Chapter Twenty-Five
SAGE
Lunging for my phone, my forearm catches the stem of my wineglass. It topples onto its side, cheap red wine spilling across the dining table and bleeding into the open case file I’d been staring at for most of the evening.
I don’t even look at it.
The file.
The wine.
None of it matters anymore.
I back away from the rear door, every instinct screaming at me to stay quiet, to keep whoever’s out there believing the apartment is empty.
The staircase rises just beyond the living room.
Bedroom.
If I can get upstairs…
If I can lock myself in…
If I can get into the closet and stay hidden…
Maybe they’ll leave.
Maybe they’ll think nobody is home. The thought is enough to get my legs moving.
I take the stairs two at a time, one hand skimming the banister because I’m climbing too fast for my body to keep up, my pulse hammering so violently that every step seems to shake through my bones. By the time I reach the middle of the staircase, I’ve almost convinced myself I’ve got a plan.
Then another thought punches straight through it. What happens if they find me? The question stops me so abruptly I almost lose my footing.
My fingers slam against the wall to steady myself while panic tears through every half-formed idea in my head.
I’m about to lock myself upstairs, alone.
With nothing but my phone.
If that door gives way…
If whoever is out there decides they aren’t leaving…
What exactly am I planning to defend myself with?
“Oh God!” The words barely make it past my lips. I spin around so fast my shoulder clips the wall, pain blooming through it as I bolt back down the stairs.
The kitchen.
How the hell didn’t I think of the kitchen?
Every second feels stolen now, and every footstep sounds too loud.
I keep expecting to hear the rear door burst open behind me, expecting heavy footsteps to follow me across the floor, expecting hands to grab me before I make it halfway across the room.
Nothing.
Only the deafening roar of my own pulse.
The knife block sits beside the sink exactly where it always has.
I’ve reached into it hundreds of times without thinking. Tonight my hand closes around the first handle I touch, and I yank it free so quickly the blade whispers against the timber.
I stare at it.
It’s just a kitchen knife.
Eight inches of stainless steel with a black plastic handle.
The same knife Piper used two nights ago while arguing that pineapple absolutely belonged on pizza.
A laugh almost escapes me.
Not because anything is funny, but because the absurdity of it crashes into me all at once.
This is supposed to protect me?
This ordinary little knife somehow stands between me and whoever is outside my back door?
My grip tightens until the handle bites into my palm.
It isn’t enough.
I know it isn’t.
But it’s more than empty hands.
God, what have they done to Liam?
Another sound drifts through the apartment.
Not the handle this time.
A scrape.
Metal brushing against metal.
Whoever is out there hasn’t left, and they are still trying.
The tiny thread of control I’d been clinging to snaps.
Ghost would have told me to breathe.
Ghost would have told me to think.
Ghost… isn’t here.
The realization hits so hard my chest physically aches.
I don’t think anymore.
I run.
Knife clutched so tightly my fingers are beginning to cramp, I race back toward the stairs, every shadow stretching into something threatening, every creak of the old apartment making my heart leap into my throat.
By the time I reach the upstairs closet, tears are blurring my vision badly enough that I can barely see the screen of my phone.
My hands shake so violently I miss Ghost’s name twice before finally managing to press it. The phone barely reaches my ear before he answers, “Hey baby?”
I don’t even realize I’m crying until I hear the tremor in my own voice. “G-Ghost,” I whisper, struggling to force enough air into my lungs. “S-someone’s trying to get into my a-apartment.”
Silence. Not long, less than a heartbeat, but long enough for me to hear a sharp inhale on the other end of the line.
Then everything changes.
“Sage.” His voice drops into something I’ve never heard before, low and frighteningly controlled. “Tell me exactly what you can hear.”
“The… the back door.” Another tear slips free as I clutch the knife tighter. “They’re trying the handle.”
“Fuck!” The word is barely more than breath before he buries it. “Are they inside?”
“N-no.”
“Can they see you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Good.” I hear a motorcycle engine roar to life beneath his next words. “Listen to me.” The engine revs hard. “I’m already on my way.”
My knees threaten to give out beneath me. “I-I don’t k-know who it i-is, and there’s no sign of Liam.”
“It’s okay.” His answer comes without hesitation. “I’ve got you.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know, baby.” The tenderness in his voice almost breaks me. “I know.”
Another scrape echoes through the apartment. I clap a hand over my mouth to stop the sob trying to escape. “Ghost…”
“I’m here.” His voice never wavers. “Stay with me.”
“I can hear them.”
