CHAPTER ONE
GOOD AUGUST
IS A FUCKING NARCISSIST
“You’re an absolute fucking narcissist, August Blackthorne!”
“I’ma fucking narcissist?” I scream right back at my phone. “Have you seen your hair lately?” I pause for Jon to reply, and when he doesn’t, the silence—that sinking feeling of being alone—stabs a reminder into my heart of why I’m calling him in the first place.
I need his help.
Badly.
I force myself to calm down, drawing in a deep breath to get control. “Listen, I’m in trouble and…”
Still nothing.
Such a void-like nothing that my stomach clamps in outrage. “Did you just hang up on me?”
I wrench the phone away from my ear, every muscle in my arm ready to smash the thing when I see that blank screen. But it’s a champagne-pink finish, and I can’t afford another one.
All that energy has to go somewhere, though, so I simultaneously clench my fists, stomp my foot, and make aweird screech-shout sound, before yelling at the top of my lungs, “Fuck you, Jon!”
Then I slightly recoil when I hear a mother, a few metres away, scolding her son into crossing the street away from me.
His big blue eyes are open double wide, locked onto me as she carries him along while he protests, “But that man said the f-word!”
To which she hurriedly whispers, “Don’t make eye contact!”
Because yes, I’m standing in the middle of the street at nine a.m. on a Thursday morning, screaming at my ex over the phone like a madman. And maybe I look a little rough. A lot rough. But with good reason.
He was there again this morning.
My stalker.
You know that feeling when you’re being watched? That was me fifteen minutes ago. Sound asleep, but then the sensation of another presence nearby ripped me into reality. It felt like a demon sitting on my chest, that sense of danger. My eyes flicked towards the window by instinct, and there he was—a dark shape, obscured by shadow and the thick lace curtains my landlady insists are just as good as the blackout blinds she won’t let me install. But it was him.
Until now, the guy’s mostly been poking through my mailbox, stealing clothes off my line. He’s followed me home a few times. But this was the boldest he’s been to date.
Clearly he scared the shit out of me, so I sat up and yelled something very decisive and threatening like, “Hey!”
I thought it did the trick because he ran. And I ran to the window, searching for him.
No sign, for about one minute.
I was just deciding whether to call the cops again when I heard it. That scuff of boots echoing off the concrete just outside my front door.
I knew it wasn’t my landlady. Thursday morning is mahjong day for her. She never misses it. Sure, it could have been someone else, but…
The door handle. No knock, no announcement—he went straight for entry. I watched it swivel, heard the sound of it rattling. Then it stopped.
I was bolted to the spot, my pulse hammering in my ears.
I know what to do in an altercation. Rule number one of self-defence: run.
Yet even as the thought occurred to me, I stood there watching, hoping that lock would hold—that he’d give up and go away.
Then came the gentle clang of metal on concrete. Did he have a knife? No… It was softer… It was…
