AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It almost seemed too perfect really. Just so happening to appear in my room, with the full weight of housing authorization behind him. Key and all. It all had to be a dream.
Hit with a sudden burst of energy, I bolted from the hallucination in the living room and shut myself in the safety of my bedroom. I was pretty sure I heard the windows in the living room rattle through the door. Though I couldn’t really be sure of anything anymore.
The sting was sharp. Ripping into my cheek like a blade, the sound echoing around the big room. I did it again even harder. More tears came as my face started to burn. It wasn’t a dream.
I dropped to my knees, the tears still coming. My mind spun so fast it was making me dizzy. If it wasn’t a dream, that meant it was all real. He was actually there, in my place, boxes stacked ready to move in. He had a fucking key!
Okay, not a dream. If it wasn’t a dream, then what was it? Some kind of sick joke? I couldn’t really see it. I didn’t really know anyone in that town and I didn’t think the administration would be involved in such a conspiracy against me. To think otherwise would be downright paranoid. I was wide awake and there was no conspiracy.
Sadly, this fact didn’t make me feel much better. The fact remained that the sworn, blood enemy of my entire family was sitting in my living room.
Reaching out, I took the chair by the leg, pulling it toward me. One of those solid wood things with leather padding and a low, C-shaped back it would do well for my purpose. Using all my strength I got the chair over in front of the door and wedged it up against the handle. Then sat on it. I didn’t know how he’d found me but was damned if I was going to let him hurt me. To be fair I had no idea what he might do. If he wanted me, he could have done it when I first came out of the shower.
He had the drop on me when I wasn’t wearing anything but a towel. In the reality that existed outside my head, he had only really looked at me and not even in a lustful way. Keeping his bewildered gaze on my eyes as I fell to pieces. Had he seen the burns? Not likely. He could still be planning something though. Possibly to kill me in my sleep. Daddy had warned me about them. What they were really like.
Vivid tales of terror that would traumatize any kid. Particularly one as young as I was at the time. Most kids worried about monsters under the closet. I worried about people like the Graves. Checking under the bed, in the closet, in the hall, in the yard. Just to make sure they weren’t there to snatch me away. I slept with my bedroom window nailed shut until I was fifteen.
He was a Graves which made him dangerous. To me and all others like me, as well as the neighborhood cats, and he was in my place. All my worst, childhood nightmares come true. Locked up with a Graves with nowhere to go. I considered the window. The apartment was on the first floor so the drop wouldn’t even hurt me, let alone kill me. I had a lot of stuff though, none of which I wanted to leave behind. It was more than possible he would know what I was doing and bring me right back. Using the quarantine as an excuse. Then I would really be in for it. Even if I did get away, daddy would have to come all the way back which would make him mad. Not least because I’d wasted so much of his hard-earned money. I could be in for another reminder and I really didn’t want that. I was trapped with a Graves and there was nothing I could do about it.
It really shouldn’t have been my priority at that exact moment, but I couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t tried to hide who he was. Surly others knew about them and their ‘temple.’ The founding chapter and Salem had certainly made enough of a stink. Yet he was there under his actual name. Like I found out online, there are so many dudes Augustus to go around and Graves wasn’t all that much more popular. At least not in that part of the world.
If he was trying to fly under the radar, he would have used another name. Like when the Dusks changed their name to Dawn, to throw people off the scent. Not that they were the same as the Graves, though I didn’t know that at the time. As far as I knew, anyone who wasn’t like us was evil and to be avoided if not stopped entirely. With a bullet if necessary. To kill went against the Lord’s word but was still doing the Lord’s work and was considered to be a wash where I grew up. The realization hit like a battering ram. I’d found out his name but I never gave him mine. There are lots of girls named Rachel all over the place. Even O’Flanagan wouldn’t be that strange. So if he did happen to find out he wouldn’t immediately connect me to my family or their crusade. All of the sudden, after what seemed like hours of fear, I had the advantage.
