Okay, breathe. Breaaathe. BREATHE.
Every terrifying thought I could possibly conjure up flooded to the forefront of my mind. The main one being that the man from the bar somehow managed to stalk me home.So this is it, this is how I die.I was going to be murdered in my home by a greasy man in a pinstripe suit; I was going to be murdered in front of a cat that wasn’t mine, and because I couldn’t be surethat he wouldn’t feast upon my dead body, I was sure my crime scene would be tainted, meaning they would never catch my attacker and?—
Ugh, how fucking cliché.
My eyes darted from the triple lock and the chain latched on my door to the small digital clock sitting next to my coffee machine.
3:41 am.
Not an appropriate time for visitors. I pulled out my phone to see if either Esme or Isaac had texted but my last text from Isaac was when he was drunk on Halloween and my last text from Esme was at 10:27 pm. “RewatchingShe’s All That.I’ll take Freddie Prince Jr. with a side of fries any day!”We were very much in agreement on that.
The same rhythmic knock sounded from the other side of my door again. Okay, maybe they had the wrong apartment. That was a logical conclusion, right? Someone in the building was having a late-night booty call, and they had just mistyped the number, and now whoever it was, was banging on my door instead of theirs and?—
The knock was getting forceful and more irritated by the minute. And with that, every alarm bell began to go off in my body like I was a fucking church. I did everything in my power to stay silent as I crept over to my kitchen and pulled the only knife I owned out of the drawer.Bread knives have the power to maim, right?
Mortimer jumped up on the counter behind me and began to meow aggressively. “Oh my god, do you want to get us both killed?” I hissed, grabbing him before tiptoeing into my bedroom and throwing him onto my bed. The look he gave me was part rage and part betrayal. “You do not have permission to feast on my carcass,” I growled before whipping around to face my door at the end of the hallway.
I shuffled forward slowly, listening to the way my blood rushed in my ears. I swallowed down the vomit, which was halfway to my mouth, before peering out the peephole.
I clutched the knife in my hand a little tighter, keeping the “What the fuck?”that I desperately wanted to scream quiet as I continued to peer at the man standing on the other side of my door.
Tall.
Broad Shoulders.
Red Hair.
What the fuck is he doing here? First of all, how does he know where the fuck I live? Second of all, what in the fucking fuck? Not only was this a massive invasion of privacy, but if this was some weirdly strange attempt at being romantic, it was falling on deaf ears.
I punched 911 into my phone, blessing the technology gods for allowing me this one reprieve to type it in correctly the first time before taking a few more steadying breaths. The last thing I would allow myself to be was a statistic, a news reel, or another tragic story of a young woman lost too soon.Not today motherfucker.
I cleared my throat and spoke in the most authoritative voice I could come up with in my current state (I most likely sounded like a teenage boy going through puberty with the number of voice breaks I suffered). I was wearing tiny celestial patterned shorts and a matching vest and my fluffy Birkenstocks. My legs had all but goose-fleshed, and my knees were about thirty seconds from giving out completely. I told myself I was the pinnacle of intimidating, anyway.
“Who are you and what do you want? If you don’t leave, I’m calling 911.”
The broad man on the other side of the door stiffened before standing up straighter. He must have been at least 6’4 or 6’5and towered well above the peephole of my door. His jaw seemed clenched in response to my threat, as if any other sane person wouldn’t do the same.
“What the fuck do you want?” I repeated, anger shrouding any fear I currently felt.
“I was summoned.” Oh God, this man needs to be institutionalised. He wasn’t all there. Why was I even bothering to converse with him?Call the police, Quincey.
But I didn’t. Call it a lack of self-preservation. Maybe it was his unbelievable attractiveness or fiery red hair; either way, I just stood there. Bread knife in one hand and phone in the other, a cat’s persistent meowing as the theme tune for whatever the fuck was currently going on.
“I didn’t understand what you meant by that yesterday, and I still don’t today, okay?” I spoke through the door with a curt voice, or at least I tried to. Although the door was deadbolted and double locked, I could still feel my breath hitch in my throat.
“You…” I heard him snarl from the other side of the door. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
“I’m telling you, I’ll call the police if you don’t leave.”
“Call them. They won’t make it to the top of these stairs alive,” he snarled through the door. What the fuck does that mean? He could not possibly think he could take on multiple officers, could he? I mean, he was tall, clearly worked out.Probably had a chest that rippled with muscle…
Jesus, Quincey, the first crush you’ve had in years and it had to be on a psychopath.
I had no idea what to do. This was one of those situations you never really thought about or prepared for because you never thought it would happen to you. And then it did, and you were left wondering why you never played it out as a real-life scenario before you took your last breath. I stepped back awayfrom the door, giving it a wide berth as if the further I got away from it, the safer I was.
“Did you follow me home? Why are you here?” I pleaded, panic seeping back in. “Please, I just want you to leave. I won’t call the police—I won’t tell anyone you were here, I swear. Please just leave.”
I stumbled into theMalediction Codex,still lying on the floor, which almost sent me flying into the new yucca plant I’d just had delivered. I picked up the book and placed it on the breakfast bar before looking over at the door again, too afraid to step closer.
