My hands shook as I turned the page. It contained only one line, and I read it over and over again, unable to wrench my gaze from it.
Nicolas, are you real?
CHAPTER SIX || ELI
Two days had gone by since I’d gotten the panicky call from Sam that someone had broken into our home. I had left early—something I never did—so that I could file a police report. I also called a locksmith to get the door repaired and made it a point to speak with all of my neighbors. No one had seen anything, and the lock was as good as new, though the entire door had to be replaced.
Now, somewhere around hour fifteen of my twelve-hour shift, the words of the chart I was reading had begun to blur together dangerously. There was a fine tremor in my hands that exhaustion had put there, and I finally had to admit defeat.
The emergency room was oddly quiet for a Friday night anyhow. And my coverage, Dr. Pearson, had been on the floor for over three hours already. So there was no real reason for me to stay.
Which meant another four days of wondering if Eric was going to try to break in again. Would I get more ominous text messages? Would I continue to see things that couldn’t possibly be there?
I yawned as I trudged into the locker room to get changed into my street clothes.
I usually wore my scrubs to and from work, along with my coat and badge. But if Eric really was doing things like breakinginto my house and stealing my journal—why?—I didn’t want him to know where I worked or be able to guess my profession. As far as he needed to know, I had changed my mind and become an accountant.
There was little about my personal life in my journal to be concerned about. It was basically an homage to Nicolas.Maybe Eric would read those passages and think I was head over heels for someone else. Maybe he would give up whatever unhinged plans he had to weasel his way back into my life.
But since the break-in, I hadn’t left the house wearing anything that associated me with the hospital, and I changed back into my street clothes after my shifts—just in case he was out there somewhere, watching me.
The tremor in my hands, partially from exhaustion and partially from the unease I felt at the idea of him somewhere out there, ready to jump me at any moment, made the process of getting my combination lock open take longer than it should have. When my locker door swung open, I took a deep breath, unzipped my small black duffel bag, and fished out my clothing, which I set on the bench beside me. I stripped off my scrub top and undershirt.
I turned to grab my T-shirt. Then I swayed on my feet as another wave of exhaustion tore through me. Unease threaded through me. I hadn’t been sleeping well, either. That was on top of the crazy hours I had been putting in at work.
Was it even safe for me to drive home?
“Hmmm. You can barely stand,” said a man’s voice from directly behind me, causing me to practically jump out of my own skin. “No, I’m afraid that this won’t do at all.”
I jammed my hand into my duffel bag, pulled out the stun gun I had purchased two days ago, flicked the switch on its side to activate it, and then wheeled around, ready to drop the motherfucker.
Eric had clearly found me.
But when I turned, no one was there.
“Over here,” the man said, from across the locker room.
I glanced up and found that it wasn’t Eric at all.
Instead, it was Nicolas.
He leaned against the wall next to the door, his arms crossed over his chest. He wore a wine-colored cashmere sweater and a pair of black slacks that fit him so well they left little to the imagination. His golden-blond hair was swept back, and his eerily vivid blue eyes were fixed on me intently.
He was easily twenty feet away. How had he moved so quickly?
When I had recovered enough to speak, I managed to say, “It’s you.”
“It is me,” he agreed softly, still studying me in that uncanny, too-intense way.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Were you going to tase me?” he asked, not answering my question. His gaze drifted to the small black stun gun in my hand, and he smiled, as though amused by the prospect.
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Perhaps we should save all the kinky stuff for our second date?” His smile deepened. “After all, you don’t want to scare me off.”
It was right then that I realized I was alone, half-naked, with the exceedingly strange man from my dreams, in the deserted hospital locker room.
