Chapter 5
FIVE
ISAAK
I wake up in the middle of the night breathing hard, sweat pouring down my head, and I know that, fuck , I’ve had another nightmare.
I can’t remember the dream this time, but the scents of burnt rubber, smoke, dust, and blood are familiar in my nose. In my head. And the ringing noise that’s the loudest thing you’ve ever heard but sounds like total silence all at the same time. Until the screams start to filter in. Even though I can’t remember the dream, the images still start to pour in.
So much choking... and the first thing I saw once the dust settled was the blood. So much fucking blood?—
I go to jackknife up when I feel pressure on my chest and realize—oh shit. I’m not alone. It takes my still-scrambling brain to figure out where the hell I am.
I never stay over at a woman’s house after we fuck.
But right. Right.
The new job.
Kira. The stalker. The fucked up scene we found in her house last night.
I’m in a hotel room with Kira. And not just in a hotel room .
I’m in a hotel bed with Kira.
Naturally, her side of the bed is empty.
She’s currently curled up in my arms, half on top of me, her wild red hair fanned out across my chest. She’s sleeping as peacefully as a kitten. Snoring, actually.
Little adorable snorting snores.
She feels good there. Real good, actually. Too good.
Me and women, we don’t generally get to the snuggling part. I don’t choose that kind of gal on purpose.
I don’t need to inflict my shit on a good woman. So I just take mutual urges out on ladies who are just as fucked up as me. Women with low expectations, who don’t mind when you put your belt back on almost as soon as your boots are done knockin’.
But Kira’s not that kinda woman. You take one look at her fancy bag and know that.
Not to mention, she’s my fucking client , and I can’t do anything to fuck up this business I’m trying to get off the ground.
I’ve been drifting on the wind for a goddamn decade, and I’m finally trying to really plant myself somewhere. To grow something real. Something solid. If I screw it up by fucking my first client, then I’m gonna stay nothing for the rest of my life.
This feels like it —my one chance to break out of the funk I’ve been in since Afghanistan. I’ve got a brief burst of give a shit, and I don’t know what happens if I don’t make something of it. I suspect it’ll be what happens to all the other vets I know—I’ll just sink. I seen it happen time and time again. Guys working aimless, dead-end jobs and treating their women bad cause they’re such miserable fucks. Guys who start drinking and just don’t stop. Guys who end up in an early grave cause they sent themselves there when the demons got too loud.
Enlisting was supposed to be my way out of the system. I was too young and too dumb to realize I was still just part of a machine that wanted to pulverize and churn me out like ground meat.
After one of the bad nightmares, I don’t generally sleep the rest of the night, and tonight’s not gonna be any different. Laying here with a warm, sumptuous woman half on top of me and her sweet-smelling curls driving me half mad isn’t going to help.
I slink out from under her and head back into the shower. I wanna wash off the last of the nightmare sweats and take care of the morning wood that started to get a bit out of hand the more she nuzzled and sighed against my chest.
* * *
By the time I get out of my extra-long, extra hot shower, it’s morning and she’s in a robe, glaring at me.
“Did you leave any hot water for the rest of us? You sure were taking your sweet time. I’ve had to pee!”
“Well, honey, you should have let yourself right on in. The more, the merrier.” I hold my arms out wide.
“Did your shirt fall out a window or something? You seem incapable of putting it on your actual body.”
I grin. “I like to air dry the way God intended.”
“Ugh. Well, you better be finished air drying by the time I get out of the shower because I have class this morning.”
“Aww, does this mean I’ll finally get to step foot on a college campus? I always dreamed about that.”
“You’ve never been to college?” She looks genuinely shocked. Kids these days.
“I was a little busy fighting in a war.”
“But weren’t you doing that as part of, like, the GI Bill? So you could go to college when you got back?”
I crack a grin at her. “Maybe I just really like shooting guns at strangers.”
She glares at me. “Be serious.”
“Why? It’s so much more fun fucking with you.”
She shakes her head, muttering under her breath as she waltzes past me to the bathroom. The door slams behind her, and I hear the lock click.
I’d be offended but I’m more glad she’s taking her safety seriously. Although she did just sleep with a man she didn’t know last night. At least I came with references from trusted friends.
Still.
