Page 27 of Runaway Queen

My terror piqued, even as I spun around and looked out at the dark road. There were a hundred places to lurk and never be seen.

Nothing moved on the quiet street, and tears stung my eyes.

“Hello?” My voice echoed around the empty street. I felt stupid, scared, and poised to run if a shadow moved my way. “I’ve called the cops. They’re on their way!”

My phone chimed again.

Liar.

I tore my eyes from the screen and looked into the darkness. I fancied I could feel eyes on me, but maybe I was just paranoid. No matter what my mental damage was, one thing was certain. Someone had set these flowers up and bled on them.

“Nikolai?”

I didn’t know why I said it. My rational mind knew it was impossible, and yet his name filled my mind. Someone was fucking with me, and my first thought was that it could be him? It was probably kids. The little hellions who went to Hade Harbor High were just spoiled and sadistic enough to think harassing a teacher at night outside her home was a fun game. It was a nickname that kids could use. Why not? I’d even confessed once to a few students that I’d been a prom queen back in my heyday.

Spinning on my heel, I dismissed my partially completed 911 call. The cops wouldn’t do anything about this, and I didn’t like them sticking their noses into my life, if I could avoid it.

I unlocked the door and cast a last long look at the street, before stepping inside and slamming the door. The noise echoed around the empty living room, the dark woods lingering just outside the dark windows at the back, mocking me with their secrets.

I sank down into a rocking chair that stood just on the other side of the sliding glass doors that overlooked the back patio, and stared out at the night, my phone gripped in my hand. I couldn’t go up to bed right now and sleep soundly. I was too unsettled.

I stared at the dark woods that ran across the end of the backyard, my skin creeping.

I could swear that the dark stared back.

* * *

Sunday was rough.I’d barely slept the night before and was jumpy and on edge all day. I spent most of it at the hospital. I wrestled with whether to tell Chiara and Angelo but decided not to. They had already spent too much time fixing my problems. They were friends, not babysitters.

As time passed, I started to think I was overreacting. The kids who’d decided to mess with me would really enjoy how on edge they’d made me. The worst part was how thoughts of Nikolai had pushed into my head. I kept seeing him. Stolen glimpses around the hospital, walking the halls, a specter in black, ducking into a cab, disappearing around the bend in the stairwell. Like his memory was a ghost haunting me, or some kind of messed-up wishful thinking. I did a hundred double takes, only realizing I was wrong with closer inspection. It made me feel like I was going crazy.

After the hospital, I drove home by the grocery store and ran in, quickly locating the frozen meal section. I loaded up on a couple of dinners for while Leo was away from home. I cooked all his meals, usually. It was better for his health and compromised immune system. I didn’t care about my health, only his.

There were only a few of the type I liked left, right at the bottom of the freezer, and I had to stick my head deep down inside the freezer section. When I straightened, I piled the frozen dinners haphazardly on top of the freezer and glanced up, hoping to snag a nearby basket.

That was when I saw him again.

Nikolai Chernov. In the flesh. This time it was more than a glimpse.

It was a memory. It had to be. This had happened to me before. When I’d first arrived in Hade Harbor, I’d seen him everywhere. I’d kept expecting him to show up. How could prison stop a force of nature like Nikolai Chernov? It was impossible.

Slowly, I’d realized that it wasn’t him, and bit by bit, I’d learned to ignore it. Today, though, something was different. All the times I’d known Nikolai, he’d been wearing one of his past outfits, one from my memories. Ripped jeans and dark t-shirts, leather jacket and shit-kicking boots. Now, the vision of Nikolai wore black slacks, perfectly fitting his long, lean legs, and a black dress shirt, open at the neck. He leaned against the meat counter, watching me like a wolf watched a rabbit it was about to devour. He looked casually deadly in those clothes. No longer a volatile heir to a dangerous throne, but the king himself. His head was shaved severely, revealing new tattoos scrolling across his scalp. I’d never imagined that before.

He wasn’t grinning. The twisted, mocking charm he’d always had was overlaid with seriousness. It wasn’t like him at all.

My hand slipped on the boxes of frozen meals, and they cascaded to the floor.

I looked down at them, hurrying to crouch and pick them up, as people looked at me, stepping over the mess I’d made.

When I looked up, Nikolai was gone.

Maybe no one was messing with me at all. Maybe I was just going crazy.

That night,after checking the locks on my doors ten times, I dug out the old burner phone I had rarely used. It had one number in it.

Renato answered on the second ring.

“Sofia? What’s wrong?”

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