And it sounds like it’s coming from the storage/workroom.
Like someone’s in there, opening a storage drawer.
A shiver ripples through me. “Hello—” I start, but someone’s hand clamps around my mouth.
“You’re safe, but you need to leave,” a soft, vaguely familiar male voice says in my ear. “I’ll handle this.”
That’s not a shiver rippling through my body now.
That’s a full-on panic attack.
Who saysyou’re safeand means it?
No one. That’s who.
I scream against the hand on my mouth and jerk my elbow back, intending to get him in the ribs or the side or maybe a kidney, but my elbow connects with air and I’m suddenly spinning, completely free, the man gone.
There’s a crash in the storage room as the door flies open. A flashlight from inside the storage room briefly illuminates a slender person dashing through the doorway, and my brain registers what it also refuses to comprehend.
That’s Davis.Steveto my grandmother.
I think.
But what—why—oh my god.
Something crashes. Something else squeaks.
There’s a shout.
A grunt.
Glass breaking.
Call someone.
I need to call someone.
Phone.
Do I have my phone?
Where’s my phone?
Fucking dress.Fucking dress.
No pockets.
No phone.
No phone.
I rush toward the storage room, heart pounding, and arrive just in time to see the back door swing open and a dark figure dash into the night as a second figure goes flying.
But not toward the fleeing figure.
No, this person is flying like they slipped on something.
Arms windmilling.
