Page 11 of The Quiet Witness

Chapter 4

When it’s Night

Ashadow slipped in front of the chipped yellow wall. It moved with the light. Closing in on her frail form. No, no, no!

Her legs were shorter, arms thinner, heart pounding against her rib cage.

Icy raw fingers slipped over her warm skin. Her eyes blinked in the light that seeped through the door. A silhouette, mattress dipping under his weight.

“It’s okay. Just you stay still and you’ll be fine.” That voice…

Screams tore out of her aching throat and she kicked her feet against the assailant’s broad frame.

Kate awoke with a loud shriek, those same icy raw phantom fingers folding over her throat, squeezing her airway shut, her legs fumbled in the sweat-soaked cotton sheets that held her down.

No, not that. I need to fight!

But the memory… nightmare clashed with her surroundings.

The peeling yellow walls were gone, replaced by pristine white. The tight space making way for the high ceiling above her.

It’s fine, I’m fine. Pfff, in and out, focus on your surroundings. You’re not in that place anymore.

Kate inhaled deeply, the fresh scent of mint tickling her nose gently. Memory lane. Nothing but good old memory lane.

She had been young back then, but the darkness that hung over her new family and their faces had stayed with her. Her voice had burned from the screaming as she thrashed against the hands wanting to touch her. Until her heel had hit its mark. Her foster father’s nose was bleeding the next day.

“Barely a scratch.” He’d told her foster mother, followed by a story of how he had bumped into the stairs, accidentally scaring the foster kid with his shadow in the hallway, but they both had known better.

Kate wondered, what had it been in the end, that brought them to the final hours of their life? For years, she thought she might become the reason. That she would snap someday. She had come so close, only a couple days before Christmas. But it seemed they had made more enemies throughout their lives. Maybe a woman holding a grudge because her foster father had touched her without consent. Or a business ordeal gone wrong. None of those made sense, though. Not to have an entire family killed off.

She should feel weighed down with grief, crazy with rage over their deaths, but nothing apart from a strange numbness held her in its grip. Kate waited, begged for the remorse to visit. For the waves of it to drag her under and make her feel human again, but it never came.

Heaving a deep sigh, she shifted on her side, glancing outside the window to the endless white fields stretched out behind it. She counted her breaths until her heart accepted reality. Those yellow walls wouldn’t be the first thing she’d open her eyes to anymore.

And what lay behind the glass that currently kept her from freedom was… magnificent, really. With the moon shining its light on all below her, the darkness was drawing back. Soon it would be morning. And with it came… the not knowing.

A creak resounded through the house.

Just a piece of wood moving. Wood always moves. Or Ghost or… A floorboard in front of her room where the killer had stepped onto, waiting for her to fall asleep to make his entrance, and orchestrate her exit. She stiffened, muscles bracing to see the door open on a creak, another silhouette in the shadow’s embrace. But the handle stayed silent and still. Finally, after what must have been an hour, she sighed.

Relax. If he had wanted to kill you, he’d done so already.

For some reason that piece of information did nothing to lighten her mind. So she stayed up, eyes glued to the door for hours. Just in case.

Even when her eyes started to flutter closed, she forced them back open with a quiet fury, turning her head to watch as the moon rose and rose, witnessing its trek throughout the universe, until the orange glows of daylight heralded its arrival.

Maybe this will be the last sunrise I ever see. I won’t miss a single second of it.

And she didn’t, fully engrossed in the sight until the sound of a blender rushed throughout the house and the smell of coffee caused her nostrils to flare, setting her in motion. She shifted under the sheets, the ache of her sleep-deprived body warring with the injuries she’d sustained yesterday.

The result of holding your breath with every creak that a house makes. And by being poisoned. Oh, and let’s not forget, fighting a trained killer… quite a cocktail indeed.

Rolling her eyes, she tossed the blankets aside, desperately silencing her low whines as she stretched out her beaten body, toes searching for the cold wooden floor. Her eyes fell straight to the black fabric covering every inch of her. Oh, yes, there was that little detail too.

The man had lent her his clothes. Kate’s fingers traced the seams of the smooth black T-shirt that hung ridiculously wide around her form, still smelling faintly of sandalwood. He had been right on one account, shedding her own clothes, in favor of his, oversized as they were, it was… warmer, even though shoving her legs into the pants had made her cheeks burn.

It’s not giving in, Kate. It’s surviving. You know what that’s like. Warmth comes before shame.