Chapter 21 #2
My shadows that have been a source of comfort, a source of strength for years. My shadows that have kept me going in my lowest moments. That have visited me when I needed them most. My shadows that helped fight the darkness from outright consuming me.
My shadows are my stalkers. For longer and more intimately than I ever could have imagined.
I look around my house and everything feels different. It doesn’t feel like my own any longer. There are cameras in here. I know it to be true as surely as I know my stalkers and shadows are one and the same.
What to do about it?
Are they watching me now? Have they been waiting for me to wake up and find the newest present they left me? Realize what they did to me while I slept?
Do they want my fear? My horror? My submission?
Thoughts and emotions churn through me too fast to possibly process. I’m a tumultuous whirlwind even I can’t make sense of. On the outside, you’d never know the utter chaos being wreaked on my system, but through it all there’s one undeniable truth.
One thing I can’t deny.
The very thing sending me further into this mental spiral.
I’m not willing to lose my shadows.
They already own too much of me for me to walk away. Maybe they were never meant to chase away my darkness, maybe they’re here to force me to embrace it.
A hand falls on my shoulder and a scream is ripped from my throat, short and loud. My phone clatters to the floor in front of me, making a loud thud as it hits the wood.
“Holy shit, B. You good?”
Summer’s voice instantly soothes some of my frazzled edges and sounds come rushing back in all at once. I shake my head, turning around in confusion to find Summer not alone. Weston, Ezra, and Jude all stand behind her, watching me with varying expressions of concern.
“You scared the shit out of me,” I say, trying to shake off the revelations I just had. I put my hand over my racing heart and shake my head. “It’s too early for this.” I don’t know how to act. What to say.
Memories of kisses and a whole lot more keep flashing through my mind every time I look in the guys’ direction and my entire body starts to feel hot and I know I’m turning fifty shades of red.
And I’m practically naked so they can see every little bit of it.
Fuck me.
Summer laughs and Jude snorts. Fuck, I said that aloud, didn’t I? At least Ezra has the decency to try and cover his smirk behind his hand. I can still see it but the effort is appreciated.
Weston smiles at me softly and holds out an iced coffee for me. The small gesture nearly makes me burst into tears.
“Thanks,” I manage to whisper and he nods when I take it from him. It’s probably the best damn iced coffee I’ve ever had. But that might be the hangover speaking. Or the crushing reality that nothing is as it seems and maybe I don’t know myself as well as I thought I did.
I’m having an existential crisis. Is that what that means? Is that what this is? A quarter life crisis maybe?
Definitely a crisis of some fucking kind.
Awkward silence permeates my house in a way I don’t think has ever happened before. Normally, I would be rambling to fill it. Embarrassing myself even further but providing everyone with a light source of amusement.
My brain is too broken to even string together a ramble though.
Even that thought makes me sink lower into whatever type of crisis this is that I’m having.
Maybe an identity crisis. I sure as fuck don’t feel like I know who I am anymore.
Maybe I do read too much dark romance. I never thought there could be such a thing. But here I am, accepting that hot masked men were in my bed while I slept and all I can do is be turned on by it.
Fear is still there.
Some sanity remains. Not nearly enough to be comforting.
“Is she sleeping while standing?” Jude whispers, not very subtly. Everyone laughs as I shake my head.
“I am very hungover,” I admit, still not able to look any of the guys in the eye. Even the thought of seeing their hot faces makes shame, desire, and embarrassment race through me all at once.
There’s already a lot going on inside my brain. The last thing we need is more shame, desire, or embarrassment. Especially desire.
Now that I’m really thinking about it, I’m almost positive my stalkers must have a twisted sense of humor because I’m almost certain I’m not wearing panties. Just the silk shorts which won’t do much to disguise a giant fucking wet spot.
“I’m going to kill myself,” I mutter and Summer runs her hand soothingly down my back.
“At least you’re not putting your foot in your mouth?”
I hold up my coffee. “Let me finish this and I’m sure it’ll happen.”
The guys all laugh and even Summer giggles. “She’s not a morning person on the best of days,” she explains. “Even if it is after noon.”
Seriously? Fuck me for real. I never sleep in this late, even at my worst.