I knock on the bathroom door.
Still in her robe, she opens the door. “What?” she barks, glaring angrily at me even though it’s barely seven in the morning. Doesn’t take much to get her riled, does it?
“Where’s your cell phone? I wanna see the disturbing messages your friends were talking about.”
“Oh.” She blinks like she wasn’t ready for anything but a fight. “It’s over there, plugged in by my nightstand. The code’s 4602.”
“Who else knows the code?”
“No one.”
“You told me pretty easily.”
She tilts her head, eyes deadpan. “You’re literally my security.”
“You shouldn’t be so trusting.”
“I’ll remember that.” She slams the door again.
I smile, walk over to grab her phone, sit in the overly plush chair, and punch in her code. I wonder if it means anything to her. Usually, people put in a year that’s sentimental to them, like their mother’s birth year or the year they graduated high school.
I’m glad Kira’s smarter than that.
Notifications immediately start popping up, and the smile dies on my face as I read the texts pouring in from different, unknown numbers.
UNKNOWN: You sure are pretty when you scream.
UNKNOWN: Who the fuck is that with you?
UNKNOWN: Did you bring him home to fuck, you whore?
UNKNOWN: I’ll kill you, slut.
UNKNOWN: What’s his name, slut?
UNKNOWN: Did he take you back to his house, fucking whore?
UNKNOWN: I’m going to gut you like a pig if you fuck him.
UNKNOWN: You’re such a fucking slut.
On and on, the threats and insults continue. My muscles are tense by the time I’ve scrolled through them. Several contain picture attachments, which are blocked, thank god, but still.
I look toward the bathroom door and hear the gentle noise of the continuous spray. Is this what she wakes up to every morning, or is this just because of what happened last night?
He was watching us somehow through the window of her bedroom. My hand tightens around her phone, and I force myself to drop it back to the nightstand.
It buzzes again with another incoming text that I read.
UNKNOWN: When I get my hands on you, I’m gonna fuck you till your hole bleeds.
I slam the phone back down. I want to delete every text so she never reads them, but they might be evidence.
Jesus Christ. How often throughout the day do these come in? She said her email was just as bad. And because she has a university email, it’s not like she can change that as easily as her phone number.
Not that changing her phone number helped last time. I frown. How is this bastard getting her new number?
Does it mean it’s someone close to her? Or, like she said, some little shit-head student who’s got some fucked-up crush on her?
That’s it. This shit ends now.
When she comes out of the shower, I start barking orders. “I want a list of all the little shits you suspect might be the stalker. Before class so I can watch them while you teach.”
She looks at the clock on the nightstand, one towel wrapped around her glistening body, another around her hair. “I don’t know if there’s time.”
“We’re gonna make time. That sadistic fuck has sure made time to text you all morning and night. How often do they come in like that?”
She sighs. “Usually once an hour, if not more. He has to have them on some sort of timer system because they come all night long. But they’re not regular, either. Like they don’t come at the same time every hour, so I can’t anticipate them, either. It’s just another way to fuck with me.”
“And your email?”
“Constantly spammed with the same sort of shit.”
“What do the cops say?”
“That they can’t do anything without any leads.”
“After class, we’ll call them to the scene at your house and fill out another report. This bastard is escalating.”
She rubs her eyes with her palms. “I know.” Her voice is quiet, and I don’t like it.
I take a step closer to her. “It’s going to be okay, Red. I’m here now. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She lets out a trembling little breath, her eyes lifting to mine. “You read the messages?”
Still holding her gaze, I nod.
“It’s always about control,” she says, then laughs a little hysterically. “It feels like everyone in my life gets to have control over my life except me. Carol. My father. My Ph.D. advisor. Now, even a stranger.”
“We’ll find them,” I say vehemently, “And stop them.”
“How?” she asks, sounding like she feels helpless. “The cops are next to useless. They won’t do anything.”
“They might find prints.”
“They didn’t last time. But maybe they’ll take it more seriously since it’s escalating?”
As much as I’d like to think the boys in blue will do anything, I’ve had enough run-ins with them in my life to know better.
“In the meantime, we stay with horror movie rules,” I say. “I stick to you like glue.”
I wince, remembering my nightmare right as I say it. This won’t end like that. I won’t let it.