He doesn’t start typing right away, not like he has before. And for two minutes, he says nothing at all.
The apprehension twists tighter in my gut.
I need to stay away from both of them, don’t I? And Tasia too, for that matter. It’s like I’ve gotten myself wound up in a circle that is full of danger.
Used to be the most dangerous person to me, was me.
That means I can bite back, though. Karter warning me away from Tasia reminded me of just that. I’m not scared of that bitch.
33
Are you afraid I do?
What is the right answer to that? What’s therealanswer?
But before I can settle on either, I hear something.
Outside my open bedroom. It sounds like it’s coming from further down the hall, at the front door, and I know Cynthia was heading to bed and her lights haven’t come on. She doesn’t like to wander around the place in the dark. She’s slightly afraid of it, but she refuses a nightlight. To toughen herself up, she says.
So who is it?
I throw my covers off and sit straight up in the dark, phone clutched in my hand, heart racing.
Maybe it was nothing.
My overactive, jagged imagination.
I should’ve gone to therapy over seeing that body.
Even I know that. Every time Cyn asks me if I want to talk about it, I tell her it was nothing. I’mtotally fine.
Yeah. I’m a fucking liar.
Maybe I’ll book an appointment in the morning. That seems like the responsible thing to do now that I’m hearing things.
But as I look down at my phone, Faust still waiting for my answer, I hear it again.
It’s definitely outside the apartment door.
Like a scratching sound.
Someone is there.
THIRTY-FIVE
NEVE
With my phone clenched tight in my hand, I walk across the black wooden floors, past the kitchen, Cynthia’s closed bedroom door, toward the scratching noise against the entrance. I glance at the text thread with Faust and he feels like a lifeline, although I’d never admit anything like that to him.
His last text is bright in the dark and I hold my breath as I read it over and over on a loop, the chill of the apartment like ice down my spine beneath my black cami.
Are you afraid I do?
As I get closer to the door, the built-in black bookshelves lined with psychology texts and old journals and bone-white sculptures of foxes, ravens, and some animal’s spine no longer feel like home.
They feel menacing. Animated. Alive.
The sound at the door raises the hairs along the back of my neck, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let someone fuck with me right outside of my own home and do nothing about it.
