53. Sage
Sage
The stack of heavy envelopes sitting on my nightstand had become my lifeline over the last few weeks.
Every word Julian had written me—every dark, fiercely protective promise penned in that beautiful writing of his—was etched permanently into my brain.
We had been responding back and forth constantly, a deeply intimate exchange that made the physical distance between us feel both unbearable and electric.
I was exhausted from a long day of classes and studio time, my brain practically fried as I fumbled with my keys in the hallway of my apartment building. I finally managed to unlock the deadbolt, pushing the heavy door open with my shoulder.
I had barely taken one step inside when my cell phone started vibrating frantically from the bottom of my tote bag.
I sighed, kicking the door shut behind me with my heel. I dug my hand past my sketchbooks and art supplies and pulled my phone out.
The screen was glowing brightly in the dim entryway.
Unknown Caller.
I dropped my bag onto the hardwood floor with a loud thud, my keys clattering next to it. My thumb swiped across the screen so fast my hand was shaking. I lifted the phone to my ear, my chest tight with sudden, desperate anticipation.
“Hello?” I answered, breathless.
A brief second of static crackled over the line and then, a low, gravelly, deeply familiar rumble vibrated through the speaker.
“Sage.”
My knees went weak. Hearing his voice always pulled the same reaction from me. All the beautiful memories from the cathedral, and the way he had kissed me came rushing back so vividly, I had to lean against the wall to keep from falling over.
“Julian,” I breathed, closing my eyes and pressing my forehead against the cool drywall. I couldn’t stop the stupid smile that broke across my face everytime he spoke. “You called.”
“I told you I would,” he murmured, his voice thick with a dark, starving relief that mirrored exactly how I felt. “God, it is incredibly good to hear your voice. How are you?”
“I’m perfectly fine. Just missing you.”
We spent the next several minutes just catching up, bridging the gap between my quiet, mundane life in the city and whatever chaotic, dangerous reality he was currently standing in. He asked about my art. I asked if he was sleeping well. It was easy, and intimate.
“Listen to me,” Julian said eventually, his tone shifting, becoming heavier and far more serious.
The static crackled slightly. “Command is finally organising the final withdrawal. It isn’t official yet, but…
” He paused, and I could practically feel the intense, burning weight of his gaze even through the phone. “I think I will be cleared in a month.”
My eyes opened with excitement. “A month?”
“Thirty days,” he confirmed, a low, dangerous promise lacing every syllable. “And the second I am off the transport plane, I am coming straight to see you. If you’ll still have me.”
“Yes,” the word tumbled out of my mouth before he could even finish the sentence. “Yes, Julian, of course I still want you to come.”
“Good,” he rasped softly. “talk soon.”
The line clicked dead, leaving me standing in the silence of my entryway.
I slowly pulled the phone away from my ear, staring at the darkened screen. Thirty days. One month until that lethally beautiful man, would actually be standing in my apartment.
I clamped my hands over my mouth, unable to contain the consuming explosion of adrenaline and joy in my chest, and let out a high-pitched, ridiculous sounding, squeal of pure excitement. I spun around, leaning back against the front door, my heart hammering a frantic, triumphant throb.
He was coming. Finally.
The residual high from Julian’s phone call lasted for hours, carrying me through the rest of the evening in a floaty-haze. But as the clock on my nightstand ticked past midnight, the quiet isolation of my apartment started to creep back in.
The summer rainstorm from earlier had settled into a steady, dreary drizzle against my bedroom window.
I was curled up under my duvet, the room dark except for the flickering, pale light of the television screen.
I had put on a classic, atmospheric horror movie, hoping the predictable jump scares would distract me from counting down the seconds until Julian’s thirty days were up.
I was just starting to drift off, my eyelids heavy, when the sound pulled me back.
Click. Shhhk.
It was faint. Barely audible over the tense, screeching violins of the movie soundtrack. My eyes shot open, instantly alert. I didn’t move a muscle. I just lay there in the dark, my heart doing a slow, heavy thud against my ribs as I strained my ears to listen.
It’s just the wind, I told myself, clutching the edge of the duvet a little tighter. Old building. Old pipes.
I held my breath, waiting. A full minute passed. The final girl on the TV was screaming, running through a dark forest. I let out a quiet exhale, my muscles starting to uncoil.
