The group of guys that we worked with noticed and cracked jokes. They’d call me soft and said I hesitated where I shouldn’t.
I let them continue to talk shit about me behind my back.
It was easier than explaining that any aggression toward someone who I felt was innocent, felt like betrayal.
The truth was simpler. I was scared of who I’d become if I let myself forget.
That was why Chloe rattled me to the bone.
Not because she fought back. But it was the way she looked at me. The way she flinched at Dante but sought me out for the smallest bit of safety.
She wasn’t her. I knew that. Everything was different and yet, every time she looked at me, the past fluttered through my mind.
Sleep deprivation begins to take over and my eyelids flicker shut, ending the rampage of past memories.
Chapter Eight
Chloe
? Before theevents of the Prologue. ?
The house felt wrong before anything actually happened, and I hated myself for not trusting that instinct sooner. You know the movies where the girl stupidly doesn’t realize there’s a killer in her house until she’s stabbed because she makes excuses like,Oh no, I must’ve left the window open or the door unlocked. It was the breeze from the wind.
I strive daily not to be one of those girls, yet here I am.
I pull the nightgown over my head, the thin black cotton settling against my damp skin from the shower. Dadis on a work trip until further notice, so the house is quiet and still, other than my movement.
I glance over at the back of the chair in front of my vanity. I could’ve sworn that I left my towel draped over it before going back to the bathroom to do my nightly skincare routine.
But oddly, it’s not there.
What’s even odder is that the lamp light that sit’s on my end table is turned off, even though it was on moments ago as well.
I think for a moment that maybe the power has temporarily gone out, but my TV is still lit up on the wall across from the bed.
I search the room and see no movement or anything else that seems to be out of place, so I decide to take a few steps toward my lamp to turn it on.
That’s when I hear movement. It’s subtle, but there.
It is the unmistakable noise of something brushing against the floor behind my closet door.
My stomach drops into my ass and I feel slightly queasy.
I turn in the direction of the closet as my pulse throbs in my ears.
I don’t have my glasses on, so I can’t make out things that are too far away unless they are illuminated. The familiar shapes of the house blur together and are fully drenched in shadows.
I take careful and slow steps towards the closet door,praying to God that I don’t open it to find some serial killer or stalker behind it.
With my father’s position as a New York State Representative, it’s naïve to think we won’t ever draw the wrong kind of attention.
I place my hand on the handle, trembling with fear and adrenaline.
My anxiety makes me want to recoil from the door and chuck myself through the second story window of the house onto the pavement outside instead. At least I’d be away from the possible serial killer out there.
Dead, but safe.
My hand shakes as I shakily grip and turn the handle, tightening my hand around it enough to pull it back in one swift motion.
