Page 107 of Under His Guard

Nearly without thinking, I go to the cupboard above the microwave. At the very front is a box I’ve been holding on to for about two weeks now.

“Diamonds are great and all, but they don’t look like anything. They’re just clear.”

“Then what do you like?”

“My birthstone. The emerald. Rich and green, and hey, it matches my eyes.”

The memory surges in my mind as I pull the ring box down and open it up. The large emerald beauty, cut like a rectangle, twinkles up at me even in the dimmed lights I have on in the kitchen.

“Emeralds. I remembered, Clara. I fucking remembered.”

I’m not sure I can even use it at this point, but again, my annoying brother is right. I need to be the person she can rely on, and that means big fucking changes.

Slipping the box into my pocket for some reason, I hang my head with a sigh.

“Drink? Drink.”

Having looked up that you can’t just stop drinking cold turkey, I go to the fridge for water to mix with a bit of vodka.

It should keep the symptoms at bay and actually hydrate me, which, you know, alcohol isn’t great for.

I’m not looking to die from withdrawal, though, and I can’t really get into a clinic in the middle of the night.

Early night.

The drink seems to do the trick, and tiredness starts to set back in. I plop down on the couch, content to pull up YouTube and watch some of those visualizer videos that can be so Zen-like.

I click one on and start to drift away to the swirling geometric shapes and colors.

You’re like a damn baby, getting soothed by some moving lights.

I know that voice is just being a dick, so I actually try to ignore it for once.

I’m doing okay, but then I hear something near my door. There should be zero sound coming from there, so I hurry to my bedroom, slipping on my shoes with the sweatpants I have on and yanking on a tee.

Knowing better than to keep a gun in the house when I have depressive, drunken episodes, I go for the baseball bat I keep in the closet.

Never too safe, right?

There isn’t a follow-up to the sound, so I grip the bat as I stalk through the hall to check out the front door again.

As I get within eyeshot of it, I see the small plastic tube sticking through the bottom.

There’s a nearly invisible gas seeping out of it.

Fuck.

I rush back to my bedroom, grab another tee, and bring it to my bathroom sink to get it wet.

It’ll be harder for anything to get through that way.

Securing it around my face, I go back toward the hall. Just as I reach a good vantage point, the door busts open.

How the hell did these fuckers get in? God, I hope the guards downstairs are okay.

Sinking back toward my bedroom and taking up a position on the other side of the door, I make them come to me, hiding just out of eyesight.

I peer through the crack in the door jam, keeping an eye out for the first assailant.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com