Priya’s jaw works like she’s chewing through every argument she wants to make. Then she grabs my coat from the hook and holds it out. “You text me when you’re inside. You keep your phone in your hand. You don’t take the side entrance, and if anything feels wrong, you turn around and come straight backhere. You call me or that detective that came in here to see you two days ago. Not Kade, okay?”
My cheeks warm at the memory of telling Priya what happened the moment I came in this morning. She gave a very firm warning not to make things worse and I won’t but it’s like everything changed that night. Like I somehow need Kademore.“I know.”
“I know you know. I’m saying it because I love you and because he’d come if you called.”
“He would.”
“And that’s why you can’t.”
I take the coat from her and slide my arms into it. She tucks one of the extra honey rolls into my pocket before I can argue. “Emotional support bread,” she says.
I look at the pocket, then at her. “That’s legally questionable.”
“Text me when you’re home.”
“I will.”
“Say it like you mean it.”
“I’ll text you when I’m home.”
She nods once, still worried, still trying not to show too much of it. “Good. Go before I change my mind and become unbearable.”
The night outside is damp but not raining. I keep my phone in my right hand and my keys already hooked around my left index finger. I pass the laundromat, the closed pharmacy, the cracked curb, and the dented mailbox that I’ve always thought looks a little funny. Six minutes isn’t long, but every block has too many windows and too many parked cars. My eyes keep moving even when I tell them to stop.
My thumb wakes the phone screen before I reach the corner, Kade’s name still in the recent calls. “It’s just walking home,” I mutter to myself.
I straighten my shoulders as my building comes into view at the end of the block. I keep my eyes on the front entrance, rather than the darker strip of pavement where my brain keeps trying to put me. My hand tightens around my keys, jangling them slightly to remind me that they’re there. Three steps from the front door, my eyes slide to the right, finding the man from a few nights ago.
He’s leaning just beyond the main entrance light, hidden enough that no one would notice unless he wanted them to. My breathing quickens as the light above him flickers. Then he’s just gone. I swivel around, freaked out by his disappearance, a car door shutting somewhere behind me.
“No, no, no!” I sprint up the stairs, taking them by two before jamming my key into the lock. It sticks the first time and then twists, my whole body lurching forward and sprawling onto the floor as the door swings open.
I push to my feet and close the door behind me, trembling hands locking the door and fumbling the chain until everything is in its place.
Something knocks in the hallway before I can move away from the door. It could be pipes. It could be a neighbor. It could be nothing. My body doesn’t care. I back away until my shoulder hits the wall, then turn and move straight for the bedroom.
The nest corner is still dismantled, blankets folded in uneven piles where I left them, still too rattled to sleep in the open. I crawl into the closet and drag the blanket over my head, pulling the door most of the way closed as the dark folds around me, but my breathing gets worse now that I’ve stopped moving. The man is still at the edge of the light every time I blink.
I drag my phone up to my face before digging in my pocket for Skylar’s card. For one awful second, I think I left it at the bakery. Then my fingers catch the edge of it.
“Come on,” I whisper, because my hands won’t work right. “Come on.”
I dial before I can change my mind.
It rings twice before Skylar answers. “Grayson.”
The sound of his voice makes tears spill down my cheeks. “I’m sorry,” I rush out, pressed into the corner with the phone against my ear. “I know this probably isn’t what I’m supposed to do, and I don’t know if I saw him or if I imagined it, but he was here again. I think he was here again. At the front this time, near the light. I didn’t call Kade, but I didn’t know who else to call, and there was a sound outside my door after I got in.”
Skylar’s voice changes immediately. “Emrys, stay on the phone with me. Are you inside your apartment?”
“Yes. The door’s locked. I locked it more than once. I’m in the closet.”
“Good. Stay there if that’s where you feel safest. You did the right thing calling me.”
Another sound comes from somewhere beyond the bedroom, and my whole body folds tighter around the phone. “There. There’s something outside.”
“I hear you, not the sound, but I believe you heard it.” There’s movement on his end now, a chair scraping, the sound of keys jangling, and then a door shutting. “I’m leaving now. Keep talking to me.” There’s another shuffle of sounds but I have no idea what to say. “Tell me what you baked today, Rys.”
