2. Chapter One
Chapter One
Julianna
T he door seals behind me with a quiet hush that resonates in the hollows of my condo.
In my hand is a bag of groceries for dinner tonight.
I’m jumpy. Itchy in places I didn’t know could itch.
Damn, self closing doors. Honestly, it was a feature I love until I need to slam the fucking door and hear a loud bang.
Like now. For a long minute, I stand at the threshold, hand on the deadbolt, feeling the microscopic catch and fall of the mechanism as it tumbles into place.
My heart ticks with it, fast at first, then recalibrating as I take inventory of the space.
No footprints, no trace of his scent, he worked cleanly, precisely, nothing out of place except the small blue indicator light blinking on the new main unit across the living room.
I lean my forehead against the cool of the steel, exhale, and let the relief settle.
In the afterimage of his presence, I sense a residue, like an impression in memory foam.
Creed had a way of inhabiting the air itself, every gesture measured to fit within the clean corners of my home.
His eyes had roved, yes, but it wasn’t the typical sweep of appraisal I’d come to expect from men of his breed.
It was more like… tactical scanning. The methodical gaze of someone cataloguing you, one detail at a time.
Maybe that’s why I feel so fucking unsettled.
I didn’t theoretically need this advanced of security, but a couple months ago, the county jail asked me to operate on an inmate.
Install a pacemaker. Things were going well until they weren’t, and he died.
Since then I’ve felt… eyes… on me. I asked the warden about who he was, and apparently he was serving time while he waited for trial.
Drug running and sex trafficking. Some kind of sick fuck who apparently had people who now wanted me dead.
Or so the cops said. They recommended I move, but I like my place, my life.
I love my job. Saving peoples lives, I mean.
I’d picked this building to settle in because it has some of the top-of-the-line security in the state, but I needed more.
Sleep was becoming more elusive as the feeling of being watched intensified, and I hope this system eases that.
I still hit the gym, even if all my other activities have ceased. Not that there was much to begin with. I’m what my coworkers call ‘a recluse’. I never go for drinks, never hit the club, never go to the ‘bonding BBQ’s’. I work and go home.
Just the way I like it.
For the first time since moving in, I am aware of myself as an object in the room.
The way my toes grip the floor, the fine line of my calf muscle beneath the hem of my pants.
I roll my shoulders, shake off the tension, and cross to the kitchen.
The overheads flicker on, motion-triggered, flooding the island in a pool of white so clean it hums.
The kitchen is my favorite space, even if it’s the least used.
It is a chef’s kitchen, a granite expanse of surfaces so immaculate they beg to be ruined.
I set the grocery bag down with a thud that ricochets off the glass.
Inside: three Roma tomatoes, a single bulb of garlic, a plastic baggie containing precisely one handful of arugula, and a package of fresh linguine.
All bought with the intention of being used tonight, and all measured exactly to avoid leftovers or waste.
I can cook, but I much prefer ordering take-out. Tonight is the exception because I had no surgeries lined up.
The knives are arrayed on the counter, nestled in a magnetic block that makes them appear to levitate.
I select the chef’s knife, eight-inch, weighted perfectly for my hand.
I halve the tomatoes along the equator, watching the seeds spatter onto the board.
The smell is fresh, ripe and acid. I roll the garlic clove between my palms, listening to the skin crackle before I crush it under the flat of the blade. The movement is fluid, satisfying.
I work in silence. There is music on my phone, my usual hype shit, but I don’t feel like the noise today.
Instead, I listen to the scrape and chop of metal on wood, the way it punctuates the background hum of the city outside my thirty-fourth-floor window.
I fill a small saucepan with water, set it to boil, and add a single measured spoonful of coarse salt.
As I wait, I line up the ingredients with the obsessive symmetry of a surgeon prepping a tray.
My mind slips back, unbidden, to Creed’s hands, how sure they were, how precise despite the size of them.
There was nothing careless about him, not even in the way he regarded me when he thought I was looking elsewhere.
