Chapter 4
Ellie rubbedher eyes tiredly before turning yet another terrible page. Half of her couldn’t quite believe that their lead writer had even looked at the storylines. Duane should know better; he was her most senior manager after Vic… and Vic definitely should know better.
Ellie read another few paragraphs, groaning at yet another narrative branch that led to a main character’s certain death. Sure, they had to put Luke and Sienna through hell. The Binding was the sequel. There had to be suffering. The fissure between the two worlds that the characters were sucked into in the first game had fully opened, releasing the ancient fae to cover the earth in mist and growing darkness. The fae lord had built a citadel right on top of the fissure, guarding it with every kind of dark and deadly beast imaginable. Of course there would be danger, destruction, tension, and poor decisions. And of course Sienna and Luke would challenge each other. But they had to have a chance. There had to be hope.
She folded her arms on the kitchen table and let her head rest on her forearms. She’d chosen to print the storylines and work through them on paper, sitting in the sunshine that poured in from the wide windows. Sometimes it helped to see the words on paper, and her gaming room—ahem, office—was in the darkest corner of the house, well away from any irritating glare. But the sunshine wasn’t helping. The storylines stayed miserable.
She sighed into the table. Her Dangerous Business team was the best. Duane just needed some direction. But Vic… damn it. She’d let Vic get away with more and more. Ellie had been so worried for her friend—and their friendship—that she’d made allowances. But there was a limit to how far she could let this go.
The storyline had to be fixed; she would start there. She pulled her notebook closer, maybe there was something she could save. Perhaps if she?—
“Fuck,” a masculine voice muttered quietly from the direction of the hallway.
Ellie startled.
Someone was in her house. A man. A man who sounded… enraged. No. Tormented? She couldn’t tell. But the intensity of the emotion was clear.
Was it him?
She rose quietly to her feet, wincing as the chair legs scraped along the tiles. Had he heard her move? Thank God she’d chosen to work in the kitchen—just a few steps from the back door.
She grabbed her phone, tucked it into her pocket, and then crept toward the door, keeping her movements stealthy and silent.
Fear and worry churned through her mind. What if it was him? Should she try to look? No. Absolutely not. Every too-dumb-to-live decision started with checking on a strange noise. She should get out.
Even if it was him. Especially if it was him.
The back garden was surrounded by sheltering trees. She could hide. Or run. She could call the police. All she had to do was make it outside, through the vegetable garden, across the lawn, and out to the woods.
She held her breath as she flicked the lock and then slowly turned the handle, praying that it didn’t squeak. It opened silently. She was almost there. But then she froze. What about Nissy? God. Ellie had opened the living room door to the deck for her an hour ago. Was she still outside? What if she came in? Would he hurt her?
Ellie couldn’t leave without her. She hesitated, racked with uncertainty.
And then she heard it. A low, strangled noise. A noise that sounded like despair. Like unadulterated grief, quickly stifled.
No. That was ridiculous. That rough moan could just as easily mean he was furious. It wasn’t safe for her there. She had to get out, circle around the outside and look for Nissy. She could call the police while she did it.
She pushed the door open and snuck onto the first low concrete step. She was almost there. Almost free. But before she could move, she heard him.
“Please.” His voice was guttural. Hoarse, even. As if he hadn’t spoken in hours. But it held her.
She spun back, drawn to the sound. There, standing in the entrance to the kitchen, was the man from yesterday. It was him.
She almost stepped toward him, almost got drawn in, but she forced herself to stay away.
She grabbed the door, ready to slam it shut between them and run, but he did the last thing she expected. He stepped back—away from her—his arms coming up, palms open, and she stopped once more.
“Please don’t,” he repeated.
“Don’t what?” she whispered, standing on the concrete step with the door handle gripped in her sweating fist.
He held out his hand. “Please don’t leave me.” He cleared his throat, blinking as if he’d surprised himself. As if he’d said more than he intended. “Please stay.”
Something about the words gripped her. She had heard them before. They meant something to her. To them. They bound them together somehow. Although she had no idea how. A chill drifted over her skin; the breeze raising the hairs on her arms.
She stayed there, just outside the door, watching him, telling herself she could still run. Telling herself she could slam the door and be gone in an instant if she needed to.
He was wearing a plain black T-shirt that highlighted the tanned bulk of his arms and the lines of ink that traveled up his right bicep to disappear under the fabric. His jeans were worn and faded, clinging to the bulk of his thighs. His hair was even more tangled and his beard thicker today, as if he still hadn’t bothered to shave. He was taller than her. A heavy, muscular man. She should have been frightened.
She swallowed. Honestly, she was frightened. But she should have been more frightened.
She stood, captured in the doorway, adrenaline pumping through her veins in heavy beats. “Why are you in my house?”
