Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
ISAIAH
She’d sat on the boat, clinging to my gun like it was her anchor.
She did the same once we got to the jetty and into my van.
I couldn’t deny, it intrigued me, wondering whether she’d actually use it if I made the wrong move.
I wasn’t sure, and I liked that about her.
She was unpredictable. Tonight had proved that.
I flashed my indicator and pulled into the car park for her apartment, parking at the front of the building so she felt safer.
“You don’t need the gun anymore,” I told her, nodding to the glove box to tell her to put it back.
“Maybe.” She glanced at the firearm in her hand and then frowned.
“Not maybe. It’s a no.” I leaned over and heard a quiet gasp as I moved closer and took the gun from her. She didn’t argue or try to resist; she let me put it back in the glove box, and then she sat back, throwing her head back on the headrest.
“We didn’t need to take her to the lake. We could’ve left her in the house.” She turned to glare at me, accusations darting from her eyes, ready to stab me, but they just fell to the floor like blunt darts hitting a useless old dartboard. “Why did you do that? Why did you take her?”
I met her steely glare with a satisfied wink, my eyes crinkling as I grinned and said, “I fancied an adventure. Burning her was boring.” Then leaning closer, I added, “Didn’t you enjoy trying something new?”
“You’re crazy,” she said, slowly turning to stare ahead.
Her leg was twitching, jumping as if she were stressed and had nervous energy she couldn’t expel. I guess my presence was taking its toll, but that only spurred me on more.
“All the best people are,” I replied, and she huffed her annoyance.
“Well, that was... a night.” She ran her hands over her face and then reached for the door handle. “Thanks for everything. I guess I’ll see you around.”
I opened my door too. She wasn’t getting away that easily. “Where are you going?”
“Errr, home?” She said it like a question, but that wasn’t what she was questioning.
“And I’m walking you to your door.”
“I don’t think so.” She shook her head as she began to walk towards the front door to her building, trying to leave me behind.
That wasn’t going to happen.
“Did I say it was up for debate?”
“Did I say you could come into my building?”
She stood at the door, like she was waiting for me to leave. And I ignored her, taking hold of the front door handle and pulling, not surprised in the slightest that it wasn’t locked. “I’d like to see you try and keep me out.” I smirked, then swept my arm forward and told her, “After you.”
She took a beat, glaring at me, then realised it was hopeless and huffed as she walked past me into the foyer.
“You can leave me here. You don’t need to climb the stairs and follow me to my front door.”
“I don’t need to.” I leaned my head closer to hers, loving the way that my nearness affected her. “But I want to.”
She stood still then shook her head and spun around, her curls bouncing as she flounced off, heading towards the staircase as she mumbled under her breath. She was walking fast, trying to get ahead. It was cute that she thought she could shake me off so easily.
We climbed the stairs, her striding with purpose, and me following slowly behind, finding the whole thing amusing.
But as we reached the landing for her floor, everything changed.
Up ahead, dressed all in black with a hoodie up, trying to break into her apartment again, was her stalker. Her other stalker.
“What the fuck?” she cried, but I was two steps ahead, bolting down the hallway, ready to catch the motherfucker.
He heard the pound of my footsteps and turned to face me. He was wearing a bandana over his face and only his eyes were showing. Beady, evil eyes that glared with wicked intent before he backed up and started to run in the opposite direction down the hallway.
He reached the end of the corridor before me and flung a door open. I knew that was the fire escape.
When I got there, I slammed the door against the concrete wall as I launched myself down the stairs, holding onto the rail and jumping down the steps to try and catch him.
I could hear him panting as he ran, his footsteps echoing off the grey, concrete walls.
I didn’t stop, I threw myself down those stairs so fast I was sure I’d land on him soon, push him to the floor and kick the shit out of him before I asked him who the fuck he was, and why he was targeting her. This guy was going down.
There was a whoosh of cold air as the bottom floor came into view.
He’d escaped through the fire door, into the car park at the back of the building.
I did the same, charging through, ready to run across the asphalt and catch him.
But as I burst out into the cool night air and glanced around, I couldn’t see him.
It was as if the fucker had vanished into thin air.
I chose to go right first, running to the side of the building that led to the main road, but he wasn’t there, and there were no suspect black Mercedes cars waiting for him.
I doubled back, heading back to the car park and running in the opposite direction, but that was a dead end.
Where the fuck was he?
I stood still, whipping my head around to see if I could spot him, listening intently for any sign that he was close. I ducked down, to see if he was hiding behind one of the cars parked back here, then I paced forward, checking behind each one, but there was no one here.
“Fuck,” I cursed.
I didn’t like it when a target escaped. I didn’t make mistakes, but right now, it felt like I’d failed, and I was pissed.
“I’ll find you, you cocksucker!” I shouted into the night.
I hoped he could hear me. I hoped he knew who I was and was shitting himself on all the ways I could fuck him up.
I walked back to the open fire exit, went back into the stairwell and closed the door behind me. I peered up through the stairwell to the floor where her apartment was, and there she was, looking right down at me.
“Did you see who it was?” she asked, fear etched on her beautiful face.
“No, but I don’t think he’ll be back.” I knew that was a lie. He’d be back, and I needed to up my game, so that I was ready for him. I wouldn’t fail again.
I took the stairs two or three at a time, and when I got to her floor and where she was standing, I told her, “If you think I’m leaving now, you’ve got another thing coming. We need to talk.”
“I don’t know who that was,” she said, trying to pass it off as an unhappy coincidence.
“But you know why they were here,” I countered.
“Not really.”
“That’s not an answer, Abigail, and right now, I need answers.”
“I don’t have the answers you want.”
“I think you do.”
She folded her arms over her chest and jutted her chin out.
“And why is that? Because I’m pretty tired right now.
I’ve had the mother of all nights. I’ve come home to find that guy at my door.
And I really don’t have the energy for whatever this is.
” She used her hand to gesture between the two of us, and I took a deep breath, holding in the rage that’d been boiling over from the moment I’d laid eyes on the fucker breaking into her apartment.
“You’re telling me you’re going to sleep after what’s just happened? Bullshit. Now cut the crap, Abigail. Let’s go back to your apartment, and we can take it from there.”
“Take what from there?”
“The interrogation.” I smiled proudly, even though I felt anything but after letting that fucker get away.
From the way her face paled as she took in what I said, weighing up her options, I could tell she was panicking.
“Are you trying to scare me?” she whispered, lowering her gaze at me.
“Are you scared?”
She held my gaze for a few seconds, then said, “No, I won’t sleep. I’ll be replaying what happened in that house, on that boat, and in my hallway just now on a loop until I’m too exhausted to even think. And yes, I’m scared. Scared about what I’ve done. What you saw and what happens next.”
“Then let me help you with that.” I started to walk back down the hallway towards her door. “Neither of us will be sleeping, so we may as well figure shit out together.”
She stopped in front of her door, bit her lip in thought, then took her key out and opened the door.
“Fine. But I have weapons. And if you step out of line, I’ll use them.”
She had blunt knives in her kitchen, an old bread knife in her bedroom, and a few shitty pairs of scissors. I think I’d survive.
“Stab away,” I said, grinning back at her as I followed her into her apartment.