Page 154
I grip it with the tips of my fingers, wresting it toward me, and it pops open a crack. I grab my phone, pointing the flashlight like it’s a weapon. I’m too scared to open it.
Fuck it, I’m calling Casper. I push the miniature door back into place, turn off my flashlight, and press his name in my contacts.
No answer.
It’s Tuesday, it’s not like he’s working.
I call again. It goes to voicemail.
Shit. I have to do it myself; it’s not like I can just go back to what I was doing, there’s a fucking door in my wall. Not only that but a big hole that I need to figure out why it’s there.
I stare down the paneling.
“Ugh, just fucking open it!”
My fingers press to the edge, prying until it pops open again.
“Okay, this is fine. This is totally fine. Completely normal. Everything is fine, it’s just a house. A haunted house. And this is probably where the ghosts fucking live.” My eyes grow wide when I remember seeing the face in the mirror. “Look, y’all better be so chill when I get in there. No jump scares. I mean it.”
I aim the flashlight at the wall again and take a deep breath.
The small door swings open without taking much strength.
“This is so creepy, this is so creepy, this is so creepy,” I mutter under my breath, leaning my head into the empty space and shining the light around.
“What on earth—”
There’s a whole corridor back here. Like a strip of architecture I was never meant to know existed, much less step into. I sit back, opening the door all the way and placing the stepstool in front of it to make sure it doesn’t close behind me. Then I crawl through the opening. My heart races and the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. A sick feeling unfurls in my stomach when I see a chair nearby and shiver. Empty chairs in an abandoned hallway. Hard pass.
I sweep the light from left to right, searching for the block of wood that I pushed in. My mind is running wild as I bounce the light from the walls with peeling wallpaper to the wood floor. The beam pauses on a doorway to another room and I retreat a few steps. No fucking way am I peeking in there. I scan the floor looking for the wooden piece again, spotting it beside a crumpled piece of paper.
I grab the wood piece and the . . . receipt.
The paper isn’t aged like everything else; it’s new, crisp white. Things are starting to click and I hate it. I return to my apartment through the hole, shove the stool aside, and slam the panel closed.
I drop the block and paper, running to the mirror, terrified when I find that the glass has been replaced with something more transparent. Adrenaline courses through me when I realize I’ve just found myself in the middle of a Peeping Tom nightmare from hell. It’s so violating.
This is my bedroom. The place where I sleep, undress, masturbate—fuck, masturbate!
I lean the mirror against the bed, noticing the mismatched hardware on the backside.
Snatching up the slip of paper, I glare at it like if I look hard enough this will all make sense.
A pie.
My stomach drops fast and hard. This is a receipt for a fucking pie—the logo at the top matches the one on the bakery box the night he took me to the rooftop. I check the date against the one in my phone from the night we went out.
It’s the same.
I jerk back, my heel catching on the stool, and I slam my hand against the dresser to steady myself. My skin crawls; everything feels too hot and cold. I rip off my shirt and hurl it into the hamper before grabbing a fresh one.
The disgust of Casper’s betrayal slowly burns off, and fury comes in to take its place. I suck in a breath, filling my lungs with contempt, but it doesn’t seem to quell the way my stomach twists into feral anger.
I glance at the receipt one more time, shaking my head and stuffing it into the back pocket of my jeans.
He doesn’t get to violate me and then smile with those warm eyes and make me feel safe. I laugh without humor and stomp out of the room, stuffing my feet into my shoes, then yank my jacket off the coat rack hard enough to make it fall over. I don’t care.
I snatch my keys off the small table, letting the door slam behind me.
