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Her fingers trembled as she dialed 911, the digits blurring together on the screen.
“911, what’s your emergency?” The voice on the other end sounded calm and collected, in sharp contrast to the chaos unfolding around her.
“Some... someone broke into my friend’s house,” she stuttered out, clutching Alfie closer to her chest. “I think he might be in danger. The intruder ran off into the woods when I arrived.”
The operator asked for more information — Connelly’s address, what the intruder looked like, if Veronica or Alfie had been harmed. The questions were a blur and she answered them mechanically, all while her gaze never strayed from the blood smeared on the wall.
The police assured her they’d send someone over right away. She hung up and slid down against the door, wrapping her arms around Alfie who crawled into her lap, whimpering softly.
The adrenaline was wearing off and reality was sinking in. She was alone, in a house that wasn’t hers, a house that now echoed with the violence. Every small sound seemed amplified, from the steady tick-tick-tick of the clock to the low hum of the refrigerator. Her heart was still racing, and she felt cold despite the warmth flooding in from the windows. She held onto Alfie tighter. His soft fur was a comforting balm against the icy fear slowly seeping back into her veins.
She thought about Connelly, his smile that could light up even the darkest corners of her mind, and his way of always making her feel safe. Now he was missing, possibly in danger or... or...
The door moved at her back and she jumped up with a yelp of fear. The intruder was back! Maybe this time with a gun. She should run, but she looked around the living room in panic and realized her legs were too shaky to move. As the doorknob began to turn, Veronica tightened her grip on Alfie, bracing herself for what was about to come.
But instead of the ominous figure she expected to see, in walked a shell-shocked Connelly. He was covered head-to-toe in mud and smelled like a musty dungeon, but she’d never seen any man look so beautiful.
He was alive.
She threw herself into his arms. He caught her without question and held her tight. He’d always catch her. She hated herself for forgetting that.
“Vee?” After several long moments, he drew away. “What are you doing here?” He looked at her and then at the blood stains on the wall. “Jesus. What happened?”
Without his support, she was shivering so hard she struggled to remain upright. She stuttered, attempting to explain everything that had happened while he was gone, but the words wouldn’t come.
A siren cut through the air outside as a deputy vehicle skidded into the driveway.
“What the hell?” Connelly muttered.
Their arrival only amplified the fear clawing at her chest, but she took a shaky step back from him. “I called them. I didn’t know where you were, and the intruder... he... he got away.”
“Intruder?”
“I don’t know who he was,” she whispered. “He didn’t say anything... but I think he was looking for you.”
He stared at her, his features a mask of concern and confusion. Then his gaze flicked back to the blood on the wall and realization swept across his features. He scrubbed a hand through his mud-caked, disheveled hair. “Shit. The stalker. He must’ve left the cave and come right here.”
“Cave?” Momentarily distracted from her fear, she eyed the mud coating him. “Why were you in a cave?”
Before he could respond, there was a knock on the door and two uniformed officers stepped inside, their stern expressions giving way to surprise as they took in the disarray of the living room - the skewed frames, the blood on the wall, and the two disheveled individuals staring back at them.
“We got a call about a break-in and a potential assault?” The older of the officers, a burly man with salt-and-pepper hair, spoke first. His eyes flicked to Veronica’s pale face, taking in her shaking form. “Are you alright, ma’am?”
Veronica nodded weakly. Her gaze never strayed far from Connelly, as if he was an anchor in this storm.
The younger officer, a woman with steel grey eyes and a stern expression, studied their surroundings critically. “I’m Deputy Delgado and this is my partner, Deputy Turney. Could you tell us what happened here?”
Connelly spoke up then. “I was out on a rescue with RWCR and the sheriff,” he said, his voice hoarse with some undisclosed emotion. “I came back and found all this. Where the hell were you guys? The sheriff promised to have sitting someone on Veronica’s house.”
“This isn’t Veronica’s house,” Turney pointed out with a faint sneer. “We were exactly where we were supposed to be. How do you think we got here so fast?”
“It wasn’t fast enough,” Connelly snapped, running a hand through his hair, the mud flaking off onto the hardwood floor. “This guy’s dangerous. He’s killed once and nearly succeeded in taking a second victim today. And he was here, in my house, fighting with Veronica, and you didn’t notice?”
“Our job was to sit on Veronica Martens house,” Turney replied, biting off each word. “The sheriff said nothing about watching your place, too. We can’t be everywhere at once.”
Delgado sent her partner a look of barely concealed contempt before smoothing her face into an unreadable mask.
Veronica knew that feeling well. She’d once been a woman in a male-dominated profession. She knew what it was like to have to defer to men who thought they knew more than she did solely because of the different equipment between their legs.
