Page 34 of Dead Pretty

I need to get the lights back on, but I can’t remember where the fuse box is.

Okay, so truth is, I don’t actually know where the fuse box is.

I’m not a practical person. I always relied on my dad and then Cole for this kind of thing.

Fucking fuck.

My anxiety is quickly building. I can feel fear and adrenaline starting to pump around my body.

I need to calm down.

I’m fine. It’s just a bulb that’s blown out. I’m not in any danger.

Deep breath.

I suck in some oxygen and slowly release it.

Right, if I were a fuse box, where would I be?

A cupboard maybe.

Think, Audrey. Do you remember any fuse-looking boxes in any of the cupboards in the kitchen?

Nope. But then would a fuse box even be in the kitchen?

Why don’t I know this?

Because you’re useless, Audrey.

I can’t even argue with myself on that one because it’s the truth.

Closet! In my bedroom!

There’s a white box up above the shelf where the hanging rail is. That’s surely got to be it.

Holding my cell in front of me, shining the light ahead, I start making my way toward my bedroom.

I see it the second I step into the hallway.

“Oh fuck. No.”

A dead rat. On the floor outside of my bedroom.

No.

My heart bangs hard against my ribs. Tremors run through my body. The hand holding my cell shakes.

My mind flashes to the first time I ever saw a dead animal, my memory dragging me back to a place I never want to go, rooting my feet to the spot.

Swinging open the door, I expect to find another one of those notes that this stranger has been leaving daily for me.

But there is no note.

Only a dead bird.

I didn’t know in that moment … I thought it had died of natural causes.

It hadn’t.