After I tell Ulysses—in very vague terms—about the email and what happened outside the building this morning, he shakes his head and sighs. “Evianna, you should call the police,” he says as he hands me a cup of tea.
“And have them do what?” He’s a kid. A kid who lost his job because he did something stupid. He was drunk off his ass.” I blow on the steaming liquid, my fingers finally steady around the ceramic pixelated heart mug. “Let it go. If he approaches me again, I’ll call them.”
In the dark of my bedroom, the alarm blaring through Alfie’s speaker sends my heart rate skyrocketing, and I bolt out of bed, trip over my discarded slippers, and fall to the floor with a bone-jarring thud.
“Alfie, quiet mode report,” I whisper as I yank open the top drawer of my nightstand and fumble for the hunting knife I keep there. My hands shake, but I manage to unsnap the sheath.
The little gray device blinks once, then says in a muted voice, “Motion detected outside front door. Lock sensor tripped. Alarm activated. No current motion detected. Should I call the authorities?”
No movement inside the house, and whoever’s outside either ran away or is at least standing still. I take a steadying breath as I creep closer to her screen. “No. Show live view.”
The night-vision camera reveals only my empty doorstep, and I tap Alfie’s screen to turn the alarm off. “Alfie, replay last five minutes of video.”
With a glitch of static, the view changes and shows a skinny guy in a dark hoodie stumbling up to the door with a small bag in his hand. Just before he raises his arm, he looks up at the camera.
Kyle. Oh God. I’m the deepest sleeper on the planet. Plus, I had my white noise machine running. I didn’t hear him pounding on the door. It’s been two days since the incident outside the office, and though he sent me half a dozen emails, he stayed away. I thought…maybe he’d let it go.
“Evianna, get your ass out here! Right now!”
He gets angrier and angrier when I don’t answer, finally using his shoulder to ram the door. But this house is over a hundred years old, and the door is solid. Three times he tries, then rubs his left arm, wincing.
“You ruined me! I tried to call Lampster to get an interview with their dev team and they wouldn’t even talk to me! The whole world is going to know what you did—to Alfie and to me!”
I yelp when Kyle shoves something through my mail slot. The brown paper bag lands with a heavy splat. Oh God. Did he seriously drop a bag of shit on my hardwood floor?
His final kick to my door sets off Alfie’s external alarm—the one that woke me—and then he races down the street and out of sight.
“Alfie, show l-live view,” I say over the lump in my throat. After one last check to make sure Kyle hasn’t come back, I swallow hard. I have to go check the front door. And get that bag out of my hallway.
The trip down the narrow staircase to my living room feels like it’s a mile long, but that’s probably because every muscle in my legs is shaking almost uncontrollably.
Clutching the knife so hard my fingers hurt, I step over the bag, approach the door, and give the knob a yank. The old wood creaks, but holds. Thank God.
Still spooked, my heartbeat roaring in my ears, I flip on every light downstairs before I approach the brown paper bag. “Ugh. Gross.” The odor turns my stomach, and I hurry back to my kitchen, grab my cleaning gloves and trash bags, and triple wrap the disgusting present before checking the back door camera.
The alley’s clear, so I open the door and drop the bag on the stoop.
The adrenaline thrumming through my veins won’t let me sit down, so I pace back and forth between the kitchen and my small office at the front of the house until I start to get chilled, then realize I’m only wearing a tank top and panties.
“Smart, Evianna. Walk around the house half-naked at 3:00 a.m.—holding a hunting knife. You probably look like a psycho.” The thought makes me laugh, and I can’t stop until I sink down onto my ass, the hardwood floor stealing more of my body heat. Wrapping my arms around my bent knees, I close my eyes, trying to center myself.
Breathe. Just breathe. In and out. Focus on your breath.
As I start the mantra for the second time, glass breaks, something crashes to the floor only a few feet away, and I scream as I scramble up and press my back against the staircase.
“Alfie, c-call 911!”
The device in my living room initiates the call, and I peer into my home office. “Oh, shit.” Amid the broken glass, a large, misshapen brick rests on the floor, and the cool night air steals the last of my sanity as it swirls around the room.
4
Dax
At seven in the morning, my walk to the office is quiet. Only the hum of the traffic and the occasional horn interrupt the sound of my cane sweeping across the sidewalk. So much easier than trying to navigate through the crowds at rush hour.
Despite the size of Boston, the South End is all old neighborhood. Lots of small, narrow streets, cobblestones, trees. Lucy and I owned a house halfway between my apartment and my office, and I still remember how to get there. I loved that house. Loved her too—at least the young, naive love that hasn’t been tested by fire.
She lives in Dover now. Remarried. Two kids. The life I thought I wanted. The life I’m too fucked up to have.
