Maeve
CLIMBING THE FINAL STEP, of my building, I was ready to crash out. Only, when I finally turned in my flat’s direction, the person sitting across our front door had me internally groaning.
“What are you doing here, Roland?” I asked, my tone already snipped, but something in my gut already had my guard raised.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” He replied, standing up.
“And you’re stalking me? Usually people take someone blocking you as a sign that they don’t want to talk to you.”
“I need your help.” He started. “I’m short on some cash, and they made my position at the firm redundant a couple months ago. It’s why I’ve been trying to get in touch with you.”
“Roland,” I started. “Respectfully, I don’t owe you shit.
I’m sorry you got made redundant but you haven’t spoken to me in months, so I don’t know where this is coming from.
I’ve never given you cash before, and I’m not starting now.
Now, either you go home or I call the police for you breaking into a private residence building, and stalking. ”
“When did you turn into a bitch?” He muttered harshly. “You were never like this when we were together.”
“I might’ve picked it up after you left.” I replied, rolling my eyes. “Now, leave. I’ve just had a long day of travel, and I don’t have the energy left to deal with you right now.”
He shook his head then, moving past me. Dragging my suitcase closer to the front door. My body was on it’s wits end, and I was desperate for a good sleep to wipe the exhaustion off.
Reaching into my purse, I flicked my gaze back to where Roland stood, I waited for him to leave before I even made an attempt to unlock the door.
“You never told me you were rich,” He said when my eyes met his, and I tried my best not to stiffen.
“What are you talking about?”
“When we were going out,” He offered, like that explained everything. “You always complained about the costs, but you were lying, weren’t you? I saw the media profile they did on you—you’re loaded.”
I shook my head, something close to fear climbed up my throat. “I’m not.”
“Your father is a multi-millionaire Cricketer turned Coach. Your mother is a socialite who came from money, and your step-father is a Tech Billionaire.”
“How in the world does that make me loaded? I don’t take money from any of them. When we were going out, I barely talked to any of them and you know that.”
“All I’m asking for is ￡500.”
My eyes widened. “All you’re asking for?”
“C’mon. I know that’s pennies for you.”
“Yeah, ￡500 is pennies for me—that’s why I’m renting a two bed flat with my best friend. You’re so right, Roland.”
He narrowed his gaze, a dark look in his eyes.
My instinct climbed through me as I pressed the side of my phone and the emergency alarm blared through the hallway.
“What the fuck?” He yelled, covering his ears.
“If you don’t leave me, now—I’m gonna let it ring through and connect through 999. I don’t know—or care, why you need the cash. But if you’re that desperate, get another job!”
His glared hardened, before he took a step back and the sound of his footsteps descending reached me. Pulling my phone out quickly, I cancelled the alarm and reached for my keys. Once the loud bang of the main door echoed through the building, I inserted them into the lock and opened my door.
Dumping my bag and the kit once on the floor, I reached for the suitcase and dragged it inside the flat.
The wheels snagged on the raised door way, resisting me like the flat itself had decided to turn against me. I swore under my breath, tugging harder, irritation sharp and useless in my chest.
It was such a small, stupid thing to be fighting with.
A suitcase.
A wooden plank.
Normal life friction, but the exhaustion was already making me crash slowly.
I bent down, fingers tightening around the handle, ready to force it free—
Finally.
Pulling the suitcase in, completely, I moved to shut the door when a foot appeared in the small space left.
Before I could react, the person on the other side pushed it with force. My body went still before my mind caught up as the door slammed back into me.
The impact knocked the air out of my lungs.
I stumbled backwards, my heel catching on nothing, my balance gone before I could even think to fight for it.
The world tilted.
Then he was inside.
Roland.
But not the version of him I’d known before—if I’d ever really known him at all.
This one looked sharpened at the edges, breath coming fast, eyes bright with something ugly and dark. His face wasn’t just angry. It was stripped of anything that made him human.
And in his left hand—
A knife.
My stomach dropped so fast it felt like it hit the floor before I did.
“All I wanted was some cash,” he said, voice tight, shaking with something that wasn’t fear. “They’d be pennies for you. PENNIES! But nooo. You had to be a bitch.”
My throat closed.
I tried to speak, but nothing came out properly. Just air and panic. “Roland…”
“Where is it?” he snapped, stepping further in.
The flat suddenly felt too small to contain him.
“I don’t have any cash on me—I swear,” I said, and hated how thin it sounded.
His jaw tightened. “Don’t lie to me.”
