Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MICAH
I had never known hatred until now. I had never known the profound sense of being in danger—in actual danger—until I was standing in my house on Vanya’s arm, waiting for him to tell me if my batshit dickhead stalker was in the room.
We did a cursory sweep of the guest rooms, my room, the bathrooms. Vanya ripped back the shower curtain in the smaller bathroom and then pulled open the linen closet door in the primary suite, but there was no sign that Hunter was waiting around some dark corner, ready to jump out and yell, “Surprise!” before bludgeoning me to death and… I don’t know.
Fucking my corpse?
Whatever nasty, creepy stalkers like him did.
That might have been too far, but at this point, I wouldn’t put it past him.
“So,” I said as we came back to the living room. “Candles and a note?”
“You want me to read it?” Vanya asked.
My stomach twisted, filled with anxiety and bile. I swallowed against the rising acid in my gullet. “Not right now. Just blow out the candles so the place doesn’t burn down.”
I heard the soft puff of his breath as he did, and then I smelled the lingering smoke as it drifted into the air. Bowing my head, I tried not to let all of this get to me, but the fact remained, Hunter had been in my house.
Walking to the front door, I touched the lock, but nothing felt broken or damaged. That didn’t make me feel better. That meant he’d likely found some way to get in without actually breaking in.
“Vanya,” I said softly.
“Yes?”
“Can you go check all the windows? See if any of them are broken or if the screens are popped out.”
“Yes, okay. You will sit?”
“I’m…I don’t know. I’m going to go make a cup of tea.” I had chamomile in my cupboard. “He clearly just wanted to freak me out, and I need to relax so I can think straight.”
Instead of moving to the other room, Vanya’s footsteps came closer. I braced myself because I knew him, and I knew what was coming. His hands—warm, firm, yet also gentle—cupped around my jaw.
His forehead touched mine, and he breathed out softly. “It will be okay.” His words were slow, each one almost punctuated, like they were a one-syllable sentence.
I nodded against him, then turned my face up. In spite of all this, in spite of myself, I wanted a kiss, and he didn’t deny me. His lips pressed against mine, urging them to part, his tongue dipping in to taste me.
He hummed in satisfaction, sending a warmth up my spine. Despite all this chaos, he liked me. He still wanted me.
As much as I didn’t want it to, it had to mean something.
“Go make tea. I will fix everything else.”
He was lying. He couldn’t fix this. But he could check the windows, and I could make tea, and we could sit together for a moment so maybe I wouldn’t completely fall apart.
Vanya left my arms with a reluctance I felt almost viscerally. Dropping my hands to my sides, I turned as the sound of his feet on the floor disappeared down the hallway. The path to my kitchen was familiar—worn and perfected by days and nights of stumbling as I got to know this place.
And my feet were almost at the tiles when suddenly, my hip crashed into something hard and painful. I let out a sharp oomph as my hand darted out to see what the fuck it was.
A…chair? My dining room chair?
God, I really was off my game. I felt around it, sidestepping the table, and I reached the kitchen. I grazed the countertop with the tips of my fingers, searching for the kettle, which should be right…
Where?
My fingers met with nothing. Air, wall, the side of the microwave.
My throat began to feel hot and thick as I moved to the right, but there was nothing except the sink…
And my paper towel holder?
That was supposed to be on the other side of the counter.
Panic set in. I reached for the cupboard in front of me, expecting to find my boxes of tea, but it was something else. Cereal? Cans of soup?
With a trembling hand, I brought down three cans, then reached into the drawer in front of me for my talking pen when something sharp stabbed me in the palm.
My hands began to shake harder as I explored the shape. An uncovered knife. I never left my knives uncovered, and I never moved them from the drawer by the oven.
My pen was nowhere to be found, and when I ran the tips of my fingers over the top of the can, I could feel the sticky remnants where someone—and I didn’t have to guess who—had peeled away the ID sticker.
Panic began to claw at my throat. That fucker. That motherfucking shit-stained fucker had fucked with my kitchen!
I turned to the fridge, opened it, and shoved my hand against the inside door for the milk, but it wasn’t there. The egg drawer had sticks of butter in it. Fruit had meat. Vegetables had cheese.
I slammed it and turned. “Van—” Before I could finish calling for him, I hit something hard, right in my gut, and lost my breath. A cry wheezed out of me when I realized it was another chair, and that’s when I knew it.
