With the house being empty of all furniture the usual creaks and groans from years past sounded as if someone were slowly walking around inside on the hardwood floors, each little noise echoing through the tiny rooms. Brandon was sound asleep in the sleeping bag next to me, lightly snoring in a way that made me think it was adorable, and also want to kick some of his perfect teeth in at the same time.
I clicked over to the local BY OWNER real estate website and decided to turn my sleepless night into a productive one by scanning the comparable sales in the area to see what else I could do in order to get the most money out of the sale that didn’t cost a fortune. With each stroke of the keys and click of the mouse the thought of selling the house grew from a nagging in the back of my head that told me it was wrong to a sickening thought of how I was going to live with myself after it was all said and done.
You don’t have a choice, Dre.
A noise in the kitchen, like something had fallen caught my attention.
I snapped my laptop shut and looked around the dark room, my eyes taking a moment to focus in the black space after staring at the bright screen.
I was used to hearing things at night. Being paranoid and exaggerating sounds in my head wasn’t exactly new for me. I looked over to Brandon who was still sound asleep and realized it was probably nothing.
Finishing my sucker I reached into my bag for another but realized that I’d left them in my purse in the other room. Slowly I shifted out of my sleeping bag and tip-toed into down the hall trying not to cause too many more creaks on the floor so Brandon wouldn’t wake up.
It was then I saw it. A tall thin figure standing at the screen door. I opened my mouth to scream but no sound came out. At the same time a flash of heat lightning lit up the backyard and for a brief instant I was able to make out the man wearing a black hoodie with the hood up.
My knees buckled when the recognition hit me and fell forward onto the counte top for support.
PREPPY.
The facial hair was gone, his face sunken in, but it wouldn’t of mattered if he were standing there with a ski mask covering his entire face.
I would know him anywhere.
I pushed off the counter and darted for the door, throwing it open with such force it banged loudly as it crashed against the stopper. I stepped out onto the porch but I was too late. It was empty.
I reached inside and hit the switch for the back light. It flipped on just in time for me to catch the rustling of the trees just beyond the fence.
With my adrenaline racing I slipped my feet into my grass stained KEDS that I’d left by the door and took the porch steps two at a time. The latch on the fence gate was rusted and overgrown with weeds. It wouldn’t give when I tried to open it so instead I climbed over the small metal fence, it rattled and wobbled under my weight as I jumped down on the other side.
The moon overhead was bright as hell and my only guide as I sprinted through the dark woods. I couldn’t help but remember that the last time I was running in those very woods I was running away from the man I was now heading toward.
When I reached the clearing at the end and burst out from under the canopy the water tower came into view, bathed in the full moon’s light. I knew where I was going. Last time I was up there I was trying to end it all.
This time I had no fucking clue what was in store for me.
But I was determined to find out.
PREPPY
For the first time in forever I was outside in the crisp clean night air in the town I’d lived in and loved my entire life. The sky above me was cloudless and littered with a million twinkling stars.
It was the usual 80-plus degrees. Hot as fuck, but with a cool breeze rolling off the bay waters, taming down the humidity that always threatened to make your shirt stick to your skin in South Florida.
It was a beautiful night. Perfect in every single fucking way.
The kind of day that people up north only dreamed of.
It was a tropical paradise some wait their entire lives to experience.
And I fucking hated it.
ALL. OF. IT.
It was too fucking bright even though it was night. The moon too fucking high. The sky too cloudless. The air too clean.
I’m pretty sure there is a special place in hell for people that cursed a beautiful night like that one.
Didn’t matter to me. I’d already been there.
Even the chirping birds flying overhead seemed so loud that at one point when I’d been climbing up the tower I had to cover my ear with one of my hands thinking that I was under attack. It was like sitting in a surround sound theater and having seats next to the speaker during a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s, The Birds.
The familiar light scent of saltwater wafted into the air. I used to inhale it like a drug that could get me high, but now it made my stomach roll and lurch to the point where I had to clutch my stomach to prevent the rising bile in my throat from spewing out, all because of the stench determined to invade all my senses.
The world I came back to was a spinning ferris wheel of sounds and light, assaulting me at every turn and I was helpless to make it stop, when all I wanted was to get off the fucking ride I never signed up to be on.
Logan’s Beach used to be my place. My security blanket. But coming out of the dark and into the blinding light I’d been craving for so fucking long wasn’t at all what I thought it would be.
It was a new kind of hell.
I was finally home, and all I wanted was a piece of normality. Well, normal for me. But being there, looking down at the only town that had ever been home to me, I felt anything but normal.
And anything but at home.
It was right then. In that very moment. While inhaling the clean air I once thrived on that now made me want to vomit. While listening to the familiar sounds that used to give me peace, but now echoed through my brain like jack hammers on pavement. It was right then I knew I would never find the kind of normal I used to know. The peace I once had.
Not there.
Never again.
My only hope was to find a new kind of normal, but to me that thought was scarier than any kind of torture I’d faced at the hands of Chop.
Which might explain why I’d sought her out.
Although the truth was I had no idea why I went to see her. Fuck, I didn’t even know if she’d be there. But once the shock of Grace’s death started to set in I remembered that Doe said Dre had been at the house and it kept playing those words over and over again in my head on repeat.
By the time I realized what I was doing I’d already snuck out in the middle of the night like some kid breaking curfew. Remembering that the window over the kitchen sink had a broken lock it wasn’t too hard to shimmy the window open and crawl inside.
The house was dark. Quiet.
Empty.
Yet the second my feet hit the floor I knew she was there.