Holding the paper spay out in front of me, I shrieked, “Listen, dickwad! I’m armed, you hear? You come anywhere near me, and I’ll spray your ass into blind oblivion!”
My hand was shaking so badly that the target would have needed to be the size of a Greyhound bus for me to hit it. I felt like a complete moron, screaming threats like I was some kind of trained assassin. I was about as tough as any 120-pound woman in skimpy neon-pink jogging shorts could be while clutching a fifteen-dollar canister of nonlethal pepper spray. Yep, a regular badass.
Snap.
Snap.
Snap. Snap. Snap.
Olivia.
Did someone . . . Was that mynamebeing whispered?
Oh, hell no,I thought, breaking into a knees-hitting-the-chest sprint. I could feel my attacker closing in, but I didn’t dare turn around. Not until I could see the lights of the apartment complex illuminating the path to safety.
With the end of the trail a few yards away, I peeked behind my shoulder. I let out a confused yelp when I spotted a monstrous figure, then blinked and saw that the path was empty. My imagination had gotten the better of me. Had I really been so convinced I was being stalked that I’d hallucinated an attacker?
I shook my head, embarrassed over not only being so dramatic but also the terrible choices I’d made that evening. The sounds I’d heard had probably been caused by a deer and not some deranged killer. I slowed to a trot and then stopped, figuring I could rest my throbbing joints now that I knew I wasn’t going to be hacked apart.
I was gearing up the final sprint home when I heard a sound below, like dry beans shaking in an empty can. A rattlesnake was coiled a few inches from my shoe. Worse, its head was reared back to strike.
I staggered backward, losing not only my pepper spray but also my balance as I toppled off the edge of the trial and then plummeted ass over teakettle into the trees. Like loose change in a dryer, I tumbled-tumbled-tumbled into darkness, my limbs bouncing and scraping against rocks and who the hell knew what else. Whatever it was, ithurt. I came to an abrupt stop in a tangle of thorniness.
Howling, I fought against the spiky branches—or were they fingers—slicing into my flesh and ripping at my hair. I was helpless against the rattlesnake slithering down to bite me and the axe murdered coming to lop off my head. I had two choices: I could calmly extract myself from the branches and hike back up the embankment, or I could, as Nick had said about himself earlier, lose my shit. I chose the latter.
I ripped free from my splintery restraints and scrambled up the embankment, breaking into jagged sobs as I stumbled onto the trail. Thankfully, Mr. Rattlesnake was MIA. Though I was dragging broken pieces of branches that had attached to my shorts, I didn’t stop running until I reached my apartment. Had it not been for the lights of the complex, I might have spent the night lost down in the dark.
16
Ifelt kind of stupid. Once I was safely inside under lights, I realized how silly I’d been to get worked up over shadows and what had likely been nothing more than the wind blowing through the trees. There was no boogeyman lurking on the trail I’d used, unscathed, dozens of times previously.
Funny how darkness and a wild imagination can make one lose all sense of rationality. Although, it wasn’t a wonder that I was off-balance mentally, with Nick suddenly coming back to haunt me. Then there was my new decoying job, plus the vampy femme fatale Marlena, who seemed to hate me and was refusing to let me see a certain immortal billionaire I’d somehow managed to delude myself into believing I could get to love me.
Still, I wouldn’t be running at night anytime soon.
I went into the bathroom to assess the damage. My workout gear was snagged and dirty, with a mortifying skid mark of what looked like moss and mud that ran down my entire backside, from the shoulder of my tank to the bottom hem of my shorts. I laughed morbidly at the likelihood that the neighbors had seen me running through the complex that way, crying and dragging branches in my wake.
On the bright side, my wounds weren’t as bad as I’d feared. My palms and knees were skinned pink, with a few minor scrapes covered in grit on my legs. Some were bleeding, but nothing that wouldn’t heal in a couple of days. I’d looked better, but I was thankful. It could have been a lot worse.
My ponytail, which was matted against my scalp in an angry snarl, was the most upsetting. Bits of twigs and leaves were woven through the tangles, along with a remnant of a spider web. I didn’t want to think about where its maker had been hiding while I’d tussled with the thorny branches. I picked the debris from my hair and then hobbled into the shower. The warm water stung my scrapes but felt amazing on my sore muscles, so I opted to take a bath instead. I plugged the drain and dropped in a lavender bath bomb, letting out a gratified sigh as the water swathed my scuffed skin.
Slowing my jackhammer heartbeat to a murmur, I focused on breathing. I held up my hand, pleased to see that my shakes were finally subsiding. I pulled the shower curtain closed on the outside of the tub to give the bath a womblike effect. My washcloth floated at the water’s surface like a jellyfish. I plucked it from the water and set it over my face, moaning as the comforting scent of lavender filled my nostrils. Dozing, dozing.
Sometime later, I jolted awake with a cry. “Shit!”
I’d forgotten to call Michael.
In my haste to get out of the tub, I sloshed water up onto the rim of the tub, knocking shampoo and conditioner bottles on my legs. My skin was pruned and covered in goosepimples, and the water had gone tepid. I must have been really conked out. Lucky I didn’t drown, with the night I’d had.
I pulled back the shower curtain, grabbed my bathrobe, and wrapped it over my shivering body as fast as I could. What time was it? It had to be getting late. My stomach grumbled, reminding me that I still hadn’t eaten.
I froze in my tracks when I noticed what was on the mirror. Drawn in steam was a smiley face. The corners of its mouth had started to drip, giving it a blurry set of fangs. Below the face was wobbly writing:
Hi Olivia!
My heart hammering in my ears, I froze, not sure what to do. Naturally, my thoughts went to the axe murderer in the woods. What was the plausibility that he’d jimmied the front door, crept into the bathroom, and drawn on the mirror while I slept in the bathtub? I shook my head at the ridiculousness of it.Keep it up, Taylor. You’ll be sporting a tinfoil hat in no time.
More likely was that Liz had drawn on the mirror earlier and I was only noticing it now because of the steam. Skin oils could stay on glass for weeks, even months. It was, after all, asmiley face, not a murderous threat. Liz was always leaving me funny notes and sending me memes with animals dressed up in weird Halloween costumes.
