Page 85 of Fatality

This isn't my imagination.

The footsteps outside the wall had been improbable.

This? This is real.

Someone is inside my home.

The realization sends a chill down my spine. Suddenly, the knocks don't seem so imaginary anymore. They might have been real all along.

I wait patiently, not daring to breathe too loudly or move in case I make a sound.

Every second stretches endlessly.

Then a hand, it passes directly through my line of sight.

My entire body starts shaking. My heart pounds so hard against my ribs that I almost think it's loud enough to echo through the loft.

Fuck.

There really is someone here. The sight of that hand somehow makes everything worse.

Before, it had been sounds, footsteps, curses. Things I could've convinced myself I'd imagined.

Before I can think, my body moves.

Instinctively, I take a step back and my ring chooses that exact moment to betray me.

The silver band scrapes against the steel railing, the sharp rasp of metal against metal cutting through the silence.

The sound echoes through the loft.

I freeze completely.

Every muscle locks, every thought stops.

Well, I'm fucked.

“Well,” a man's voice says, low and deep, echoing through the loft. ‘You're awake?”

The chill spreading along my spine suddenly floods my entire body.

My blood runs cold, and all the color drains from my face in an instant.

I hear footsteps approaching the stairs, next, slowly climbing them.

I still can't see who it is but it certainly isn't Liam.

“I apologize,” the man says. “I didn't want to wake you up, troublemaker.”

A pause.

“You look so peaceful when you sleep.”

What? this freak have been watching me sleep? For how long?

I finally see his face.

It's him.