T W E N T Y-S E V E N Walk.
Sarah’s POV
Two months later…
They say that time changes things and can heal all wounds, but that last one was a crock of shit.
Time can just ensure that we are prepared for anything else that could come from these two.
Will had basically disappeared from our lives.
He had reached out once to apologize to both of us and to extend an apology to the boys.
He asked Devereaux to raise the boys as his own and to raise them better than he did.
He promised he’d keep the same number if the boys ever wanted to talk to him, and promised that he’d be there.
He said he was starting therapy, that my words pushed him to be better.
Devereaux’s shoulder was finally getting back to normal, but both of us were still messed up from the shooting.
His physical scars remained as a reminder, but the mental scars were still ever-present.
I couldn’t seem to stop reliving losing him over and over again in my dreams, seeing him being shot, watching him fall, seeing him bleeding beneath my fingers.
I was trying to keep it together, to ignore the nightmares, while Row had become incredibly clingy and needed to know where I was every second of the day.
He was always calling or texting me, his parents, and the school.
He admitted he wanted to start therapy, that he was having extreme anxiety about the safety of me and the boys.
He was still having panic attacks and worried that, even though Will said he’d stay away, and that Paloma had been arrested and sent to a psychiatric facility, they’d come back to hurt us.
When Paloma was arrested that night, she claimed not to know what had happened or how she got there.
She kept pleading that she didn’t know what happened, that she must have had a mental break.
That she didn’t do it on purpose. She was just trying to get Will to talk to her.
She said that was her goal of going to the party that night.
In the end, Paloma hadn’t been released on bond or bail; she was sent to a psychiatric facility for treatment to determine if she was competent enough to stand trial.
I knew Row and I would both feel more comfortable if she were behind bars, but we weren’t the judge; we had no real say in what he decided.
She had been transferred and there for the last six weeks, according to police officers and the psychiatric hospital staff.
However, the security cameras and doorbell camera Row installed in our new place we moved into last month said something completely different.
We called everyone we could think of. We called the DA, the police, Jenson, Petey, the facility she was supposedly at.
No one took us seriously.
But we’d seen it, recorded it, and saved it to several sources, including sending it to his family, the local police department, Jenson, and everyone else.
Paloma had somehow managed to break out of the hospital where she was supposed to be while she awaited trial, and was now stalking our home.
Row had gotten the notification after the boys and I left for school one morning.
She walked up to the front door, looking through the windows.
A security camera caught her looking into the backyard, trying to see if there was a way in.
Devereaux played a dog barking through the outside speakers when she tried to open the fence, and she ran, but still.
She was there.
She found our home, somehow.
The safe feeling we’d had was stripped away from us in an instant.
We were exposed, vulnerable to a possible attack or something from her.
I wasn’t sure whether she was insane or determined, but either way, this just proved there was something wrong with her.
Whether mentally or fundamentally, I wasn’t sure.
That was our only sighting of her on our cameras, and law enforcement wouldn’t take it seriously, thinking she’d somehow left, thinking she wouldn’t stick around.
We checked the cameras religiously, taking different ways to and from anywhere outside of the house.
Grocery, school, work, whatever we needed to do to keep all of us safe.
It was exhausting. Two weeks after her appearance on our cameras, the facility finally admitted she was missing.
That sent the police into a search, and it put Will’s small family and ours on alert.
***
It was a normal day. I had just dropped the boys off at school and said goodbye to Devereaux as he was leaving for work.
I was planning on planting some of our herbs and veggies we brought with us from the apartment, since it wasn’t too hot or cold, and the weather was holding off nicely.
It was still chilly, but the ground had thawed.
We’d fenced in and dug up a twelve-foot square to plant our garden in.
I was elbow deep in dirt, slightly sweaty, and wearing a pair of gardening gloves with overalls.
I was the definition of a gardener today.
I didn’t have anything on the books this week for The Board Babe, so I was pretty free with time.
I wanted to start hosting the classes again, and maybe restart classes.
We’d put so much of our lives on pause that getting back to some kind of normal might be beneficial for us.
The therapist agreed with getting back into some kind of routine.
I was deep in thought and didn’t hear anything, didn’t feel anything was off until I felt something hard pressed into my back. I froze.
No one should be here. The house was locked.
The fence was locked. Who was it? How did they get in?
I didn’t move, but instinctively, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
It was like my body knew what my mind didn’t want to accept.
I was in danger. Again. And this time, there was no one to save me.
There was no one close by who would be able to get to me in time.
This could be it for me if they intended to harm.
“Get. Up.” Two words had never sounded so aggressive, so full of malice.
I slowly lifted myself, careful not to make any sudden movements.
I recognized that voice. The one who moaned my ex-husband’s name.
The one who demanded to know why I was trying to come between them.
I turned, slowly, glacially slow, not wanting to trigger her more. I looked at her.
She looked thin, tired, and dirty. She looked crazed. Like she was wishing I’d give her a reason, but also the glint in her eyes told me even if I didn’t, she’d try her damnedest. She looked like a woman with nothing to lose, whose life had already ended.
“Walk.” She kept the knife on me, stuck, pressing firmly into my back, forcing me to walk forward. I knew I was in trouble if we moved inside. I knew I’d be in danger if others couldn’t see. I froze as she and the knife kept moving forward. I felt it slice through my side, cutting me open.
“Walk,” her voice tight, frustrated, and mad that I wasn’t following her orders.
I couldn’t explain it, but it was like my whole body had frozen; I couldn’t move.
My body wouldn’t move or speak, or do anything, but breathe and blink.
She didn’t move an inch, but I felt the edge of the knife press harder into my side, cutting into my flesh in an attempt to urge me to move. But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t move because my mind was stuck on the thought that if I went into that house, away from an easy spot for someone to see me, I was going to die. I’d never see Row or the boys again. I’d be done for. At least if we stayed in the backyard, I might have a chance.
I would be gone from this world, and my sons hadn’t even been officially adopted by Row yet.
He hadn’t given us his last name. Tears came to my eyes, streaking down my cheeks; the only sign that I was functioning, that I was in there.
I felt trapped between my brain and my body.
My brain, ever logical, wanted to move and do something to keep us from the house.
My body, ever stubborn, refused to do anything.
I could feel the pain, the searing pain of the sharp blade cutting through my skin. I could feel the panic rising in my chest; the inner voice inside me was screaming to move, to do something.
But I was frozen.
Stuck.
And just as I was about to surrender to what I knew was coming, a voice called out.
“Hey neighbor!”