Page 106 of Head Under Water

I hear it again. This time closer.

The faintest thud of a shoe on our concrete floor.

Panic claws at my throat, and I feel my heartbeat at the base of my skull. “Will?” I call out louder now, hoping to see his face. Hoping he’ll tease me over being so scared.

Hoping I’m safe.

There’s a quiet click in the distance. The sound of someone opening my bedroom door. I go very still, eyes darting to the towel hanging near the sink. I should get out. I should move. I should do something.

And yet…I’m frozen in place. Waiting for this to all be a prank.

“Will,” I say, my voice shaking, pitched too high. I can’t hide the terror I feel. “This isn’t funny.”

The bathroom door makes a slight popping sound, like it wasn’t fully latched and now it is. The handle doesn’t move.

Seconds stretch on, and eventually, the heat kicks off, drenching the apartment in terrible silence. I wait. Listen. My skin lines with chills, even in the heat of the tub.

Everything in me tightens, balls like a fist.

I force myself to breathe in slowly, then out, and I peer over the side of the tub at the small crack under the door. I force out another breath. There are no shadows. No one is standing there.

I’m imagining things.

After this week, this day, my nerves are shredded. But there’s no one here. I locked the door. No one but Will has a key. No one is in this apartment but me.

Silence presses in on my skin, and slowly, gradually, I let myself sink back against the tub. You’re safe, Opal. You’re fine. No reassurances can erase the fact that I wish Will were here.

Eventually, the worry fades. Mostly. The world narrows to warmth and steam and the calming scent of lavender, the steady sound of my breathing.

I close my eyes for a long while, the weariness setting in again.

Everything’s okay.

I open them.

A face hovers above me, eclipsing the ceiling light, cloaking itself in shadow.

For one suspended second, my mind doesn’t comprehend what’s happening, as if the world has paused on a single, unbearable frame. As if it’s mercifully trying to protect me.

Then panic seizes every organ with icy, spindly fingers. My scream never takes shape—it doesn’t have time. One hand clamps over my mouth, the other in my hair.

I’m shoved underwater. Terrible heat, terrible fire spreads through me.

The bathwater, seconds ago harmless, turns animalistic—invading, consuming. Water rushes into my nose, my eyes, my ears.

I’m coughing and choking and inhaling and…drowning. My lungs scream for relief, for air, for life. But I can’t move. I’m shoved down, harder.

I fight, but the hand in my hair grabs a fistful, slamming my head into the porcelain. My scalp joins the rest of my body in white-hot fire.

My entire world is a pinhead, reduced only to the sounds of thunder—blood roaring, water sloshing, the echo of my head scraping the tub, my attacker growling—and the burning need for air.

It’ll be a silent death.

Alone. Unnoticed.

I try, still. I do. Even though no one’s around to hear.

I bang my limbs against the porcelain, thrashing. I shove shampoo and soap bottles to the floor. My fingers claw at the wrists holding me down as my eyes try to make sense of the swirling, watery portrait of the face above me.