And there it was, the shadowed silhouette of a man.
Standing by the end of the bed.
My blood ran cold. The air left my chest. My feet became concrete blocks.
He stared at me. Not moving, just staring. I couldn’t make out the details of his face and yet I had the vague, terrifying notion of seeing him before. He took one slow, purposeful step forward. My body shuddered. A scream rose but got trapped in the back of my throat. Only a whimper escaped me. The moonlight caught his eyes. Not eyes, I thought, at least not like any I’d ever seen—these were like black tunnels, long-buried warrens of decay. The gorged holes seemed to look right through to the depths of my mind. Claws, sharp as scythes, morphed from his fingertips. Teeth distorted to razors.
Not man. Not even beast. A shadow of a man. Living death.
A sickening horror swept down my spine.
Whimpering, my breath rasping, I stumbled back. My throat let go. I screamed …
I jerked awake and sat up. Sweating, heart pounding, mouth as arid as a desert plain, I searched the room frantically. Crimson light from the car park lights bled through the curtains. There was the low-line cupboard, the vague lump of my bag, the solid shape of the bathroom vanity. Theclosedwindow. The room was barren of grim reaper figures.
I was alone, in bed. Not standing by the bathroom. Not about to die some terrible death. It was just another nightmare. I swore under my breath, rubbing my hands over my face and my heart rate slowed. I twisted my head to look at the clock, which read 1:59 a.m. Too early to rise. I huddled back under the sheets, listening for anything dangerous. The room hummed with silence. Slowly, the nightmare faded; it was just a dream, just a heinous dream. Like all my dreams. Nothing more than abhorrent hallucinations from the darkest reaches in my head.
From the bedside table, my emerald ring captured a glint of red light, like a beast’s eye.
Chapter 5
Jigsaw Pieces
For a moment after I woke up, I lay still, eyes closed, listening for the sound of Tom’s breathing. I wanted to believe that if I rolled my head to the side and opened my eyes, he would be there. His lips slightly parted, his chest rising and falling, the soft glow of the morning light kissing his handsome face. He would open his eyes, reach out, and pull my body to his.
He would murmur, “Good morning, beautiful.” He would kiss my lips, then my neck, and then he would nibble on my earlobe. I would shiver and sweep my fingers down the ridge of his back, trailing them over his hip. His groin would stir against mine.
A door slamming jerked me out of the fantasy. Reality, a cold slap to the bittersweet memories. That was the life I’d finally allowed myself to believe would be mine. The life that had been ripped away.
There’d be no happily ever after for me. I was deluding myself into thinking there would be. Not for a jigsaw piece that didn’t fit into anyone’s puzzle.
I dragged in a shuddering breath and knuckled the dregs of sleep from my tired eyes. A weak film of primordial light bled inthrough a crack in the curtains. I squinted at the alarm clock. It was 5:30 a.m.
I couldn’t keep running forever, but I couldn’t stay in the place I’d called home for so many years and have my heart ravaged every time I saw the love of my life and the girl who was supposed to be my best friend. Besides, I had nowhere to stay. No one to go to.
Yawning, I clambered out of bed and wandered, head down, in a sleepy daze to the bathroom. I stopped abruptly inside the door. The bathroom looked exactly how it had in my dream last night. A sheer veil hung over the window. Okay, I could see that from my bed. But the shower... the shower was exactly as I’d pictured it. It was in the far corner, over the top of a small bath, the white curtain yanked back. The showerhead drip, drip, dripped.
I knew why almost immediately. The motels I’d spent the last few nights crashing in all looked remarkably similar. The bathrooms were a near replica of this one. I turned on the shower taps and the pipes groaned in some kind of orchestrated protest, but the water pressure was strong and hot.
Eventually I climbed out and wiped the mist off the mirror with the side of my fist. The face staring back at me was pale and drawn. My eyeballs were a latticework of red. The green irises lacked luster. Wet brown hair hung limp on my head, as if it, too, had given up on life. I ran a brush through the long, thick strands and brushed my teeth, grabbed a clean white T-shirt and denim jeans out of the duffle bag, and got dressed. After slipping my ring on, I hoisted the duffle bag over my shoulder and left the room as a mantle of iridescent orange quivered over the mountaintop in the distance.
The morning air was crisp. Puffs, faint as wraiths, misted out of my mouth, then simply vanished.
Poof, gone without a trace. The words materialized inside my head, sending a cold chill down my spine.
I didn’t hold the conviction of those who claimed to prophesy the future, and I lacked any type of sixth-sense ability—the shock of catching Tom in bed with Kelly attested to it. But for reasons I couldn’t quite fathom, the notion stirred something uncomfortable inside. Like all passing thoughts, it flicked in and out at lightning speed, and it was dismissed so fast it barely registered.
I climbed into the car, my gaze snagging on my phone where it sat in the console. Hesitantly, I picked it up.
Amy, please, please call. I know I did the wrong thing. I know you’re hurt, angry, and you have every right to be. Don’t keep ignoring me—please just call me. I love you with all my heart.
Tom had tried to call three times last night. He’d tried to call numerous times every day since I’d left. He’d left long rambling messages about how much he loved me, about what an awful mistake he’d made.
“Sorry” was the most overused and overrated word in the entire world. “Sorry” couldn’t remove the image of his body thrusting into Kelly’s. It couldn’t delete their moans scorching my ears. And it certainly couldn’t fix a heart smashed into thousands of irretrievable pieces.
“Fuck you, you fucking ass,” I muttered, stabbing the back button.
The next message was from my sister, Nerida:Call me.
