Page 2 of Bad Enough

Her fingers sat atop the keyboard, her eyes gazed on the page, and Sylvan’s brain wandered again. Back to those texts from two nights ago when the distracter in question told her some hilarious stories about his co-worker, particularly one where he suffered a bite to the butt by a coral snake. She’d been smiling like a loon through the whole exchange, totally acting like a teenager texting with her first crush, but she was past caring.

Come to think of it, their texting sessions had gotten longer and longer of late. Maybe he was a little intrigued. Then again, he’d been stuck on his recent business trip coming up on fifty days, so he was probably climbing the walls with boredom and texting her to pass the time.

DING DONG!

Sylvan’s brow furrowed. “Who the heck is messaging me at this hour of the night?”

She clicked over onto her social media page to see that, sure enough, someone had messaged her on her author page. Before thinking it through, she clicked on the notification. Thinking things through had never been her strong suit. She really needed to work on that.

UNKNOWN

Hello, Red. Miss me?

UNKNOWN

I told you that you’d never escape me.

UNKNOWN

I have to say, you made me work to find you.

UNKNOWN

And you’ve been ignoring my emails. Can’t have that.

UNKNOWN

See you soon…

All the blood rushed from the upper portion of Sylvan’s body as the messages began appearing on her screen. When she violently shoved her keyboard, as if that would make the message writer be further away from her, it caught the edge of her teacup, sending the contents spilling. The scalding liquid splashed her hand with stinging bites, and it ran in all directions on her desk, ruining her notes in the notebook she’d been referencing.

She whimpered.

Lock it down. He can’t see you. He’s not here. He can’t hurt you. He may have found you on the computer, but that doesn’t mean he knows where you are. You hid well.

Shaking with real fear, Sylvan reached out to hard shutdown the computer. Clutching her burnt hand and ignoring the spreading spilled tea, she sprung from her desk chair, dove into her bed, and pulled the bedspread up over her head just like she used to when she was little and scared. A part of her prayed for the magic that children believed in, that if every part of you was under the covers, the monsters couldn’t touch you.

Unfortunately, she knew from experience that some monsters were far more powerful than cover-magic.

It was hours of tears later when she finally fell into a fitful sleep. But even then, she dreamt of shadowy figures who ripped and tore covers to shreds, then covered her with their stinking breath, salivating mouths, and grotesque bodies. And there was no Prince Charming in the background to fight them off.

2

APRIL 10TH

TB

Multicolored lights swung and spun chaotically to shine down on the dance floor. Fog machines flooded the floor with cold mist, enveloping the dancers packed in “The Pool,” as it was called, because of its entrances being five steps down from the main floor. The club was hot. Too hot for his liking. Worst of all, his organs felt like they were being shocked with electricity, and his blood seemed to pulse with the synthetic bass line of classic Depeche Mode.

The club’s speakers are working overtime tonight. Too loud.

Internally, he sighed. Even to him, his inner voice sounded old. He hadn’t wanted to come to The Library tonight, but he was twitchy. Pissed off. Well… pissed off was a constant state for him, so this qualified as more pissed off than usual. Coming to the club should have helped ease the twitchiness, but as soon as he arrived, he remembered it hadn’t helped the last few times he’d come here before going overseas.

Same shit, different day. What’s the point?

He blamed part of his current negativity on his team leader, Waters, for being the ultimate dumbass. The man was acting completely out of character, leaving his woman while she was possibly still vulnerable to danger, simply on the orders of their boss. The man was going to pay for his mistake in more ways than one.

I love that man like a brother, but sometimes…

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