Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
ABIGAIL
My eyes shot open, ears straining to hear as I felt the air around me shift. This wasn’t right. My senses told me to be on my guard, and after what’d happened to me earlier in that alleyway, I needed to pay attention.
I didn’t move, I stayed deadly still and listened, my mind whirling with every morbidly sick and twisted possibility for what was about to happen.
Was someone in my apartment?
Was I about to fight for my life?
Had he come back to finish the job?
I could tell it wasn’t morning yet. My room was still dark, and the road outside was quiet. No traffic had started to build up for the commuters heading to work. There was just wind and the occasional hum of an engine in the distance, sounds that helped to ease my racing heart slightly.
Slowly, I turned my head to look at the clock beside my bed. Four twenty-two. My eyes darted around my room as they became accustomed to the dark, and everything appeared to be normal, but I knew to trust my instincts.
I sat up in bed and then twisted my body to place my feet on the floor. Bare feet. Better to creep through into my living room without being detected. I couldn’t stay in here waiting, I had to go out there and face whatever had come for me. Especially if it was him.
I stood up and tiptoed gently over to my dressing table, took out the bread knife I kept inside the drawer, and held it firmly in my hand, ready to use if I needed to.
Another step, and I prised the door to my small bathroom open, but it was empty. Whoever was here was waiting for me out in the living room.
Two more steps and I stood in front of my bedroom door, leaning my head against the wood to listen for any sounds coming from the other side. I could hear the tick of my wall clock, the hum of the fridge from the kitchen, and a faint tap, tap.
What the hell was that?
Gripping the door handle, I turned it and pushed the door open just an inch to peek through the crack.
The tapping was a little louder now, and a surge of confidence swelled through me.
If someone had come into my home, if he had come back to finish what he’d started, I was going to fight with everything I had.
So, lifting the knife, I took a deep breath, gritted my teeth and flung the door open, standing in the doorway to find...
Nothing.
At least it seemed like nothing.
I reached out to slap the wall beside me, finding the light switch and turning it on. The living room was bathed in light now, and at first glance, it looked as if everything was normal. But I knew it wasn’t.
My head whipped to the side as the tapping started again.
The window in my living room was open, and the blinds I had there were blowing, tapping against the glass.
I knew it hadn’t been like that when I went to sleep.
I always kept my windows closed at night.
I hated the bugs that came in, and it wasn’t safe to leave it open overnight.
Not in a neighbourhood like this. Not when there were men like him out there.
Sickness and dread twisted my insides as I stalked over to the window and pulled it shut.
Then I marched the small distance to my kitchen to check no one was hiding behind the door.
Not that they’d have much room to. My apartment was tiny, and my kitchen had the space for roughly two people to stand in, no more than that.
There was no one in there, but as I turned back to face the living room, I noticed the letters on my coffee table had been moved. I swallowed through a throat coated with sandpaper as I glanced from the coffee table to my bookshelf, and that’s when I noticed it. A photo was missing.
I stalked over to the shelves, put the knife down, and picked up the frame where the photo of me and my dad had been propped up.
Then I started moving other frames, thinking stupidly that maybe the wind had blown it somewhere.
It hadn’t. I peered at the floor, praying it had fallen off the shelf, but it was nowhere, and a painful sob threatened to break free, a sob I didn’t want to release.
I didn’t want to give in to the sorrow that losing it would cause.
That photo had been taken on the day my dad got the all-clear from the doctors following his cancer treatment.
We’d gone to a restaurant to celebrate, and every time I looked at that photo, I remembered the feeling of pure joy, happiness and relief we all felt knowing he wouldn’t have to go through any more agonising treatments.
It meant everything to me, that photo. But it was gone.
Someone had come in here and taken in. Someone who wanted me to feel frightened, unsafe, violated.
Him.
I turned to face the room, and through gritted teeth, I said, “This fucking stops, now. I won’t let you do this to me. Not anymore.”
He was back again. My stalker. I should’ve known after what’d happened tonight. That attack was no accident, I was targeted. I knew it. But this time, I would catch him and make him pay.
I marched back to my bedroom and threw the knife back into the drawer, then gathered my hair in my hands, ready to put it into a messy bun so I could start to get ready and make a battle plan, but as I did, a section from the side of my hair fell out of my hands, back onto my face.
What the fuck?
There was a chunk of my hair missing.
He’d cut my fucking hair.
That bastard had come into my apartment, walked into my bedroom when I was fucking sleeping and cut a lock of my hair. A big fucking lock of hair. I was seething.
“Fuck you,” I said as I glared at my reflection in the mirror, and then, still feeling the weight of my wrath burning a hole through my soul, I shouted, “FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FREAK! YOU DON’T GET TO DO THIS TO ME ANYMORE! I’VE HAD IT! YOU’VE STALKED ME FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME!”
I put my hair into a messy bun, secured it with a claw clip, then took the piece that was hanging free and pinned that back with a few bobby pins. I huffed as I stared at the mess. A mess he had made.
I needed to step up my game and track this fucker down.
No one messed with a girl’s safety and peace of mind. But her hair? That was a different thing entirely. I was ready to take this fucker down.