Page 18 of Property of Chaos

I can see every fucking corner of the room from here—even the doorway through to the front half of the house.

There are no surprises when she’s at rest.Interesting.

My thumbs slide back and forth over the arms of the chair, committing its velvety texture to memory. The pillowy softness of the upholstery sears into my awareness.She sits here.Her bitable fucking ass rests on this cushion. I squirm, partially aroused and partially disgusted at how easily she fucking affects me.

You don’t even know her name.Not that I need it to find out how she tastes or hear her breathy moans.Jesus fuck, Chaos.I jerk out of the chair before I give in to the urge to leave my mark on it.

Swallowing hard, I hesitate at the doorway of the short hall that runs to the front of the house and glance at the two doors—one left side, one right. The bedrooms, I guess.Focus on the point of this fucking visit.The light came from the one to my right when I stood in the field. I should head for the bedroom on the left and see what’s stashed away for safekeeping, yet the burning need in charge of my fucking limbs makes me veer right toward the half-open door.Just a peek.

She sleeps with one curtain open, the moonlight highlighting the hills and valleys of her curves beneath the thin blanket.

My heart beats an even tempo as I count the minutes frozen before her doorway, attention fucking glued to the temptation atop the bed. Not a goddamn noise comes from her. Could she really be that quick to drift off? If she’s had a long day at the cafe, I guess. If she uses sedatives to get to sleep, sure. I won’t know unless I take a closer look.

I move toward the gap in the door, settling my left foot off the side of the hallway runner.

The goddamn floorboards creak.

A wise man would stop fucking moving. A smart man would get his ass the hell out of Dodge.

But this guy? Yeah. I never pretended to be smart.

I move toward the nearest shadow—in the corner of her room.

SEVEN

VANESSA

It’s another nightmare.Just a figment of my traumatized mind.A product of a whole damn weekend spent doing fuck all—a perfect breeding ground for anxious thoughts and catastrophizing.

I lie frozen beneath the blanket, every inch of my exposed skin crawling against the touch of the cool night air. I’d read until my eyes drooped as always, eager to reach the absolute exhaustion that promised quick sleep. And it had worked. For a short while, at least, until I woke with a start, unsure what had disturbed me but hyper-aware something was most definitely, fucking, off.

What the hell was that?

I ache to call Murphy’s name. To encourage him onto the bed to appease my fears by proving it was just his fat ass making the floorboards creak. Yet terror holds my throat in a vise, my breaths carefully measured so as not to make too much noise.It was a nightmare.I keep telling myself the lie, believing the molly-coddling bullshit less and less each time I repeat it.It was just a fucking nightmare.

It fucking wasn’t.

My mouth is dry, joints aching with the tension I hold them under so as not to move.

Not that playing dead ever helped me.

I slip my hand toward the side of the mattress, yet I’m too far into the middle of the bed to reach the bat I keep under the edge of the frame.Fuck.Sleeping with a switchblade beneath my pillow doesn’t seem so unreasonable anymore.Rip the Band-Aid off, Ness.All I have to do is roll over and confront whoever the fuck has enough audacity to break into my house.Did he send them?Why fuck around with the letter, then?

Deep breath. You can fucking do this.

I pull air into my lungs and then roll to my back while launching into a seated position in one frantic rush, ready to confront whoever thought it would be a great idea to pick on a woman who’s all out of fucks to give about life.

The doorway is empty. Moonlight casts an ethereal glow across the floorboards to paint the foot of the bed in gray hues. My gasping breaths echo in the haunting space as I search the room for signs of intrusion. Everything sits as it should be, nothing moving but the flutter of my curtain against the partially open window.

I swallow the rising nausea and slide my legs from beneath the covers, bare feet hitting the smooth floorboards with a quiet tap. Hands gripping the edge of the mattress, I sit for a while to gather my shit and keen my ears for sounds of disturbance from anywhere else in the house. The faint tick of the clock in the kitchen is the only proof I’m not caught in some suspended state of animation, mid-nightmare.

“Fuck.” I set my elbows to my knees and bury my face in my hands, fingertips massaging my scalp.

One fucked up night of sleep I can ignore. Two are an inconvenience but not a deal breaker. I’m going on a wholeweek of inadequate rest, and it’s starting to show—I’m fucking hallucinating shit.

I drop my hands with a sigh and push off the bed, padding across to the window to double-check the locks on the sashes. The metal pins are secure in their housing, removing any risk that someone could push the windows open further than the two inches they are to get inside. The fucking irony is how goddamn beautiful the cottage garden is in the moonlight.Small wins.Yet, as always, the short-lived joy dissipates when reality sinks in.

Nature’s beauty is merely a mollifying mask for the ugly truth.

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