“We thought you might be hungover,” Ezra says, and I don’t know if that’s supposed to be reassuring, but it’s not. My hangxiety is only getting worse with each moment. “So we brought breakfast.” He holds up a plastic bag I hadn’t noticed and suddenly I’m ravenous.
“They’re the best breakfast burritos in town,” Jude promises. Okay, maybe I am starting to feel better.
Summer nods as if she can hear my thoughts. “I only let them in because they had coffee and food.”
“Wait, how long have you been here?” I ask her.
“Just now,” she answers. “We pulled up at the same time.” She looks me up and down and grins, waggling her brows where the guys can’t see her. “We’ll let you get dressed,” she offers with far too much amusement.
“No, please,” Jude teases, winking at me. “Stay comfortable. I like the pink.”
Ezra smacks his chest in reprimand, but his smile says the exact opposite. Great, I’m turning red again. I fan myself and Summer cracks up, shooing the guys from my room.
Before she has a chance to walk out too, I grab her arm and hold her back. She turns back surprised and I close the door. “Are you okay, B? You looked like you’d seen a ghost when we first got here.”
I nod. “I kind of did.” I pick up my phone from where I had completely forgotten about it after dropping it and pull up the video of the stalkers to show her. “My stalkers were at the party last night,” I tell her in a whisper.
The need to get it off my chest and debrief with her is too great to wait, but I really don’t want the guys to know about this. I have no idea what I’m going to do about it, if anything. But I can’t ignore the pull I feel towards them either.
Especially not after last night.
Not after they kissed me.
Everything else may be blurry, but I know what I felt when they kissed me. Each and every one of them made me feel alive and safe in a way I’ve only ever felt when my shadows have come to visit.
“And in my house,” I continue, though I can’t bring myself to say the things I’m almost certain they did while I slept. The evidence I’m sure to find when I do slip these satin shorts off.
I hand her the video and she gasps, once when she sees there’s two of them. Once more with the finger wave.
“No third?” she asks, looking over her shoulder in the direction of the living room. I shake my head, ignoring the disappointment that there were only two. Three would be too much of a coincidence to ignore the possibility.
Alas, only two masked men are stalking me.
“They brought you home last night,” she whispers, shooing me from the door and back to my dresser. “Should have realized there was no longer a mountain of clothes in this corner.”
I flip her off, but quickly wave her on. I need to hear more about last night. How much she knows and if she can fill in any blanks for me. Because there are a lot, and then the whole night goes black.
I’ve never blacked out quite like this before. Grayed out? Sure. Whole chunks of my night gone? Never.
“They FaceTimed me nearly the entire time they were here though. They tucked you in,” she pauses, “in your costume,” she clarifies, lifting a brow, before continuing, “Got you water and meds, plugged in your phone, set the alarm, and left. I watched their car pull away.”
So they plugged in my phone, not the shadows.
“Weston had to carry you because you were passed out. How much did you drink by the way?”
My distress grows. Even she isn’t sure how much I had. “I have no idea,” I lament, pulling my pajama top over my head and grabbing a sports bra and big t-shirt to wear. “I don’t remember. Like almost anything from last night.”
Her eyes widen as she opens one of my drawers and tosses me a pair of shorts and arches a brow when I have to grab underwear, but I can’t even begin to touch on that right now. A mess was definitely made of me last night and I don’t want to analyze when or with who right now.
I have a feeling I know the answer but it’s also not the time for the words “why not both?” to be playing through my mind on a loop. Don’t have the energy to address it.
“You were not that fucked up when I left you,” she whispered. “We’d only had two shots.”
Pulling on the shorts she left me, I know we don’t have much more time to debrief before it’ll just be awkward to go back out there.
“I took at least two more with Ezra and Weston,” I count them off in my head.
“At some point there was a shot a stranger gave me.” I cringe even as I say it and she swats me on my ass.
There’s a resounding smack and forget whispering, she yells, “You took a drink from a stranger? Are you fucking dumb?”
The guys’ laughter is clear as day and I groan. I am never ever going to live down that one stupid decision. In my defense, I was already buzzing pretty hard. Who makes good decisions when they’re buzzed?
No one. Ever.
Feels like not really my fault.
“That’s where things start to go hazy,” I admit, grimacing.
If looks could kill, I would be bleeding on my bedroom floor right now. “You were probably drugged, bitch. How do you feel right now? Still fucked up?”