I am used to being watched, especially in this job, but his attention felt…
absolute. I try to recall if there was a specific moment when it crossed from professional to personal, but I can’t find one.
He was a fixed point, unyielding, as if he knew me long before I even knew his name.
The water boils. I drop in the pasta, swirl it, set the timer for exactly three and a half minutes, just shy of the box’s suggestion, because I prefer it to bite back.
While it cooks, I sauté the tomatoes and garlic in olive oil, swirling the pan by the handle to keep the heat even.
The room fills with the first honest smell it’s had in days.
I wilt the arugula, toss in the pasta, and kill the flame.
I plate with precision. One neat coil of noodles, ringed by a perfect halo of tomato.
I run a grater over a block of parmesan, letting the snow settle on top, then wipe the rim of the plate with a damp cloth.
The effect is… clinical, maybe, but it pleases me.
I pour a glass of white wine, precisely four ounces, and carry it all to the island.
The stools are tall, backless, upholstered in slate.
I perch on the nearest one, right elbow resting on the polished quartz, and open my tablet.
The news scrolls by, column after column of war, scandal, and clickbait, but none of it lands.
My focus is fractured, residual from the presence that just left.
I find myself staring at the blue light blinking from the far wall, counting the interval between pulses.
It is maddeningly regular, like a heartbeat.
Like someone is monitoring, but who would want to sit and watch me eat?
I force myself to eat. The pasta is still hot, the texture exactly as intended.
Each bite is measured, fork tines scraping gently against ceramic.
The noise carries in the emptiness, a metronome for my solitude.
The wine is dry, tannic, leaving a fine grit on my tongue.
I read two pages of an editorial on the collapse of the Eurozone, but the words skitter off the surface of my mind. It’s just all so… boring.
I finish my meal in under seven minutes, a record even for me.
I rinse the plate, wash the fork, dry both, and return them to their appointed places.
The kitchen resets itself, as if dinner never happened.
I stare at my reflection in the window, face hollowed by the backlight, and try to imagine what Creed would make of this tableau.
He seemed the perceptive type. Did he notice how utterly colorless my place was? How lonely?
Did he notice the absence of clutter? If he were to come for dinner, would he notice the lack of photos on the wall?
The emptiness of the fridge, save for a row of mineral water bottles and a single, unopened carton of almond milk?
Would he find meaning in the way I color-code the spice jars, or the fact that my pantry is organized by descending mass?
Probably. He strikes me as the sort who would read a person by their leftovers, or lack thereof.
I shake off the thought, but it lingers, sticking to the corners of my mind.
The condo feels different now, as if it has gained a witness.
I move from room to room, confirming that all is as it should be…
towels folded, blinds at perfect half-mast, slippers aligned at the edge of the bedroom rug.
In the bathroom, I catch sight of myself in the mirror and take inventory: pupils equal and reactive, no tremor in the hands, no flush to the cheeks.
I am fine.
I am always fine.
I change into gym clothes, leggings, sports bra, a moisture wicking spaghetti strap, and sit cross-legged on the living room floor, scrolling through the day’s emails.
My boss wants me to speak at some conference coming up.
I don’t want to, but apparently I am ‘someone to watch in the heart space’.
I flag the message and move on. There are three texts from my sister, none urgent, all bearing the same tone of cheerful condescension that I tolerate only because she is blood.
After a while, the apartment settles. The blink of the blue light loses its menace, the silence goes back to being a comfort, and my mind sharpens itself on the routines that have always kept me whole. Tomorrow is another day, another surgery, another family.
There’s always more. And they each take a piece of me. Every fucking time.
I glance once more at the camera in the corner, barely visible against the white. For a second, I imagine a pair of eyes on the other side, watching, recording, cataloging. The thought doesn’t bother me as much as I thought it might.
I am alone. But not unobserved.
There’s a difference. And I find, tonight, that I don’t entirely hate it.