Chapter 103: Lock the Door
- RAYA -
The peaceful drive home after so much good food has made me sleepy, and I stifle a yawn when we pull into the driveway of Dex’s house.
"We were out later than I anticipated, and you have an appointment and work tomorrow." He gives me a crooked smile. "It’s a big day."
"Oh, that’s right." I grab my phone to check for messages from Rory.
’Plane was delayed. Just landed. Send me dream boy’s address, and I’ll see you in the morning.’
"Rory is going to pick me up in the morning for the appointment."
"I wonder if she’s still mad at me," he chuckles, rubbing his beard.
We’re both sitting in the truck now with the engine off, the soft blue glow of my phone finally cutting off when I put it away.
"She’s not mad at you," I frown. "Why would you think that?"
"In the hospital waiting room, she was shaking she was so mad."
"She was just worried about me," I tell him, recalling how concerned she was earlier in the week when I didn’t get back to her right away—how she told me she couldn’t lose me, too. "And she thought you were reading the journal that I wouldn’t even let her read, so..."
I try to laugh about it, but it comes out stilted and unnatural. That situation reminds me of Lawson and the fact that he DID read my journals. He is the only one who ever has. Based on what he said about having them memorized, he probably knows them better than I do. I was writing to forget—to keep my sanity, to stop the obsessive thoughts from encroaching on my daily life.
Dex’s mind evidently goes toward Lawson, too. That or he is incredibly perceptive, because he growls and wrings his hands around the steering wheel as if he were still driving.
"I wish I could take those things out of his mind, Raya," he says quietly. "It might sound strange, but I feel violated, too. It’s like my brother has a piece of us that he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t know those things that are only between us. They’re sacred. They’re ours."
Dex is staring hard at his hands in the dark, and it’s strange... thinking of Lawson and that whole situation makes me feel physically ill to the point of knots turning tighter and tighter in my stomach, making me want to curl up and give into them—hide in a fetal position until all of this finally passes away and is forgotten. But at the same time, hearing Dex reveal his feelings about what the journals signify to him—hearing him call them "sacred" and "ours" is beautiful and entirely unexpected.
"Why do you think we haven’t had more dreams like that?" Dex asks suddenly, turning my way and revealing the small reflections in his eyes when everything else is so dark. Who would have known that his eyes have been dusted with starlight just like the night sky?
"We haven’t had anymore, because... I have you," I say quietly with a shrug. "That would be my guess. Don’t you think?"
Dex’s intense curiosity and almost melancholy expression breaks, revealing his smile. But then his eyes cut away into the night outside my window, and the smile vanishes.
"Get inside the house and lock the door," he says, shoving out of the driver’s side door and tearing off into the yard towards the woods.
I watch him go, frozen with the wave of fear that has suddenly crested over my body right on the heels of an intimate moment. Was someone outside? Who is Dex chasing? And why the hell is he chasing them? That’s dangerous!
My hands finally fumble for the passenger handle, limbs and fingers cold and heart skittering forward into the dark, leading the way up the path through the shadows of plants and trees to the front door. Once I get inside, there are different imposing shadows and an engulfing silence. No one can be in here—the alarm was on—but my vision hasn’t adjusted, and my eyes wildly scan the room.
Rather than looking for light switches, I press myself against the wall and decide to wait just like this. If something moves in here, I’m going right back out that door to find Dex.
- DEX -
There was someone standing in my yard, staring at us. As soon as I saw the shape of him, another part of me bristled to life—a furious part of me.
The stranger took off, and I told Raya to get in the house before taking off after him. Raya has the alarm code, so she will be able to get in and keep herself safe.
Now I’m racing through the warm night that turns cooler under the canopy of trees, trying to catch the person. This may be the first time all of my running feels to actually be paying off in a practical way, because I’m ready... I’m ready to catch this bastard, whoever he is.
Several yards inside the woods, I have to pause and listen for sounds to guide me. My eyes aren’t helping me out here. The darkness of this moonless night is even darker beneath trees, making everything appear as only shades of the same black.
When I catch the rustling of movement far to my right, I take off in that direction—following the sound, buoyed up by this instinctual fury that someone would be out here when there can be no good reason for it. There are no other houses around. There are no businesses. This person was out here with the specific purpose to spy on me or Raya or to do even worse.
Ducking under branches and jumping over exposed roots, I finally see what appears to be the back of a jacket whipping behind someone, and it gives me a focal point to sprint for. When I’m a few feet away, I growl and leap for him, pushing him down on the ground and rolling off as he turns over, groaning from the impact. He tries to get back up while I’m on my back, but I turn over to grab him and pull him back down to the earth.
"Who are you?" I growl, turning him over so I can see his face and holding him by the collar.
He’s no one I’ve ever seen before—a man who looks to be in his late forties or fifties, balding with deep lines at the bridge of his nose and tracing the frown lines of his face. He gives me the fucking creeps.
While I’m staring at him, trying to place him, he swings at me. I block the blow before it hits, and a searing pain slices into my forearm when I do.
All logic and sense flees when that pain hits, and my anger takes shape—becoming a swift, blunt weapon that lands again and again as I hit him. He was in my yard. With a fucking knife—a knife that he just tried to use on me.