He’d moved things.
He’d probably moved everything.
He had blinded me in my own home.
“Micah! What happened?” I hadn’t heard Vanya walking in, but I clung to him when his hands met my waist, and he pulled me around the table. “You get hurt?”
“I need help,” I said, catching my breath. I pulled him forward a few feet, then set the back of my hand against his palm. “Point my hand where the couch is.”
“Micah—”
“Please! Just…I need to know.”
“Okay,” he said slowly, clearly confused. I didn’t blame him. The moment we stepped into the apartment, I’d clung to him. I let him tell me what he saw. I didn’t verify anything for myself.
Not until now.
“Couch is—” He lifted my hand and pointed toward the window. Where my two low bookshelves were supposed to be.
I swallowed heavily. “Bookshelves?”
He pointed to the wall where the TV was meant to sit.
I nodded. “Take me to my bedroom.”
He started walking, and I kept my hand in his. We stopped in the doorway, and I took a breath.
“Bed?”
He pointed to the left. Wrong.
“Dresser?”
Under the window. Wrong.
I didn’t want to keep going. I couldn’t. My entire body was trembling again, and now I was struggling to breathe. Vanya must have noticed because he took my arm and pulled me out of the room and led me to the couch, which felt all upside down and backwards.
“Tell me, please,” he begged the moment we were sitting. “What is happening?”
I took a trembling breath and reached out in front of me. At least the coffee table was in front of me the way it was meant to be. My fingers touched the paper Hunter had left behind, and I snatched them away like I’d been burnt by the candles he’d also lit.
Fuck, I felt sick.
“He moved everything.”
“I don’t understand,” Vanya said, sounding helpless.
Passing both hands down my face, I took as much of a calming breath as I could before speaking again. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to start screaming, and if I did that, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop.
“He—Hunter—he moved everything. Everything in my cupboards, everything in my fridge. He moved my furniture around. I’m going to assume he moved everything in my bathroom too.”
“I don’t understand,” Vanya said quietly. “Why would he do this?”
“Because I can’t see!” I hadn’t meant to shout, but I felt Vanya recoil. “Sorry. Shit.” Oh god, the space behind my eyelids was getting hot. I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I—I can’t see, Vanya. I need everything to be the way I set it up so I’m not fucking blind in my own home.”
Vanya spat something in Russian. Something angry. I didn’t understand the words, but I understood the tone. He took a deep breath, then said, “Okay, we fix.”
I shook my head. “I don’t—I can’t be in here. I need to get the fuck out.”
“Okay. Okay,” he said quickly. “What you want to bring?”
“Nothing. It all feels fucking tainted.” I forced myself to stand on jelly legs and hated that I startled when Vanya touched my arm. “Actually, bring that note.”
I didn’t actually want to know what he’d written, but I needed it. Ben was right. I couldn’t keep going like this. Hunter’s texts and threats weren’t easy to ignore before, but I’d given it my best shot.
I’d tried to treat him like a toddler who was acting up for attention.
But this?
This was unhinged. This was…there were no words. Hunter was clearly not okay, and I didn’t want to think about what else he was capable of.
Vanya reached past me, and I heard him swipe the paper off the table and fold it. When he touched me again, his hands were empty, and I couldn’t stop myself from collapsing against him.
“I want to get out of here.”
“Yes. We can go.”
He loosened his grip but didn’t move until I was ready, and when I finally pulled back and made my way to the front door to grab my cane and shoes, I knew in that moment I would probably never be back here again.
There was something to be said about the fact that Vanya’s place was starting to feel like home. The smells, the sounds our feet made on the floors, the spot on the couch that I had mentally claimed, and the way Vanya dropped down with a soft grunt and simply leaned into me.
It soothed me in a way I didn’t think I could be soothed right then.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Vanya asked.
I didn’t. And I did. It felt like it was festering alongside everything else I’d been keeping to myself. Licking my lips, I sat forward, reaching for the water Vanya had gotten me before settling in.
My stomach churned, protesting taking anything in, but a few moments later, I felt better.
“Were there any busted windows?”
Vanya sighed. “No. If he use the window, he put everything back the way it was. I think maybe call desk, see if someone get your key.”
“There is no way they’d give anyone my key without calling first,” I said, but the reality was, I had to ask. Something was going on.