Page 15 of Caesar DeLuca
I do my security rounds like I always do, flicking off lights and twisting locks on windows and doors. I check my security system, then head up to bed.
Over the next hour, I practice self-care. I lock myself in my bedroom, light some candles, take a long hot shower, pamper my skin and hair, then curl up in my pajamas with a book.
A peaceful end to my day that I’ve come to appreciate.
I’m growing drowsy in no time. My head’s slipping forward, my Kindle loose in my hands as my eyelids feel heavier by the second.
I put up no real fight. Instead, I give into the sleep.
To my surprise, I’m able to rest even with a stranger in my home.
My sleep is peaceful and dreamless until a loud boom jars me awake. I snap upright in bed, dropping my Kindle on the floor. The noise was loud enough to rock me to my core.
I sit for a second, so rattled I can’t even move.
Who, or what, was that!?
I slide out of bed and tiptoe to my bedroom door. It wasn’t coming from inside the house—that kind of loud noise was coming from outside.
Someone’s on my property.
“Shit,” I mutter to myself.
Since moving here, I’ve agonized over the time that would inevitably come where I’d be found out. Someone with nefarious intentions would trespass onto my property and bring me harm.
I should’ve bought that firearm like Mr. Craig suggested…
I pick up my baseball bat and creep into the hall. The door to the guest bedroom remains closed like I left it earlier after I’d cleaned Caesar up. The medicine he’s taken will have him out for hours.
I edge toward the staircase, peering in the dark, my heart thumping. Each stair feels like an eternity, like I’m in imminent mortal danger. Whatever’s lurking in the dark will tear me to shreds.
But I press on, forcing myself to remain calm on the outside. I’m alert as I scan the shadow-heavy ground floor for anything out of place. Then I sneak over to the front window for a peek outside.
Icy flakes fall down into the knee-deep blankets of snow.
The visibility has dropped down to zero, so thick and heavy that it makes it impossible to see beyond the porch.
If that’s the case, then what in the world caused that kind of noise in the middle of the night?
I feel no ease to my tension. Fear deepens inside me, tightening inside my chest.
“I’ll take a look.”
“AHHH!” I scream and swing.
My second panicked swing of the baseball bat in forty-eight hours that results in me bashing an accent piece in my home. Last time it was one of the glass lamps that met an unfortunate end; this time it’s the small bird figurine on my wall shelf.
I swing so hard that I almost spin in a full circle. The bird figurine doesn’t stand a chance. It crashes to the ground in many tiny, shattered pieces.
A whole moment goes by before I calm down enough to recognize the figure in the dark as Caesar.
He’s wandered downstairs and come up behind me (yet he had enough foresight to stand just outside the swing zone where I could’ve hit him).
He steps forward and wrests the baseball bat out of my hand with little opposition on my end. The smoothness in which he does is a surprising turn on—it’s a move that’s commanding, yet almost… protective?
Like he wants to be the one to defend against whatever could be lurking.
“You… scared… the… crap… out… of… me!” I gasp, touching a hand to my chest.
