Keys jangled.
Romeo opened the door just as Chad was leaving the front.
“Chad!”
Chad ran to his car and flung open the door.
Romeo pursued, but Chad took off, leaving Romeo behind.
“What the hell...”
He yanked his phone from his jeans, and tried calling Chad, but he didn’t pick up.
“Damn it.”
He took a step towards the outhouse before remembering he no longer had the car.
Chad’s car faded until Romeo could no longer see it on the horizon.
Chad had gone.
Chad had left him.
And the darkness inside of Romeo grew and he couldn’t ignore the monster’s snarl.
It seethed, it spat and hissed at the rejection, infuriated at how easily Romeo could be hurt.
He’d given Chad too much power over himself.
And it was time to change that.
****
Romeo found himselfsitting at the kitchen table with his phone within reach.
Broken plastic glinted at him from the tiles from where he’d smashed the clock, driven mad by the constant beat of time.
The sun had gone down long ago, and he hadn’t got up from the chair to switch the light on.He waited in the darkness, not knowing what he was even waiting for.
His texts and calls had gone unanswered.
The camera footage offered little clues.
It recorded Chad’s crazed rush to the car, and him taking off at breakneck speeds.
On the third watch, Romeo noticed something scrunched in Chad’s fist, but no amount of zooming into the image could reveal what he held.Romeo had glared at the pixelated squares of something clutched in Chad’s grip, but he hadn’t unearthed the mystery.
Nothing was out of place in the living room.Chad had set up the TV ready for the next episode of the Spanish crime drama Romeo enjoyed.
Romeo pressed down on his phone, bringing up the time.
It was 3:00 in the morning.
3:00 in the morning when Romeo heard the grumble of an engine outside, getting closer.It got close enough that he recognized it to be Chad’s car, and got to his feet, numbly stepping out of the kitchen and into the hall.There was ringing in his ears.He opened the front door and stepped out in time to see Chad locking the car with the fob.
The lights flashed.
Chad was halfway to the house, halfway home when Romeo grabbed him by the throat.He rushed him, slamming him against the side of the car.
