My hands began to shake harder as I explored the shape. An uncovered knife. I never left my knives uncovered, and I never moved them from the drawer by the oven.
My pen was nowhere to be found, and when I ran the tips of my fingers over the top of the can, I could feel the sticky remnants where someone—and I didn’t have to guess who—had peeled away the ID sticker.
Panic began to claw at my throat. That fucker. That motherfucking shit-stained fucker had fucked with my kitchen!
I turned to the fridge, opened it, and shoved my hand against the inside door for the milk, but it wasn’t there. The egg drawer had sticks of butter in it. Fruit had meat. Vegetables had cheese.
I slammed it and turned. “Van—” Before I couldfinish calling for him, I hit something hard, right in my gut, and lost my breath. A cry wheezed out of me when I realized it was another chair, and that’s when I knew it.
He’d moved things.
He’d probably moved everything.
He had blinded me in my own home.
“Micah! What happened?” I hadn’t heard Vanya walking in, but I clung to him when his hands met my waist, and he pulled me around the table. “You get hurt?”
“I need help,” I said, catching my breath. I pulled him forward a few feet, then set the back of my hand against his palm. “Point my hand where the couch is.”
“Micah—”
“Please! Just…I need to know.”
“Okay,” he said slowly, clearly confused. I didn’t blame him. The moment we stepped into the apartment, I’d clung to him. I let him tell me what he saw. I didn’t verify anything for myself.
Not until now.
“Couch is—” He lifted my hand and pointed toward the window. Where my two low bookshelves were supposed to be.
I swallowed heavily. “Bookshelves?”
He pointed to the wall where the TV was meant to sit.
I nodded. “Take me to my bedroom.”
He started walking, and I kept my hand in his. We stopped in the doorway, and I took a breath.
“Bed?”
He pointed to the left. Wrong.
“Dresser?”
Under the window. Wrong.
I didn’t want to keep going. I couldn’t. My entire body was trembling again, and now I was struggling to breathe. Vanya must have noticed because he took my arm and pulled me out of the room and led me to the couch, which felt all upside down and backwards.
“Tell me, please,” he begged the moment we were sitting. “What is happening?”
I took a trembling breath and reached out in front of me. At least the coffee table was in front of me the way it was meant to be. My fingers touched the paper Hunter had left behind, and I snatched them away like I’d been burnt by the candles he’d also lit.
Fuck, I felt sick.
“He moved everything.”
“I don’t understand,” Vanya said, sounding helpless.
Passing both hands down my face, I took as much of a calming breath as I could before speaking again. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to start screaming, and if I did that, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop.