And then I heard it again.
A soft, deliberate creak of a floorboard. Coming from the kitchen.
The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. I fumbled blindly for the TV remote, hitting the mute button. The sudden, suffocating silence of the apartment felt ten times more terrifying than the movie.
I waited for another noise, logic fighting a losing battle against the sudden spike of adrenaline in my veins.
When nothing else happened, I finally threw the duvet back.
The hardwood floor was freezing against my bare feet as I crept out of my bedroom, instinctively grabbing the heavy, brass base of a table lamp just in case.
I moved slowly down the hallway, the shadows of the apartment stretching and warping in the dim ambient light bleeding in from the street-lamps outside.
I rounded the corner into the kitchen, my grip white-knuckled on the brass lamp.
The room was empty.
I let out a shaky breath, lowering the lamp. “You’re losing your mind, Sage,” I muttered into the empty space.
But as I turned to head back to bed, a cold, damp breeze brushed against my bare legs.
I stopped. I looked towards the back of the kitchen, where my sliding glass door led out to the small fire escape. The end of the curtains were shifting gently in the wind.
The glass door was slightly open.
I frowned, a deep, unsettling prickle of unease washing over me. Hmm. I closed that, I thought, staring at the small gap. I distinctly remembered throwing the latch after the rain started this afternoon. Didn’t I?
I walked over, pulling the curtain back. The city outside was quiet, the wet fire escape gleaming under the yellow streetlights. There was no one out there.
I slid the heavy glass door shut, the metal track grinding softly, and flipped the heavy lock downwards until it clicked into place.
The second the lock engaged, a massive, jarring wave of goosebumps erupted down my arms. The sudden, crawling sensation of being watched was so intense, so physically overwhelming, that the air in my lungs seized.
I spun around, my back pressed flat against the cold glass, my wide eyes scanning the dark corners of my own kitchen.
I felt exposed. Like there was a predator standing right in the room with me, studying me in the dark.
I stood there for a long time, my heart hammering in my throat. But the shadows remained perfectly still. The silence stretching on.
I rubbed my arms, shaking off the lingering dread. It was just the movie. I had spent the last two hours watching a slasher flick in the dark, and my brain was playing cruel, paranoid tricks on me. That was all…
I double checked the lock one more time before hurrying back to the safety of my bedroom, totally unaware of the monster standing just out of sight on the fire escape above.
I jolted awake with a gasp, my hands clawing frantically at my throat.
My chest heaved, my lungs burning as if I had been suffocating in my sleep. I was tangled in my sweat-soaked duvet, shivering in the cold air of my bedroom. The horrific images of the nightmare I just had were still vividly playing in a loop in my mind.
I had been standing on the edge of an unfamiliar, bottomless pit, paralysed, forced to watch myself die.
Over and over again. In the dream I had been sinking slowly into a thick, suffocating pool of bubbling black tar.
I couldn’t scream or move. I had stayed frozen as the sludge swallowed my chest, my neck and my chin.
But right before I went under my eyes suddenly ruptured with black snakes, twisting and writhing down my deathly pale cheeks before the tar swallowed me completely.
I scrubbed my trembling hands over my face, pressing hard into my skin to wipe away the phantom feeling of scales and suffocating sludge.
The morning sun did nothing to chase away the lingering dread from the night before.
I barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I kept listening for the sound of the sliding glass door opening, or the nightmare to replay. By the time I dragged myself out of bed, the storm had passed, leaving Emeralds Grove draped in an overcast sky.
I made a cup of black coffee and carried it over to my studio corner in the living room, desperate to ground myself in something. I just needed to focus on my art and count down the twenty-nine days I had left until Julian got here.
I set my mug down on the cluttered wooden table, reaching for my paints.
I froze. My hand hovered mid-air.
Sitting dead centre on my drafting table, resting carefully on top of my closed sketchbook, was a piece of art I had no memory of painting.
I frowned, a cold prickle of confusion washing over me.
I set my pencil down and carefully picked it up.
It wasn’t painted on my usual pressed canvas.
The paper was incredibly old—thick, yellowed, and fraying at the edges, smelling faintly of dust, aged oil paint, and something that I couldn’t quite place.
It was a breathtaking piece of art. The brushstrokes were meticulous and haunting.