He moved again.
Closer.
My back hit the wall before I realised I was retreating.
There was nowhere else to go.
My hand moved on instinct, reaching the phone that had dropped on the floor.
A stupid, automatic hope.
His eyes tracked it instantly, and everything in him changed.
He lunged.
I barely had in it my hold before it was ripped from my hand.
“Wait—”
The word didn’t finish as he slammed it into the floor.
The sound was sharp, final.
Once.
The screen fractured instantly, a web of cracks spreading like something alive and dying at the same time.
Again.
Harder.
The casing split.
Plastic and glass scattered across the floor like something had been torn open.
My breath stuttered.
“Please,” I said, and didn’t recognise my own voice.
He didn’t even look at the phone anymore.
Like it had already stopped mattering.
“Where’s your wallet?”
“I can’t give you money. I seriously don’t have cash, but my cards,” I said quickly, too quickly, words tripping over each other as I made a move to grab my bag. “Just—just take it, it’s fine—”
“You should’ve done that before.” He replied, shoving me to the side as he ripped my bag out of my hands.
The impact drove me into the wall again, pain blooming instantly across my shoulder, down my spine, sharp enough to steal thought from me.
A sound left me—half gasp, half something worse.
He stepped closer.
The knife came up again, not rushed now, not chaotic.
Controlled.
Intentional.
“Where?” he asked.
My mouth was dry.
“The small wallet,” I managed.
He didn’t even look at where I pointed.
He just moved and ripped it open.
The sound of the zip tearing felt too loud, too intimate, like something being broken that couldn’t be fixed.
Clothes spilled out across the floor in a mess of colour and fabric.
He dug through it like it owed him something.
Throwing things aside.
Anger turning into efficiency.
Violence becoming method.
“Please,” I whispered again, but it didn’t sound like a word anymore.
It sounded like air leaving a collapsing body.
Once he found my wallet, he pulled it out like a prize and flicked it open.
Cards, and whatever pennies I had left from when I’d grabbed a coffee at the airport.
His breathing changed, not calmer…just satisfied.
Like something inside him had been fed.
For a second—just one—I thought it was over.
That this was the end of it.
That he would leave.
That the room would stop feeling like it was spinning.
Then he looked at me again.
And whatever satisfaction had been there drained out of his face.
Replaced by something worse.
Something deciding.
He stepped forward.
Slow now.
Deliberate.
My body reacted before my mind did, pressing back into the wall as if I could disappear into it, as if solid matter would suddenly decide to protect me.
“That's it?” he asked.
My voice shook.
“I gave you everything.”
He closed the distance again.
The knife lifted, and closing in on my skin.
A pressure that made every nerve in my body go rigid at once.
My breath stopped completely.
The world narrowed to that point of contact.
Nothing else existed.
Not the room.
Not the broken phone.
Not the suitcase.
Just that blade and the fact that I was still breathing around it.
“Ro..la..nd…”
His mouth moved as I stuttered his name in a plea. “You wanted to call 999 on me? Go ahead, bitch. Try. I have friends who would help me before I even get behind the bars.”
He laughed, and the next second there was a buzz in my ear.
I couldn’t hear him anymore.
Everything had turned into a roar inside my head.
My heartbeat was too loud.
Too fast.
Too wrong.
Before he could open his mouth, the sound of my doorbell cut through, making him jump.
Sharp.
Real.
He froze.
So did I.
Neither of us moved.
The silence that followed was worse than the noise.
Then the door bell came again.
It was enough to ruin his plans as he pulled back fast, like the decision had been made in a snap of a second.
The knife dropped from my space.
Air rushed back into my lungs so violently it hurt.
He turned, and before I could understand, he was running away.
The front door slammed so hard the walls seemed to shake with it.
And then all I was left with was the silence.
I stayed where I was.
Because I didn’t know how to move anymore.
My legs didn’t feel like mine.
My hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t tell if I was still holding myself up or if the wall was doing it for me.
The room looked wrong.
Tilted.
Too bright in places, too dark in others.
The broken phone lay a few feet away, like something that had once mattered.
My bag was open, spilled, violated.
Everything felt far away.
Like it belonged to someone else.
I tried to reach for the phone.
My fingers didn’t cooperate.
They barely moved.
The edges of my vision blurred, softening, dissolving.
Another knock came.
Fainter now.
Distant.
Like it was happening underwater.
I blinked once.
Then the room slipped sideways.
And I stopped feeling anything at all.