Page 21 of Deliverance

“I’ll get you a copy. It’s not for sale at the moment.”

I feel like a total idiot. Obtaining an album of an obscure indie band would definitely require us to exchange phone numbers. Instead, she continues to shove me plates and cups, which I gladly accept since my instinct is telling me she’s not ready to discuss this subject further.

I change the topic. “Any chance you’ll tell me what you and Hazel are working on?”

She shakes her head. “It’s still just an idea and I don’t want to jinx it by talking about it too much. Besides, I’m not the only party involved.”

“I didn’t take you for the superstitious kind.”

“You don’t know me very well.” A mysterious half-smile plays on her lips and I catch myself staring at her mouth longer than acceptable.

I don’t know you at all.“I’m just trying to understand your creative process.”

There’s another moment of awkward silence that goes on for a little bit, then she asks, “Would you like to see?”

4 Drew

At first,it’s just a soft swirl of air. A draft brushing my cheeks and shoulders, then dancing across my collarbones and sneaking beneath the sheet that covers my body.

A shiver runs down my spine and I think back to the moments before I went to bed. I might have forgotten to shut the window or adjust the AC settings, but my eyelids were so heavy, I chose not to move, not to disturb my desperate attempt at a few stolen hours of peace.

Today was a very productive but long day, and I’ve been lingering on the edge of slumber for what seems like forever. Getting up now that I’m nearly there would disrupt my Zen, especially since sleep is a luxury. At least for me.

My mind curls into itself like a flower that hides during the night, my heartbeat slows.

Almost there, Drew,I tell myself.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

A light shuffling comes out of nowhere. Maybe it’s the wind that’s slipped into my studio and is currently waltzing across the materials left on the floor. Maybe the noise is bleeding through the walls from the unit next door. Or maybe it’s all just a product of my wild imagination.

For a while, I simply lie there, listening. Torturous seconds drag by until the shuffling finally becomes what I fear most. Footsteps. Heavy, measured footsteps.

Someone’s downstairs.

My pulse ratchets up. I can feel tiny bumps rising across my skin and panic seizing my stomach.

That’s not possible.My loft is on the fifth floor in a secured building and I have only three people on the list of approved visitors. Tina, Santiago, and my mother, who hasn’t even had a chance to see this place. She wouldn’t have the key.

Besides, it’s the middle of the night.

I will my eyelids to open, but there’s this strange, petrifying sense of wrongness that rushes through my blood, chilling me to the very bone. Suddenly, I’m all twisted up on the inside, nerve endings throbbing, chest heaving, stomach spasming. The comfortable darkness is quickly turning into a poisonous one, the type that suffocates.

My breath is caught in my lungs when the footsteps begin ascending the stairs to the second floor. To where I sleep. Or at least try to.

No…

It’s the smell that fills the air first. Sharp and bitter and all too familiar.

No… No…

The footsteps reach my bedroom and linger for a few seconds at the very top of the stairs. I need to move. My phone’s a couple of feet away on the nightstand. That’s all that separates me from the 911 operator—the swing of my hand and three taps, three numbers I’ve dialed before, more than once, so I could easily do it with my eyes closed.

But my body refuses to listen to the pleas of my scared brain. Not a single muscle answers. It’s like an invisible force has glued me together in all the wrong—right?—places, and I’m strapped to this bed indefinitely, surrounded by an impenetrable wall of blackness.

My chest tightens, every inch of me frozen with fear, sweat coating the back of my neck and forehead.

The footsteps begin to move toward my bed, and moments later, the mattress dips and a painfully familiar scent of male cologne wafts to me, filling my nose, my mouth, my lungs.

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