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Yvette smiled and appeared to be on the cusp of saying something else but quickly stopped herself as Evan came back into the room. Everyone acted as though nothing weird had just occurred, with Noah and Jake standing up first to collect the trash, Eric joining them while Colton got into a heated debate with Jess, Tia, and Steven over the perfect pizza toppings.
I figured another lap around the property likely wouldn’t hurt. It was a quiet neighborhood with plenty of outdoor lighting and well-manicured open spaces, meaning there weren’t a lot of places to hide. Still, it was part of my job duty, and I wasn’t about to let anything slide on this one.
Just as I reached the front door, the music abruptly cut off, and the television clicked on with a cheery chime. I paused, looking for who had the remote but seeing everyone else just as confused. Tristan went over to the coffee table and picked up the remote, clicking it, and nothing happened. He cocked his head.
“Huh, must be a glitch or something,” he said.
The screen flickered and filled with camera footage filmed sometime in the middle of the night. I, along with everyone else in the room, immediately recognized the scene that filled the screen.
“That’s my front lawn,” Tristan said, confirming it for anyone who might not have guessed. “It’s my Ring camera, but I never connected it to my TV like this?”
“Everyone move away from the windows and doors,” I said, my words dropping in the room like a bomb. Tristan looked at me with wide, fearful eyes.
“It’s a bug, right? Let me see if I rest—”
“Oh my God,” Noah said, pointing at the screen. “Look.”
A shadow appeared on-screen. A wraith cutting across the lawn. A person dressed in all black, a ski mask covering their face, and a long and bulky black trench coat hiding their figure. The shadow walked down the stone path, a confidence in their strut with a hand in the pocket of the coat.
I went for the concealed gun strapped in my holster and whipped it out, raising it up toward the door. Someone behind me yelled, the piercing screech cutting past the sound of blood pumping into my skull.
“No one move,” I said as my eyes dropped to the knob. Maybe the fucker didn’t know there was a six-foot-three bodyguard waiting with a gun on the other side of the door. And if they didn’t?
Well, they were about to find out.
5
TRISTAN HALL
My worst nightmarewas coming true. This sick fuck was about to walk through that door, expecting to grab me but instead walking face-first into Gabriel’s gun. Jess and Tia were pressed up against the wall, with Noah and Jake on their left, all four of them looking terrified out of their minds. Yvette was on the floor being shielded by her boyfriend while Colton, Steven, and Eric were each holding items to use as a defense. I wasn’t sure where Steven got that knife from so quickly, but I was slightly grateful for it.
Did the doorknob just jiggle? It was locked, but could this person force it open? Would they?
I looked to the television screen. The night-vision filter was on, casting my front lawn in an eerie white shade. Like footage from a ghost hunter’s vault. But…
The video was on a loop. My stalker was walking back down the path, just like he had moments before. He reached the door, worked the lock for a moment, and then he opened it, stepping inside. I hadn’t seen that part earlier.
“Wait,” I said, surprised my vocal cords still worked. “This is an old video.”
“Huh?” Gabriel asked over his shoulder, his attention pinned to the front door.
“It’s not from tonight. Look, none of your cars are there. This was done some other night.” My stomach twisted even tighter as realization set it. “They were in here. The Midnight Chemist was inside my house while I slept.”
My knees started to tremble, but I managed to get them working enough to carry me toward the kitchen sink, where I threw up from the raw fear.
Eric and Noah appeared at my side. My best friends. My boys. We were supposed to be enjoying our late twenties together, going to bars and movies and weddings and triple dates. We’d already been through so much together, and now this?
“Gabriel is going around the perimeter,” Eric said, his hand rubbing the spot between my shoulder blades as Noah poured me a fresh glass of ice water.
“He was in here,” I said. It felt like a bucket of spiders had been dumped over my head. A thousand invisible and tiny legs were crawling against my skin, down my spine, inside of my chest. This was a kind of fear I had never known before. I looked around my kitchen, not trusting a single inch of my own home. As if he were crouched in my cupboard, waiting until I was alone to crawl out and have his way with me. “He came in here while I slept.”
I leaned back over the sink as my stomach did a summersault, but nothing came out.
“Maybe this video is going to be what reveals their identity,” Noah helpfully suggested, although I could hear the fear cause his words to tremble.
“Noah’s right,” Eric said, his voice a little more steady. I stood up and leaned against the sink, looking at my best friends washed in the orange light of my kitchen, their expressions revealing the thoughts they didn’t want to say out loud. “They might have gotten too confident. Is there a way you can see how that video got on your television?”
I huffed a breath. My lungs felt like they could hold a fraction of the air they were supposed to. “I might be able to. ‘Might’ being the key word.”
