“Like how I haven’t told anyone that you broke into my house?”
I turn and run down the hall for my room and he follows, getting in the door before I can close it behind me. I grab my phone from the bed but he rips it from my hand and tosses it into the hall. He stands by the door, blocking my way out.
“This isn’t what you think. Don’t panic,” he says, trying to reassure me after chasing me to my room and throwing my phone into the hall. So reassuring. “I’m here because I love you.”
“You’re sleeping with my cousin,” I say. “In fact, where is she right now? Did you kill her too?”
“Adrienne? No, I only reached out to her to get a better feel for your life. It was research for my story. She doesn’t understand.”
“So you’re using her?”
But he’s done talking about Adrienne. “I’ve been watching you. You’ve been miserable without me. Drinking too much, throwing yourself all over these boys. Adrienne says the blond one from the gallery makes you cry. I would never do that. He doesn’t know you like I do. I can give you a better life than he can.”
“Is that why you’re killing my exes, then?”
“I’m not a killer, Sloane. I mean, look at me. Do you really think I could kill someone?” He motions up and down his body.
“Then you’re having your wife do it for you,” I say.
“My wife? Kate? I haven’t talked to her since she walked out on me. It’s you I want. Seeing you yesterday, hearing your voice, I just had to see you again. I needed to make things right. If you take me back I’ll be better, I’ll change. Just read the story I wrote—you’ll know how much you mean to me.” He comes closer until I’m backed up to my bed.
“I don’t want to read your story. I want you to get out of my apartment, you fucking psychopath.”
I try to push him away but he catches my wrist, bringing me close to him. “Maybe you just need a reminder,” he says, grabbing the back of my head and pulling me in for a kiss. I try to yell and push and kick.
“Sloane?” I hear my name from the open front door.
“Asher!” I scream, and he comes running. Miles turns as Asher walks into my room, and hits Miles square in the jaw. He throws another punch, and Miles falls to the ground. But he doesn’t stop there. Asher winds back over and over and I think he may actually kill him. It’s years of pent-up rage at the hands of an abusive father. I wonder when he looks at Miles right now, is it really Ben that he’s seeing? “Asher, that’s enough! That’s enough!” I put my hand on his shoulder for him to stop and he looks back at me long enough for Miles to get up, broken and bloody, and run out of the room. I grab Asher’s arm before he can run out after him. “Just let him go,” I say.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No,” I say. “I have to call Grange.” I push past Asher to get my phone in the hall. Grange doesn’t answer so I leave a message saying Miles just forced his way into my apartment and assaulted me. Hopefully that’s enough for them to arrest him and get a warrant to search his place.
Asher goes into the bathroom to wash his bloody knuckles and I stand in the doorway watching in silence.
“I’m staying over,” he says. “And tomorrow we can go back to not speaking or whatever it is that you want.”
I don’t fight him on it as he takes up residence on our couch next to the front door. I go to my room and get into bed, but I can’t fall asleep. I have a feeling neither of us can.
When there’s a knock on the door the next morning, I hear Asher answer it.
Annica’s voice booms from the hallway. “Well, you’re not who we were expecting.” Two sets of boots walk in.
“I thought you weren’t talking to her right now?” Asher says.
“Oh, Sloane’s going to talk today,” Annica says. “She’s going to do a lot of it.”
I sit up in bed as I hear them coming down the hall.
Dani peeks her head into my bedroom door with an apprehensive “Hey.”
Annica shoves past her into the room and tosses her phone at me. On it is a photo of me and Detective Grange outside the police station last night posted on PC’s gossip page. The caption reads “PC’s Sloane Sawyer seen being taken into custody by Boston PD for multiple murders.”
“No, no, no.” I shake my head as I read it, scrolling down to read the comments, and there is no shortage of them.
Elianna551:Isn’t this the girl who screwed her professor and got him fired?
DukeFan40:Nah it’s the girl who got a DUI for being over double the adult legal limit after leaving Sig Chi
