Chapter Twenty One
‘Morning, Soph. Ry xx.’
I shouldn’t have let him in. That was the first one that landed. Clear. Solid. Something I could hold onto. Everything else less so.
My body hadn’t hesitated. Not for a second.
Not when he touched me. Not when I realised just how much of him had changed.
His skin, his hair. Metal where there shouldn’t have been any.
The difference. It should have been too much.
But it hadn’t been. My fingers tightened slightly around the phone, my gaze still fixed on nothing.
Because that was the problem. Not that he’d changed.
That I hadn’t reacted the way I should have.
You don’t know him anymore, Sophie.
My dad’s voice slipped in, low and certain, like it always had been. I swallowed, my throat tightening. He was right.
The man standing in my flat last night wasn’t the boy I’d known. He carried something else now. Something heavier. Harder. It sat in his silence. In the way he watched everything. In the way he left without asking if I wanted him to stay.
And still. I’d let him close. I’d wanted him. Still wanted him, like thirteen years hadn’t come between us.
Foolish girl.
My father’s voice again.
I closed my eyes briefly, the words sharper this time.
Older. Familiar. Like I was seventeen again, crying in my bedroom because the boy I loved had left me standing in the rain.
I could still feel him. That was the worst part.
Not just memory. Not just thought. Something deeper.
Like my body hadn’t caught up with everything my head was trying to tell it.
This doesn’t end well.
Another one. Quieter this time. More dangerous. That deep sense of nausea and anxiety settled into my stomach. I exhaled slowly, forcing my eyes open again, dragging myself back into the room.
Because this wasn’t just about him. It was everything around him, too. The club. The danger. The way my dad had looked at me when he said I’d been seen there. The way he always knew more than he should.
Stay away from men like that, Sophie. They ruin everything they touch.
My chest tightened. I stared at the message a second longer. Then, locked the screen.
*****
Mercifully, A they just moved on.
Yet still, that trickle of anxiety stuck. The feeling of eyes on me. Watching. Waiting. Following. I hadn’t felt it this morning. But now. Now I felt like someone was with me. And it stayed with me all day.
It was mid-afternoon when I saw him again.
The man in leather. But he wasn’t quite the same.
He sat in the waiting room, eyes glancing at his phone and then up and darting round the room.
Too alert. Too quickly distracted from whatever was on the mobile in his hand.
I watched from a corner, the angle shielding me from his view while giving me a vantage point.
His jaw was stronger than the other man’s.
And maybe there was a hint of a tattoo at his neck.
And this time, a hoodie and the hint of something dark over the top.
Not the same man as before. He was different. I could see that now.
“Soph.” A voice behind me made me jump and duck out of eyesight of the man I was watching. “Sorry. I’ve got a patient I need you to see.”
“Yeah, course.”
“Cubicle six.”
I nodded. “Be right with you.”
When I peeked out into the waiting room again, the chair was empty.
Late afternoon picked up. Patients arriving after school and after work. Sports injuries. A couple of car crashes. A skateboarding mishap. I saw patient after patient. Ordered every blood test I knew until the clock edged towards six and the new shift began to filter in.
It wasn’t dark when I left work. Too early for that yet.
But the sky was overcast and threatening, like rain or even a storm was on the way.
Cars purred around the car park, searching for spaces, visitors streaming in to make the most of the evening visiting hours.
And then a rumble. Deep. Head turning. Out of place.
I followed the sound, my heart skipping a beat, a note of excitement escaping into my chest. It grew louder until I could see it growling past. The rider’s head turned in my direction for just a little too long to be a glance, and then he passed on the mass of black and chrome as the pavement under my feet vibrated.
I watched him go, and a bear with red eyes on his back stared back at me.
He was wearing a cut. Not the same kind as I’d seen yesterday.
Not the same one that Ryan wore. This one was different. A different club. My stomach twisted.
I got to my car quickly. Not lingering. Not looking behind me.
Just walking straight to where I’d left it.
I pushed the button on the fob ten paces out and fought the urge to run the rest of the way.
But there was little relief inside. The world still seemed threatening even in this box of metal and glass.
I glanced at my phone as I slid it onto the holder, hoping to see something from Ryan.
Because seeing him light up my phone made me a little bit calmer.
No more messages. But then I’d never messaged him back.
Hadn’t given him reason to text me again.
The drive home was slow. Rush hour just trailing off. I counted more than ten motorbikes, hyper-aware of every sound and every vibration. I scanned every rider. Reading anything on their leathers. Any badge. Any sign of writing, but I didn’t see another cut.
The street was half empty when I made the turn, the long road stretch out in front of me. I slowed the car, scouring everything. Looking for anything different but not seeing a thing out of place. I was tired. I needed sleep.
When the last of the bolts slid shut on the back of my apartment door, I exhaled slowly, pressing my back against it, and concentrated on the sound of my own breath.
My head throbbed, dull, long beats. I sank the glass of water, washing down the painkillers, and then padded to the sofa.
The soft grey velvet was gentle under my cheek as I propped my head on a pillow.
He’d been right here with me last night.
All tattooed and pierced, and I’d panicked when I’d seen all that metal.
I glanced at my phone again. At the display that showed only the time and the outside temperature, and then I closed my eyes.
It was a deep rumble that woke me. And at first, I couldn’t see a thing.
Night had crept through the windows, engulfing the flat in an oppressive darkness.
And still, outside, the deep rumble continued.
But now that I listened, it wasn’t just one.
It was two engines I could hear, right out on the front street.
For a moment, I sat there still. Listening. Wondering whether I was imagining it. Wondering whether I was losing the plot. But in the dark, they were still out there, engines idling. If it was Ryan, he’d brought a friend.
I crept through the house to the bedroom that faced onto the street and the deep tones of the bikes outside.
Carefully, I glanced out. The bikes boxed in my car.
One in front, one behind, the riders chatting like this was a casual place to stop.
Across the other side of the street, a curtain twitched, a sliver of light from where someone else peeked out into the night.
The nearest streetlamp was a few feet away, and although the road was bathed in an orange glow, it wasn’t enough to work out what they looked like. But it was enough to catch a white, semi-circular marking up one side of them both. Cuts. Of that, I was certain.
Their heads moved in tandem, looking up towards the tall, three-storey house I lived at the top of.
I darted backwards, hiding in the shadows, my throat tightening and a familiar pressure building in my chest. The thump of my heart started in my ears, deep and almost painful, but I still stared out into the street, but not close enough now to the windows to see what they were doing.
For a long moment, I couldn’t move. I only listened to the race of my heart in my head and the rumble of the bikes still waiting outside. This wasn’t coincidence.
You don’t get this many coincidences without someone watching you.
My chest tightened further, the words settling deep, cold and certain. I didn’t think. My hand was already reaching for my phone. Because this wasn’t my world. It was his.
again.