I feel doesn’t last long, not when the thrill begins to hum through my bones again. It can’t hurt to take another look inside her house, can it?
Not second guessing anymore, I flick the blade open and kneel at the lock, my breath steadying as muscle memory kicks in. The soft click is a small triumph. Before I take a step, I open the latch, the same as last time. Just in case I need to disappear quickly.
Inside, the dark swallows me whole. The air feels colder than it should, as if the walls themselves are holding their breath. I slip my phone from my pocket, thumb the flashlight on, and sweep the beam through the hallway and into the living room.
Tá rud éigin difriúil.(Something’s different.)
Studying the shadows, I freeze at the threshold. The furniture has been moved. Everything has been pushed back against the walls, leaving a wide-open circle of empty floor. My pulse trips over itself as I step in, careful not to scuff the floorboards.
Awareness floods my veins as I scan my light over the rearranged room. There’s nothing obvious; there's no symbols carved into the wood, or candles burning low. As I creep through the room, my phone’s beam catches on something thick and coarse hanging on the wall. Rope. A heavy coil of it, looped and knotted in a way that makes my gut twist. However, before I can puzzle it out, I follow the line upward with my eyes as a sudden snap cracks through the silence like a gunshot. I jerk my head up just in time to see a shape falling from the ceiling, too fast to dodge. The net strikes with the force of a storm, pressing me down, tearing the fight straight out of my lungs. Heavy cords drop over my shoulders, tangling around my arms and neck.
Panic claws at my chest as I stagger backward, grabbing at the mesh. My fingers fumble for any knot or break, but it holds tight, the mesh burning against my skin as I struggle. My breath echoes and my hands shake causing my phone to tumble from my grip and spin out across the floor, throwing wild shadows over the walls.
