I grabbed clean underwear and pajamas before I stepped out into the lapping darkness of the great room. The forest was tucked so close to the cabin it felt like we were completely isolated from the rest of the world.
Hidden in the deepest recesses of existence.
But there was something cold about the blanket of darkness that pressed in at the windows.
I stalled out in the middle of it, my attention pinned on the glass that separated me from the outside.
A gust of wind blew through, and a chill skated down my spine.
I swore that I discerned something different in the air.
Something vile and wicked.
That thing that had been chasing me for months.
I shook off the shiver and forced myself to move. My bare feet padded quietly against the wood floor as I rushed into the spare bathroom. I shut the door, my hand on the handle, my spirittugging me back in the direction of the man I could feel in the middle of the turmoil.
Coming closer and closer.
The energy he emitted.
A tether that keened and pulled.
It swelled and amplified, and my breaths turned shallow when I heard the faint thud of footsteps coming down the hall.
They stopped in front of the bathroom door.
His presence overwhelming.
He remained there for the longest time. The moment stretching on forever.
Hesitation billowed before I felt him pull away and he continued down the hall to the room that was off-limits at the end.
Soft beeps echoed from the keypad outside it, and I listened as it was opened then latched shut behind him.
I slumped forward when it closed.
The connection broken.
I forced myself to finish drying off and redressed, then I carefully opened the door and tiptoed to the children’s room.
I peered in at their sleeping forms.
Stood in the goodness they emitted.
My mind traveled back in time, wondering how I’d ended up here. How I’d been given the greatest gifts when I was certain now that I’d been completely manipulated.
“Is it any good?”
Daisy forced herself to look up from the book she had her nose buried in, where she sat hidden in the corner of the cafe. The words her only company.
She gulped at the sight of the guy who was probably in his mid-twenties. He had wavy blond hair that was done in acasual yet stylish way. Wearing slacks and a button-down. An intrigued smile on his face.
He was good looking, she knew. She wasn’t blind, but she might as well have been with the way he was almost a blur. A hazy silhouette as she peered out through the nothingness that surrounded her. The loneliness so thick she couldn’t touch the corporal.
As if she were detached.
Floating in a bare existence.