“Try to be quiet.”
“They’re still there.”
“I know.”
“I-I…” My voice cracks into another whisper. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You keep that phone off speaker and stay quiet.” The command is immediate. “You stay exactly where you are. I’m six minutes out.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Hurry.”
“I’m coming.”
Downstairs, something breaks. Glass, maybe, or a lamp knocked from a table, and the sound of it sends me lower into the closet, folding myself between the hanging clothes and the wall like I can make myself small enough to disappear entirely.
I’m shaking. I can hear it in my own breathing, and Ghost can hear it, too, because he swears low under his breath on the other end of the line, a sound I have never heard from him before.
“Piper,” I whisper. “If she comes home right now, if she walks in on this—”
“She won’t. Koa’s got her covered. I texted him the second you called.” He pauses. “Sage. Stay where you are.”
“I could go down and see if—”
“Do. Not. Move!” The command cuts straight through the panic clawing at my chest.
Something in Ghost’s voice changes, every trace of warmth stripped away until all that’s left is absolute certainty. “I mean it, Sage. Stay exactly where you are.”
Another crash explodes somewhere downstairs. Glass—the unmistakable shatter of something hitting the kitchen tiles.
I jump so hard my shoulder slams into the back wall of the closet. “Oh God!”
“Sage.” His voice sharpens instantly. “Quiet.”
I clamp a hand over my mouth. Another crash. This one closer. Wood scraping across the floor. A cupboard door thrown open hard enough that it rebounds off the wall. Whoever is downstairs has stopped trying to be careful.
They are searching.
Ghost hears it. I know he does because the motorcycle beneath him roars louder through the phone, the engine climbing another octave as he twists the throttle harder. A quiet curse slips from him. “Fuck!”
The wind tears across the receiver now, loud enough that I can barely hear him.
“They’re wrecking the place,” I whisper. I squeeze the phone so tightly my fingers ache. “I—”
“Don’t.” His voice cuts me off. “Don’t say another word.” A sob catches in my throat. I swallow it so hard it hurts. “Hand over your mouth.” I don’t even think. I do it. “Good girl.” His breathing stays frighteningly steady despite the engine screaming beneath him. “I need you silent.”
Another crash. Something heavy this time. Maybe the dining chair. It skids across the timber floor with a horrible scraping sound before toppling over. The apartment I’ve spent months turning into home is being ripped apart one room at a time.
Tears stream silently down my face.
But I don’t make a sound.
The only thing louder than the destruction downstairs is the pounding of my own heart.
Seconds stretch until they stop feeling like seconds altogether.
Every bang makes my body flinch.
Every scrape feels closer than the last.
Then, through everything else, I hear it.
Faint at first.
A motorcycle.
I know that engine.
I’d know it anywhere.
Relief hits so hard it almost knocks another sob out of me.
Very carefully, barely louder than a breath, I whisper, “I can hear you.” The engine grows louder, closer.
“I’m here,” Ghost says quietly.
The bike downshifts. “Stay quiet, baby.”
The roar of Ghost’s motorcycle disappears as abruptly as it arrived, the engine cutting somewhere outside the apartment building.
The silence that follows settles deeper than any of the crashing ever did.
One second ago, there had been noise. The bike, the sound of drawers being ripped open downstairs, glass breaking, furniture scraping across timber, and now…
Nothing.
Not even the refrigerator humming in the kitchen.
I stop breathing without meaning to, every muscle in my body straining to catch the smallest sound, my pulse pounding so violently inside my ears it’s almost impossible to tell whether what I’m hearing is real or just the frantic rhythm of my own heart.
Please, please let him have scared whoever it was away.
The hope barely has time to settle before it’s ripped away again.
Footsteps.
Fast.
Heavy.
Somewhere outside.
Running.
I can’t tell if they’re coming toward the building or away from it, and that uncertainty twists something deep in my stomach until I think I’m going to be sick.
“I…” My throat closes so hard the word barely makes it out. “Ghost, I think someone’s here.”
The line goes silent. Not disconnected. Silent.
I can still hear him breathing, rough and uneven through the speaker, and for one stupid, desperate second, I cling to it because as long as I can hear him, I’m not doing this alone.
Then even that disappears.
“G-Ghost?” My voice cracks around his name.
Nothing.
The knot in my chest twists so violently it steals what little air I’d managed to drag into my lungs.
“Ghost?” I whisper again, tears spilling before I even realize they’re there. “Please…”
Please answer me.
Please tell me I’m imagining this.
Please tell me I’m being ridiculous.