He stared at her, lips drawn into a tight line. But he didn’t answer.
“I don’t have anything of value here,” she insisted.
He stepped back, another big step, almost taking him out of sight, shocked offense flashing across his face before he blanked it once more. “I’m not here to rob you.”
“Why are you here then?”
“I don’t know. I can’t—” He shook his head slowly.
Ellie pulled out her phone, holding it between them. As if it would protect her somehow. “I’ll call the police.”
He raised his hands further, his serious blue eyes locked on hers. “I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.”
She snorted softly. How stupid did he think she was? “You’re in my house, and I don’t know you.”
“Don’t you?” His voice was low, but she could still hear the hint of disappointment and confusion. Something about that look of bewildered disorientation, swiftly replaced with a practiced stoicism, settled her.
Nissy chose that moment to step into the kitchen, nose in the air, the tip of her tail flicking gently. She looked up at the man, considered him, and then brushed against his leg, nuzzling her cheek against his jean-covered shin.
Ellie started moving without stopping to think. She needed to get Nissy. She had to protect her. Save her. But then, too quickly to be anything but automatic reflex, the stranger lowered his hands and reached down to gently stroke Nissy’s head, massaging the sensitive spot behind her ears. “Aren’t you gorgeous?” he asked.
His words—low and rumbling, but friendly—caught Ellie and brought her to a stop. Somehow back in the kitchen. Far closer to the intruder than she’d ever planned.
The man looked up and straightened quickly, as if embarrassed to be showing any kind of emotion. Nissy gave him a cool look at having been abandoned and tapped gently over to Ellie instead.
Somehow having her cat beside her, and having seen that brief unguarded tenderness, reassured her far more than anything he’d said. “Should I know you?” she asked softly.
“I’d hoped…” He leaned heavily against the doorframe. “I thought you could tell me—” he shook his head, voice fading.
“Tell you what?”
For the first time since she’d locked eyes with him in the mirror, a clear emotion stood stark on his face: sadness. “Who I am.”
Ellie took another unconscious step forward, drawn by the bleak look in his eyes. “What do you mean?”
His face was pale beneath his beard as his lips twitched into the tiniest, most self-deprecating smile she’d ever seen. “I don’t remember anything.”
“You don’t remember anything?”
“No. I don’t know where we are. Or how I got here. Or even”—his chest rose and fell on a rough breath—“who I am.”
Ellie put her hand out to rest on the kitchen table, needing its stability, hardly noticing that she had come fully into the room. Her attention was held by the rigid tension in the muscles of his neck and the deep lines scoring his forehead. And her growing awareness that he must be under some immense weight, some terrible pressure, that made him hold himself so stiffly.
“Maybe we should call someone,” she offered. “Emergency services. A doctor. Someone who knows what to do.”
“Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, neither of them moving. But then he swayed, ever so slightly, and leaned even more heavily against the doorframe, one hand coming up to brace himself.
He looked as if he’d been through a battle. As if he was only staying on his feet by sheer stubbornness. It was a look she’d seen on her own face, and she wanted to wipe it away. She wanted to smooth her fingers down that look of painfully stoic acceptance and see those full lips twitch into a smile once more—a real one.
But that was madness. “Do you want to sit?” she asked instead, gesturing toward the chair nearest to him, on the opposite side of the table.
“Thank you.” He crossed the kitchen slowly and settled his hands on the backrest of the chair, but he didn’t pull it out.
His lips looked dry and cracked, and she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Do you want a glass of water while I call?”
He nodded. “Yes, please.”
“I’ll just—” she turned to grab two glasses, darting glances at him over her shoulder.
He never moved.
She looked away, just for a second, to fill the glass. “Who do you think we should call first?” she asked, turning back.
But he was gone.
Nissy sat at her feet. The fridge ticked quietly in the corner. But nothing else had moved. The room was empty.
Ellie dropped the glass to the table, ignoring the water as it sloshed over the rim, and strode around to his chair. She dragged her fingers over the smooth grain of the wood. Was it warm? Was she imagining it? Was she going completely insane?
She would have heard him leave. Wouldn’t she?
She strode through the house; the hallway, the living room, the downstairs toilet. All empty. She ran upstairs. Checked behind curtains, under beds, inside wardrobes. He wasn’t there.
She grabbed her phone and pulled up the app that connected to her doorbell camera, pulled up the video, and watched it through. Twice. The door had not been opened. Not for hours.
Was this what a hallucination felt like? It had been so real. God. Was this the pain meds? The stress? Too many years of working day and night without a break? She lifted her hand to her mouth and realized that her fingers were trembling and her lips were freezing cold.
She stumbled into her living room and sank onto a sofa, pulled a blanket up to her chin, and opened her phone. She was right, she desperately needed to call a doctor.
For herself.