Page 30 of Linger

I’d tried waiting up. I’d even stayed on my couch so I would hear the window open.

The first few nights anyway...

But every night, I’d fallen asleep. Every morning, I’d woken in my bed. And every morning, there’d been a gift of sorts, letting me know he’d been there.

Lattes. Breakfast wraps. Lavender sprigs. Mini blueberry scones.

At first, I found them comforting and adoring because they let me know he was still there—that he was still coming back to me.

Now, they were just a reminder of what he was doing: Keeping himself from me in the only way he apparently felt he could. They were a frustrating display that he could be near me—carry me—undetected if that’s what he wanted. Because I was well aware that his presence alone was powerful enough to wake me.

I’d stopped accepting his gifts after that second morning, but if he was bothered by the fact that I left them untouched, he had yet to show it.

Sparing one last glance at the vanilla latte and lavender sprig he’d left on my counter that morning, I ignored the way my heart dipped with a muted sense of longing and rushed out the door and to the parking lot before I could do something foolish...

Like grab the coffee.

I couldn’t keep Diggs out of my apartment—that was obvious. But I was done playing this game by his rules.

“Oh.” I staggered back when I nearly ran into someone just as they came through the space between two trucks. “I’m s-sorry.” The apology came out as more of a horrified wheeze than anything else when I lifted my head enough to see the nightmare walking toward me.

Because that’s what this was...a nightmare.

My nightmare.

The mask covering the man’s entire face. The neon X’s crossing out his eyes and the neon, stitched smile, almost making him look like a scarecrow. And with the sun just beginning to greet the horizon, the neon glow was still prominent enough to draw my entire focus and root me in place.

I internally screamed at myself to close my eyes because I knew—I knew—this wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.

I begged my body to move. Run. Do anything.

But I just stood there in all my terror, with my heart in my throat and pounding so fiercely as he continued toward me. Head slanting menacingly just before a scream ripped from me when I was touched.

Nudged.

Prodded in the chest...by his dog.

A rough laugh left the man as he led his giant mountain of a dog past me, all while I struggled to know that I wasn’t taking my last breaths.

Whirling around to keep them in sight, I began taking unsteady steps away. My chest heaved against the pressure on it as I desperately fought for oxygen and my head swam. After another few seconds to ensure they were out of reach, I turned and hurried for my car. Fumbling with my bag and nearly dropping my keys half a dozen times in the process before I finally fell into the seat and locked the doors behind me.

It wasn’t until I went to turn on my car that I realized I was shaking. That I noticed the pressure on my chest had moved into my throat and was choking me until it felt like I would never be able to breathe again.

Balling my trembling fingers against my chest, I dropped my forehead against the steering wheel just as a pained sob broke from me, shattering the suffocating silence in my car.

I thought I’d escaped this.

I thought by getting away from Virginia and starting over somewhere new, somewhere small and quiet, I’d be able to live my life without the nightmares that haunted me at every turn.

And it had been better...

I hadn’t had a flashback—hadn’t seen a man in a chilling, neon mask—in a couple months. And I hated that bumping into a stranger in pre-dawn’s darkness could send me spiraling right back to that night.

Then again, I hadn’t slept much the past week, my thoughts were a jumbled mess of hurt and frustration with a mysterious guy who snuck into locked places, and I’d been plagued by thoughts and terrifying dreams of what kind of dangerous Diggs could be.

Sleep deprivation and over-active minds were never a kind combination to people who’d endured what I had.

A huff punched from my chest, sharp and full of self-deprecation, when I realized how it must have come across to the man with the dog. A woman so terrified from bumping into a man alone that she literally froze in fear and screamed.

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