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Wine it was.
* * *
That night, asleep in a hazy cloud of alcohol, Veronica dreamt of shadows. They swirled around her, taunting her. She couldn’t escape them, no matter how hard she tried. She was trapped in the darkness, and they were closing in, long, icy fingers wrapping around her...
She woke up, gasping for air, covered in sweat. Her heart raced as panic smothered her.
She couldn’t breathe.
She reached for her phone and dialed Conn’s number before she could think better of it.
“Hello?” he answered, his voice rough with sleep.
Oh, God. What was she doing?
“Vee?”
She hung up and tried to catch her breath. She didn’t need him. He wasn’t the person she called anymore. He could never be that person again.
She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes wearily. It was still dark, and the only sound was the gentle rustling of the trees outside her window. She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down.
She was fine.
She was safe.
That was when she heard it. A faint scratching noise, coming from outside.
Just an animal.
Or a tree branch brushing against the house.
Deep down she knew better.
Someone was out there.
chapter seven
The shrill ring of a cell phone shattered the silence in the dimly lit cabin. Connelly blinked and came back to the real world. After tossing and turning in bed for an hour, he’d finally made himself a pot of coffee, shuffled out to the computer on the desk in the living room, and, for the first time in months, the words flowed. He’d been lost in the world of his own creation, and now he felt disjointed, dizzy with the euphoria of creation.
The phone rang again.
He rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock in the corner of his computer screen: 2:47 a.m. A call at this hour could only mean trouble.
“Hello?” he answered hesitantly, his voice hoarse from disuse.
A choked sob echoed through the line, and his heart thumped hard against his ribcage. He straightened away from the desk, his back muscles protesting. He’d been hunched over the keyboard for too long.
He rubbed at the pain in his neck and said into the phone, “Vee?”
Dead air answered.
“Veronica?”
No response. He checked the screen. She’d hung up. He tried to call back but got dumped right into voicemail.
“Fuck.”
Rebel raised her head from the bed she’d made out of the couch cushions and stared at him with rust-colored eyes that missed nothing.
