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So I stood up and walked to our bedroom, putting on a pair of jogging sweats and an old T-Shirt, followed by the sneakers I hadn't worn in more than a month. I had so much pent up energy that needed to be released, and grabbing my phone from the table in the living room, I practically ran toward the elevator, opening it with one simple touch.
My body hummed as the digital panel in the elevator changed numbers, leading me down toward the reception. As I passed the security guard, greeting him with a tilt of my head, I rushed outside taking a mouthful of fresh air.
Cillian’s apartment had a balcony I often used, but it was different, standing right here, watching as other people rushed home, oblivious to the real dangers plaguing this city.
The concrete was dark from the rain that had fallen this morning, the lingering scent of humidity still in the air, and I breathed in deeply, letting my lungs fill with the scent of freedom. The logical part of my mind knew I wasn’t a prisoner. I was cared for, maybe even loved even though we didn’t say those words, but I knew that both Cillian and Chris would do anything to make me happy.
But this whole situation was pushing me into panic mode, being locked inside the apartment, and while I knew that the danger still lingered on the outside, we didn’t have any proof that Tristan even knew about me. For all we knew, I was probably safer than Chris, but every time I started arguing about it, Cillian finished it with the whole, “he knows how to fight, and you don’t,” bullshit. Maybe I didn’t know how to fight, not like they did, but I could still throw a mean punch, and I carried my pepper spray everywhere I went.
But instead of lingering on those thoughts, I turned the corner around the building and walked toward the pedestrian path that spread behind Cillian’s building, connecting this area with the woods behind. Velvet City was a metropolis, but it was also connected with the mountains and the forest that surrounded the area, and Kill’s building was in the greenest part.
I pulled my phone out, put my earphones in and turned on the music that immediately started pumping in my ears. My heart followed the rhythm, and as soon as my feet hit the area where everyone walked, mingling and chit chatting, I started running, reveling in the slight burn in my thighs.
The sky turned purple as the sun hid behind the plushy clouds colored yellow and pink, and I could feel a smile spreading over my face as I looked at the sky. Birds rushed from the forest I was running toward, pushing toward the sky, free to do whatever they wanted to do.
I wanted to be like them. I wanted to be completely free, but the elation I felt at seeing them slowly died down as I remembered what was happening right now. I wasn’t free, not even a little bit, not until they caught Tristan.
I would blame my fucked up thoughts for distracting me, but later on I would realize that I never should have gone out. I never should have left the house, but it was too late to turn around when I realized I was deeper inside the forest than I wanted to be.
The music still blasted in my one ear as I removed my second earphone, noticing that there was no one else on the trail. I turned toward where I'd come from, but I couldn’t see the city anymore. I couldn’t hear the birds, only an eerie silence surrounding me, pressing all my buttons.
Leaves rustled from behind me, my heart hammering in my chest with fervor, and I turned around, ripping my other earphone from me, keeping it in my shaky hands.
“Who’s there?” I asked, mentally slapping myself. Wasn’t that the question every single victim in horror movies asked just before the killer slaughtered them? I was a sitting duck here, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get my legs to work. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was just an animal hiding in the bushes, but that little spidey sense I'd somehow developed over the years was telling me that I wasn’t alone.
The hair at the nape of my neck stood up, feeling the viciousness surrounding me, taunting me. I was a mouse in a trap and there was a predator out there, watching me, waiting to take me.
My heart almost jumped out of my chest when the rustling of the leaves came even closer, and I tightened my hold around the pepper spray in my hand. But it wasn’t a predator that came out of the bushes.
It wasn’t Tristan Nightingale that looked at me with brilliant yellow eyes.
An orange tabby cat pushed through the bushes, meowing with abandon, looking at me as if I had all the answers she or he needed. The cat slowly walked toward me, rubbing its body against my legs, scenting me, leaving its mark on me, and I crouched down, smiling at my little intruder, thankful it was a cat and not something worse.
“What are you doing out here, buddy?” I murmured, scratching behind its ears while the cat purred loudly. “Are you lost?” The cat didn’t have a collar and the state of its fur told me it'd been outside for a long time. “Maybe I could take you home with me and bathe you, huh? What do you think?”
“You always had such a soft spot for animals,” a voice rumbled from behind me. A familiar voice.
A voice that had haunted my mind for the last couple of years. A voice that used to sound so sweet until he turned out to be one of the biggest monsters I have ever encountered.
I froze, my hand still on top of the cat’s head, but I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t want to look at him.
Eddie Johnson was my dream come true. My high school boyfriend that proposed as soon as both of us came back to Croyford Bay to build our lives. I failed to see the monster hiding behind the mask. I failed to see that he never truly loved me, but was simply obsessed with me. I failed to see the warning signs until it was almost too late.
I slowly turned around, my palms clammy as I straightened up while the cat stood in front of me, hissing at him.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, barely above a whisper, hating how weak my voice sounded. He looked like hell—unshaven, with dark circles around his eyes. His clothes hung on him, and gone was the warmth he used to fake in his dark eyes. His hair was much longer than the last time I saw him, and I couldn’t understand how he was here. They'd locked him up, that much I knew, but shouldn’t they have told me that he was out?
That was the deal. That was what my lawyer told me.
Oh, God.
He took a step closer, smirking, feeding off of my fear, and I loathed the tremble in my limbs as I prepared myself for the pain I always associated with him.
“You look delicious, Eve,” he murmured, his hand wrapping around my throat, squeezing softly. My eyes fluttered closed, unable to look at him for another second. I should’ve fought him, pushed him away, ran as fast as I could, but my body wasn’t cooperating. I was once again that weak girl he could do whatever he wanted to.
I couldn’t breathe, my lungs straining as my mind went into overdrive. He wasn’t here for a quick chit chat, that much I knew. He was here to kill me, to show me who was boss. He hated me for what I'd done to him, blamed me for the loss of his career, his friends, his family… He wasn’t going to spare me, and as I opened my eyes, looking into the eyes of a man I once loved, I thought about Cillian. I thought about Chris.
I hoped they would be able to forgive me one day for leaving them. I hoped Cillian would be okay.
