Page 18 of Where We Found Our Home
Please remind me why I’ve been friends with these women for eighteen years.
I can’t breathe. Paranoia has its claws wrapped around my throat so tightly I’m gasping for air. I can’t do this. I’m safe within these four walls, so that’s where I should stay.
In that moment, frustration takes over. The nerve endings that were frayed with fear are now coated in anger. Dammit, I am not this person. I’ve allowed this man to reduce me to a shell of myself. Scared to walk out of my own mother’s house to check the mail?! I can’t let this happen. It’s three feet. I can walk three feet to the mailbox, no problem.
Do it.
Just fucking do it.
Tunnel vision takes over, and all I can see is the bright white door in front of me. My breath is labored as I reach for the door. The doorknob scorches my skin, and I nearly fall back but then I chastise myself for imagining its heat and press on.
The door is open for a single moment before I realize he’s standing before me. His breath reeks of cigarettes. His eyes are cold. Hard. Void of all emotion. I’m frozen in place, his stare dragging my soul with him down to the pits of hell.
I see the glint of a blade seconds before he plunges it into my abdomen. Hot, searing pain spreads throughout my entire body, and I fall to my knees, the force of the drop vibrating in my bones. I hold on long enough to watch his back fade into the night as he leaves me for dead on my mother’s doorstep. My last thought before my head hits the cold floor is regret that those eyes are the last thing I’ll ever see.
My eyes adjust as I’m flipped over, but it’s not my body I’m looking at. I’m now the one looking down at what should be my bloody corpse, but instead I find Lincoln. His beautiful brown eyes are cold and glazed over, and my heart constricts at the loss of their warmth. I look down, and his blood is literally on my hands. They start to tremble as my attention is forced back to his face when I hear him choking on his own blood. His eyes beg me to put him out of his misery.
I jerk awake in a cold sweat.Fuck.I’ve had this nightmare before. I’m always transported back to that day at my mom’s house, and I have to live that horror over and over again, but then it always turns into an out-of-body experience where I have to look at my own body but it’s never me. It’s always Mom, Simone, Brittany, or Sarah. This vision of Lincoln, though? Far more graphic than I’ve ever experienced before. He was literally begging me to finish him off so he wouldn’t have to suffer anymore. If I didn’t know I needed to stay far away from Lincoln before, I sure know now. But I’m so deep in with this family already, I don’t know if it’s even possible to disentangle.
Double fuck.
Eddie
Oh, Ciara. If you really wanted to keep me out, you would’ve moved into a place with a doorman. It’s like you didn’t even try.
You like our little game, don’t you?
You little devil.
You did a decent job evading me on your way here. Or you tried at least. You got a new car just before moving so I’d be on the lookout for your old car. Too bad I was with you at the dealership when you bought it. You paid cash in all the hotels you stayed in on the way here. Did you know that we shared a wall in the hotel in Tennessee? So close yet so far.
Don’t you see? You’re only here because I allowed it.
This is my favorite part of the game. The part where you think you’re free of me and you build up that happiness again only for me to rip it away piece by piece. You’ll never be free of me, doll.
You never learn your lesson. I’ve seen you in that coffee shop with the owner and that little girl. How pathetic. Are they your new bodyguards? Meant to replace those obnoxious girls back home? If you think I won’t kill them too, you haven’t been paying attention. We’ll have to fix that, now won’t we?
Or how about that man from yesterday? Is he supposed to save you? Yeah, I saw your heroics yesterday. Pft. You never knew how to mind your own fucking business. Always stepping in where you’re not wanted. Does it make you feel good to ruin other people? You just can’t help yourself.
Before this is over, I will teach you the error of your ways.
Enjoy your so-called freedom…for now.
Lincoln
I’m trying to sleep, but my brain is on overdrive. I can’t stop thinking about Ciara. I have no idea why she has such a strong effect on me. I’m finally able to lull myself into sleep, but the dream I’m pulled into isn’t the sexy one of Ciara I imagined. Even though I’m confused about my feelings for her, I would’ve much preferred that dream over this one I’ve had too many times before.
I take a deep breath, look up at my condo, and for the first time in three years, I am dreading coming home.
Yesterday was a long shift, and all I want to do is come home, take another shower, order a pizza, and watch movies with my girl. But I know we have to have this talk…again.
Erica has been relentless since I was let off desk duty two weeks ago. I know she’s just scared, but shit, this is part of the job. I thought she understood that. It’s not the first time I almost died on the job, and it won’t be the last, but I will never stop because it’s my calling. This city needs people who will sacrifice for them, and that’s me and my crew.
I love Erica with every fiber of my being, but I love this city, too, and I won’t turn my back on it.
It’ll be okay. We’ll be okay. I just need to remind her how good we are together. I need her to see how much she means to me.
I take one more deep breath and turn the doorknob. I go to call out for Erica, but I stop short when I see the suitcase in the living room. I scan the room and see a duffle bag by the door and Erica’s work tote on top of it.
