Page 14 of Drowning in Darkness

Could it be that I’m romanticizing the man who saved my life? Potentially. But feelings don’t always make sense.

Country music thrums around us as Samuel shows he is not a talented singer, but it makes the girl with hearts in her eyes giggle, and I think that’s the point.

“Are you helping Honor with the foundation tomorrow?” Amalee asks as we chug on down the road.

“Yes, we’re scouting out a few new safe houses and going through some applications for funding to help more established ones.”

The scale of domestic violence still shocks me. Every day we review applications from women desperate for help, and every day I find myself wondering how the system keeps failing them.

“Sounds dull,” Amalee replies with a groan.

Of course it sounds dull to the town’s prom queen who’s still living her sheltered princess life.

“It’s rewarding, not dull.”

“Important too,” Samuel reminds his girl, who seems to have lost the whole point of the foundation, if she ever had a grasp of it in the first place.

“Ugh, I thought it would be more balls and gowns than paperwork and meetings,” Amalee grumbles. “It’s why I’m so glad you could take over, because you’re more suited to it.”

I think she just both complimented and insulted me all in one breath. Little does she know I was born into that life, and it is not the glamorous one she envisions.

“I love all aspects of the work, so thank you for stepping aside to make space for me.”

She pats my arm. “You’re most welcome.”

Save me now.

Samuel shakes his head as he pulls up to the grand house Honor and Fox inhabit. It used to be his grandmother, Helen Alderidge’s, who still keeps a room here but is more often than not jet-setting around the world and having so much fun in her older years it puts the rest of us with more youth to shame. She’s a formidable woman whom I’ve grown to admire the few times I’ve met her.

Samuel unclips his seat belt, and before I can protest, opens my door for me and helps me out of the truck.

“I can take it from here, big guy,” I grumble.

He looks at the lit front door of the main house and back at me with a frown. “But Fox and Honor aren’t home yet.”

I huff and start marching up the drive. “Goodnight to you both. Thanks for the company. I have a date with PJs and a slobbering Great Dane.”

“Fine,” Samuel mutters, closing the door and getting into the truck. He doesn’t pull away until I’m literally standing under the porch light and waving at him.

“Alone at last,” I whisper as I open my purse and search for the key. How is it possible to have a purse that struggles to fit much more than a phone, a set of keys, and a lipstick, yet still hides shit? It’s a mystery of the universe.

My fingers brush against metal, and I pull the key out with a victory fist pump. My world plunges into darkness, and I tilt my head to the light above me that has died at the worst possible moment. Now not only can I not see the door I’m unfamiliar with, but I’m out here alone. Oh, how I regret shooing Samuel away. My feminine independence needs to pick better times to assert itself.

I run my fingers over the door, trying to locate the metal disk and feeling like one of those heroines in a horror movie who is about to get slaughtered before the opening credits.

“Stupid. So freaking stupid,” I mutter to myself. Because there is no one here. All bulbs pop. It’s normal, if not ill-timed.

The hairs on my nape prickle with awareness. It’s just my subconscious playing tricks. My hand shakes as I locate the hole, but I can’t steady myself to put the damn key in it.

“Breathe,” I whisper. “Come on, Stephanie. Nobody is out to hurt you. It’s all in your head.”

The chill sweeps down my arms. It’s nine p.m. Cool air is normal. An average evening always drops in temperature. It doesn’t mean anything nefarious.

I do the one thing I scream at the idiots in horror movies for doing: I look over my shoulder and waste precious seconds scanning the shadows of the yard for movement. Nothing. No one. Nada.

I hate my mind.

I roll my shoulders, close my eyes, and grip the key, forcing myself to calm. My heart still feels like it’s beating in my throat, but my arm stops shaking long enough for me to slide the key inside the lock and twist. For a heart-stopping moment, I think the door isn’t about to open, that I’ve fallen into the set of said horror movie and the masked creature is waiting for me on the other side.