AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Six
Bunny got home feeling more drained than ever before. After Stuart made her feel like an idiot for calling him with another false alarm, she had gone through the motions for the rest of her shift with both eyes peeled. Luckily for her sanity, neither Mr. Lucas nor the mysterious man in black made another appearance. But she actually found herself thinking it was a good thing she was booked in for her first mandatory counseling session.
Just one more shift, and then she had two days off.
Freshly showered, she flopped onto the couch and breathed a sigh of relief. Morning sunlight peeked into the room from behind the closed living room drapes, hiding her away as the rest of Atlanta got up and got ready for their day jobs. Bunny pressed a hand to her forehead, her blonde locks still damp from the shower. Mr. Lucas. The stranger. What quota had he been talking about? And more importantly, where had he gone?
The mess on the floor was evidence that someone had been at that nurses’ station other than her. She didn’t make a habit of messing up her workspace on purpose. Her brain whirred like soup in a blender as each thought circled around each other until they all blurred into one, terrifying possibility.
She was losing her mind.
With that revelation, her neighbor in 5A booted up his stereo. After a full two seconds of the mind-numbing bass making the cutlery in her kitchen drawer rattle, Bunny decided if she had to be losing her sanity, she couldn’t stand losing sleep on top of it all. She dragged herself off the couch, not bothering to put on a robe over her shortie pajamas. Within seconds, she was pounding on the green painted door of 5A, ready to have it out with the inconsiderate jerk who had chosen the wrong damn day to play his music.
It was a miracle she heard the footsteps on the other side of the door. The chain slid out of the safety lock, and the door was pulled unceremoniously open.
“You have to be fucking kidding me.”
A pair of obsidian eyes peered at her disbelievingly, but it was the only physical sign the man in black gave of being surprised to see her there. Now that the door was open, the music was nigh on deafening, and he frowned slightly as he leaned forward in order to be heard. “You stalking me?”
“What!?” Bunny shouted indignantly. “This is my apartment building! What the hell are you even doing here?”
“Visiting with my friend Cam,” he replied, deadpan.
“You know Cam?” Bunny asked with a snort. She wasn’t buying it. There was just no way.
“Yes.” His response was clipped, dismissive even. “Shouldn’t you be working?”
Bunny’s brows tilted upwards. “Shift’s done,” she snarked. “Spent most of it chasing asshole disappearing jerks around the place and security thinking I’m nuts. It was a real treat. Not that it’s any of your business.” One hand made a fist, perching on her hip, while the other gestured into the bass-filled apartment behind him. “Now I get to enjoy my time off having my hearing destroyed by my neighbor and his ‘friend’.”
“Sorry.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “I did try to warn you not to call security.”
“Yeah, well, that’s anyone’s first reaction when they’re being stalked by a psycho,” she shot back. “Where’s Cam? Are you stalking him, too?” She stood on tiptoe, trying to see over the guy’s tall, broad shoulder into the apartment behind him. “Is he dead in there?”
“I’m not a psycho,” he replied, frowning as he crossed his arms over his chest defensively.
“Yeah?” Bunny tilted her head, her wet blonde hair resting against her cheek. “Prove it. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the cops right now?”
“If I were a psycho,” the guy smiled tightly, “I’d have a bunch of good reasons. Very glib, psychopaths. Besides, even if you did call them, they wouldn’t see me when they got here.”
Bunny nodded slowly, unconvinced. “That’s what I thought.” With his arms crossed, she decided to take a chance on seeing if Cam was okay. She moved like lightning, using her pink-pedicured toes to push the door inwards. She felt a thrill of victory as the door moved—but then it stopped when it hit the foot he planted on the floor behind it.
“Nice try,” he consoled her, his tone heavy with sarcasm. “Look. Some of us have actual work to do. I don’t know how you swung time off with Upper Management, but you should consider yourself lucky. Figures,” he scoffed. “All the new kids get all the damn favors.”
Of all the weird and wonderful topics they had covered during their short acquaintance, that was by far the strangest. It was like he was on this plane one minute, and then in a completely different one the next.
Bunny frowned, shaking her head as she tried to make sense of what he had just said. “What?”
But he had shut down. Any expression had drained from his face, and he was looking at her with the same wooden stare she’d seen from him multiple time.
“I’ll turn the music down,” he told her patronizingly. “Have yourself a nice day.”
And then the asshole closed the door in Bunny’s face, clicking it audibly into place before sliding the chain across.
Bunny stared, open-mouthed, before snapping her lips closed to stalk back to her apartment. The music was turned down before she’d even closed her own door behind her, which was a win.
But at what cost? Because she was starting to think more and more that this jerk in black was actually real. And if he was real, what did that say about all the other weird shit that had been going on?
* * *
