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PROLOGUE
HANNA
The door handle moves, gently at first, but the sound is oddly loud in my small New York apartment. I take a slow, deep breath, and yet to me it sounds heavy, as if the person on the other side of the door would be able to hear it.
Tonight marks the third week this has been happening to me. Whoever stands outside my door never fully makes it in, no attempt other than to maybe spook me. It’s not an upscale place where I live, so all it would take is a swift kick with gusto to tear that door apart and step inside. Hell, the person could make it in if they just used a card, most likely even a piece of paper folded up a few times.
“Who— Who’s there?” I finally call out. Weeks of restless sleep and nightly visits from the stranger have led me here with no choice but to let them know I’m here and doing my best to be unafraid. I fail miserably, because I’m chilled to the bone. Every noise arouses such fear in my blood that shadows haunt me.
I look over my shoulder, feeling the constant eyes boring into me. Waiting for me to be unalarmed, unprepared, and absolutely vulnerable.
After my voice rings out, it’s silent, the echoes the door makes and the jiggling ceasing. Loud footsteps move away gradually, the sound of something scraping along the walls as the person leaves making me grow cold. They know that I know, and now, my fear has only multiplied.
My shadows have only grown more haunting.
CHAPTER ONE
HANNA
The city buzzes around me, pedestrians’ feet moving at a rapid pace to get from one place to another. I do my best to stay on the outside of the crowds, dangerously close to the busy street with ruthless taxi drivers and worse—everyday New York drivers. My work is only twelve blocks away from where I live, so I leave an hour and a half early each day to make it.
Sure, I could take the subway, but lately, there has been this uncanny feeling of danger nagging at my stomach. And although the subways are usually busy—full of people, so lots of witnesses—I feel safer above ground, in broad daylight, and shoulder-to-shoulder with people who I can hide behind, yet I have open room to run.
The logic makes zero sense, but nothing has lately. I grew up in this city, I was in the foster care system at eight years old. My parents—not druggies, not dead, not anything—just didn’t want me. I was an inconvenience, and that molded me and how I view myself today.
I’m… more than curvy, my body unlike most New York women. I wouldn’t say I’m a linebacker or something grotesque, but in today’s world, I’m no Cinderella. I have curves that accentuate my waist, and my thighs have no gap. My breasts are large, and my bottom is generous.
But for most my life, this has kept me hidden and unbothered by men, society, and anyone who might want to get close. I have no desire to have a large group of friends nor enjoy the idea of going out on weekends to whoop it up. I’m a plain Jane, with a plain, lonely life.
God, listen to me. How pathetic does that sound? “Woe is me” is the story. Or so I thought. But recently—the past three weeks—things have… shifted; something has changed in my life.
I’m being watched, followed, harassed, or, as the cops say, “delusional or hearing things.” But I’m not. There is always someone watching me. I feel their every gaze; I hear them outside my apartment every night. On occasion, they will cut me some slack and give me a damn break, but he or she returns and taunts me more.
The police, I gave up calling eventually. Whenever they came, there were no actual threats being made, so I was written off as just a “scared, lonely woman hearing things in a rundown neighborhood.”
I’m not crazy. There are a lot of things I am—shy, timid, insecure, and yes, lonely—but I am not crazy or hearing things. Someone is out there, and for whatever reason they would want to harass someone like me, it’s beyond my comprehension. I’m not anyone or anything special.
My thoughts can no longer linger on this as I walk through the revolving doors of the small, derelict magazine company I work for. This is why I live in the neighborhood I do. I make barely above minimum wage, and half the time, the magazine cuts our hours, because—let’s face it—we aren’t doing well. We mainly focus on local eateries or places to see and visit when in New York. We write glorified tour guides, and no New Yorker wants to read that.
Everyone local knows this information already, but we are only published in New York, and our online presence suffers, because the cheap man upstairs doesn’t want to pay for a marketing team for our website.
