I snatched my phone from the ground, turned, and bolted out of the room.
In one wild, fractured thought, I considered running out of the house entirely—but to where?
So I took the only door that made sense. Mine.
I flung it open, dashed inside, and slammed it shut behind me, locking it with trembling fingers.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SANORA
It was seven o’clock the next morning when I quietly slipped out ofmyhouse.
Ridiculous, really—to sneak out of one’s own place. But I did it anyway, stepping over creaky floorboards like a fugitive, afraid the sound might alert him.
I didn’t even risk a shower. The only bathroom was outside the rooms, and I wasn’t about to tempt fate with rushing water echoing through the walls.
I hadn’t slept a wink.
All night long, I sat by the window in my room, legs pulled up to my chest. The image of his body without a shadow—without a damnshadow—kept flickering behind my eyes every second like a broken reel. Over and over. A loop I couldn’t shut off.
I’d even unlatched the window, just in case I needed to jump if he came for me.
I’d filled the sleepless hours with a barrage of texts to the landlord. One hundred and four texts, to be exact. I counted. They started as threats, promising to sue, to expose him, to ruin him. Followed by begging. Bribery. I even offered to pay three times the rent but I got not a single response.
I went back to the site where the available rooms and houses in Nimorran were listed. I refreshed and refreshed, searching for a new place to stay but there was nothing left.
Every apartment, flat, shed, cabin, even the sketchy listings with blurry photos was marked booked. Not for a day or two. No.
For a month. All of them. At the same time.
It was when I was close to crashing out that I remembered I’d seen something when I’d been walking around town the other day. It was an old, worn-out house. Eerie and nearly broken, yes. But I would gladly take a haunted house over sharing space with whatever the hellhewas.
I didn’t remember the exact street, but I kept walking anyway.
The sky was still dim when I left, thick with that grey stillness before dawn. I passed closed shops, mist curling against their doors like smoke. A cat darted across the road, and the streetlamps flickered off one by one as the sky lightened. People began to emerge from their houses, mothers loudly waking sleepy kids, joggers with earphones in, and an old man watering a flower bed.
After a long walk and a relentless scanning, I saw the sagging wooden house, slouched to one side. The shutters hung crooked, the fence half-rotted. It wasn’t listed on any website, that much I was sure of. But nailed to a leaning post was a sun-bleached sign:Available.
Hope rose in my chest as I stepped on the porch.
It wasn’t much, but if I could pay someone to clean it up, I could survive in it for the next two and a half weeks.
I pulled out my phone, punched in the number scrawled in faded ink, and dialled.
The line clicked after a long while.
“Hello?”
“Hi. Good morning.”
“Morning.” The voice rasped again. Definitely an old man. Definitely not thrilled to be up.
“I got your number from the sign outside here. I’m guessing this is your property? Is it still available?”
There was a pause. “What’s with the sudden interest in that place?” He sounded like he was talking to himself more than me.
“Sorry?”
