AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And her cat, who is turning feral as she rolls around on the binder.
Soup abandoned, she plucks Pearl off the dining table and brings her back into her bedroom where she keeps the knife tucked under her pillow.
The food didn’t help. Now she’s itchy, and her neck and shoulders ache.
She can barely keep her eyes open as she pulls the blankets over her head, cocooning herself in the pile of fabric.
It grazes against her skin, and the sensation sends tingles through her body.
She can’t remember ever being this sick.
Pearl perches next to her head, curling up in a ball and closing her eyes.
Audrey’s almost asleep by the time she realizes she left her phone in the kitchen, and she can’t find the strength to get back out of bed.
* * *
Pine.Cedarwood. Cloves.
Strong hands, so harsh and hot they burn her skin.
A faceless shadow of a man towering over her, invading her space and cutting off her air supply.
She’s on fire.
She can’t breathe.
She—
Audrey wakesup choking and clawing at her throat, but the scent from her dream lingers.
It’s still dark out, and her stomach aches from hunger.
She’s unexplainably ravenous.
If it keeps up like this, she might ask Mindy to drive her to the hospital.
Cedarwood. Cloves.
There’s a nagging thought in the back of her mind, and if she were more lucid, she probably could put it together.
But she can’t. She’s too hot, too achy, and hungry.
Compartmentalize. Do what you can, don’t dwell on what you can’t.
She drags herself to the shower, rinsing off quickly and dressing in the warmest leggings and sweatshirt she has.
She finds Pearl waiting outside the bathroom, chirping happily, possibly expecting a midnight snack.
“No, it sure as hell isn’t dinner time,” Audrey hushes her as the cat leads her down the hallway. “Iget to eat, not you.”
“You talk to your cat an awful lot,” a low voice says conversationally.
She freezes.
There’s a man sitting on her couch.
Not just any man.
