No, God, no. This can’t be happening.
Moments later, the living room light flips on and I’m no longer in the dark. It makes it easier to breath, but my heart is still slamming violently against my chest until finally Luke returns to me.
He appears frazzled and unnerved. ‘I want you to stay inside.’
Hot tears stream down my eyes and all I want to do is grab him and hug him. ‘Where are you going?’
He pretends to be calm, but I can see right through him – he’s worried. ‘The sliding glass door was open and the police are outside with their siren on. Someone’s at the door. I need to step outside and talk with him.’ He crouches down eyelevel with me. ‘Violet, listen to me. I’m not going anywhere.’ He cups my cheek. ‘I promise.’
I nod my head up and down, stunned by what’s happening inside me. Something’s different, something’s changing and it both scares the living daylights out of me and excites me in the most fearful way ever.
I let Luke steer me back to the room and into bed. I sit on the edge as he pulls a shirt on then disappears out of the room again. I watch the clock tick. Listen to the wind outside. Watch the blue and red lights flash outside. It feels like an eternity passes by before finally Luke returns to our bedroom.
‘What was it?’ I ask, the phone still in my hand.
He takes the phone from me, sets it aside on the nightstand, then climbs in bed beside me. His arms encircle me then he pulls me close and lies us down on the mattress.
Safe.
I feel so safe.
‘Someone came into the house … the police saw him … turned on their lights.’ His muscles go taut, his embrace so tight I feel like I’m being pressed into him. ‘They think it scared whoever it was off. They’re searching around but can’t find them.’
I swallow the lump in my throat. ‘It was him.’ I’m afraid, yet I ‘m not. Because this time I’m not alone.
I’m not alone?
‘Violet, it wasn’t …’ He trails off because he knows I’m right. It was Preston. Preston was inside my house. And I don’t think it was the first time.
Chapter 15
Luke
Everything had been going so well. I’d gotten her to agree to go to the gym, get out of the house, hoping that maybe she could discover another way to release her pain and anger. But then a very terrified Violet wakes me from my sleep.
As soon as I saw that damn sliding door open, I knew someone had been in our apartment. We haven’t been that careful about locking it, since we’re on the second floor, but apparently we should have been. I’m getting a fucking alarm system – I can’t take it anymore. This helpless feeling that I’m going to wake up and find Violet hurt by that fucking piece of shit.
The fact that he scared the shit out of her was enough to make me want to beat the shit out of him. If he would have still been in the apartment when I walked out there, I’d have lost it. I could tell she was thinking of that night her parents were murdered, could see the fear in her green eyes. She thought something was going to happen to me and that she’d never see me again. It fucking hurts, seeing that in her eyes, makes me want to do anything to take the pain and fear away from her. But again, all I feel is helpless.
I watch her sleep for the rest of the night and finally fall asleep around five in the morning. About an hour later, I’m woke right back up by a knock on the door. The sun is starting to rise and the light is shining through the window, making it feel a little safer, but I still have a hard time leaving Violet in the bed alone, even if it’s just to answer the door.
It ends up being the cops, wanting to tell me that they didn’t find the person, but that they filled out a report.
‘A report.’ I lean against the doorframe and give them a cold, hard stare. ‘Yeah, that’s going to help a lot.’
‘It’s better than nothing,’ the taller of the two male police officers replies agitatedly while the other one jots something down on a clipboard.
‘No, it’d be better if you would have caught him before he came into the house.’ I clench my hands into fists, feeling that rage that lives inside me, the one that rises whenever I think of my mother. But this time it’s about Preston. I want to fucking beat the shit out of him so badly I can’t stand it.
‘Kid, lose the attitude,’ the shorter officer says as he scrawls something else on the paper. ‘We’re doing the best that we can.’
‘Clearly that’s not enough,’ I snap. ‘Since he made it into the fucking apartment before you realized something was up.’
They look just as annoyed as I felt, but continue on with their bullshit protocol. They show me this silver bracelet they found on the lawn, asking me if I can identify it. It’s Violet’s, the one that belonged to her parents and that she was confused about wearing or not. When I tell them that, they explain to me that they have to hang on to it for evidence, but will return it when they can. Then they give me a rundown of how they plan on upping security, but it’s all bullshit. This is the second, maybe third time Preston has been here and he’s getting braver. The annoying thing is, I’m not sure what he wants. To torture Violet? No, I think there’s more to it than that. The thing that really gets to me is I don’t think it’ll stop until the police catch him. I know how sick and twisted people work, having lived with it for years.
When I get back to the room, Violet is still sleep. She looks peaceful, always does when she sleeps, until she wakes up screaming. I wish I could see her like that when she was awake, wish I could find a way to just give her peace in her life for all the peace my mother took from her.
‘Who was that,’ she murmurs, half out of it as I climb back into bed.
‘Just the police,’ I whisper as I pull the blankets over us and scoot toward her. I think about informing her of the bracelet, but decide to wait until she’s fully awake.
‘Did they … find him …’ she asks, although clearly she’s out of it.
‘No, but you’re safe.’ I kiss her head, shut my eyes, and inhale her scent. ‘I promise I won’t let anything happened to you.’
‘I know you won’t,’ she murmurs, nuzzling against me. ‘But Luke …’
‘Yeah?’
‘I think Preston … I thought I heard him say he was there that day … that I almost … drowned … I think he really did put the bracelet on me which means he’s been in the apartment before.’