Page 46 of Found in Obscurity

Kit was still a hurricane around him. Running, yipping, disturbed.

Lorin tried holding him, tried petting him. He wanted him close to keep him safe. He did everything he could think of to get him to settle down, but he knew Kit felt his discomfort too. They were both in danger. Both of them had been asleep and vulnerable to whoever was there.

It didn’t make any sense, the sick game this person was playing. They’d had them both at their mercy, unconscious and unaware.

Why just a message?

Why not do what they were threatening to do?

Did they enjoy the fear and the distress they were putting the two of them through?

Were they watching from somewhere, gloating?

He saw headlights before he heard the sound of his grandma’s car parking by the fence. He jumped to his feet, heading for the door to unlock it for her.

Before he got there his grandmother walked in in her navy night robe, the house recognizing her. Lorin snatched her wrist and pulled her to the coffee table, dislodging Sjena sleeping on her shoulder.

“Lorin, for the love of…” She tried pulling away. “What is wrong with you? It’s the middle of the night!”

“Yes, and when I fell asleep that—” He pointed to the surface of the coffee table. “—wasn’t there. And now it is.”

“Your coffee table wasn’t there when you fell asleep and now it is?” she asked, her voice scratchy from sleep as she stared at him as if he’d lost his damn mind.

“Not my coffee table, the thing ON it!” He walked closer and pointed to it. Kit was parked right next to it with his front paws up on the table again.

“Your mug?” his grandma asked.

Lorin nearly growled in frustration. “The threat!!”

She frowned, walking closer and bending down to take a look at the scribbles on the table.

“K…I…L?” she read out, and he nodded frantically, not even trying to disguise how distraught he was over the entire thing.

“I clearly woke up before they could add the second L. I’m being threatened in my own home!”

“You think someone tried to write ‘kill’ on your coffee table while you were sleeping?”

He flapped his hand toward the table and the letters in question. “Yes!”

“Why not just kill you?”

He gaped at her in disbelief. “What?”

“I’m not suggesting it, silly child. I’m just trying to get some logical thinking going on. If someone wants you dead, why not just kill you when they had a chance instead of leaving cryptic messages half-written on your coffee table?”

He stared.

Because he didn’t have an answer to that. Sure, he’d thought of it earlier, but he’d been in such a state that all his mind had come up with was a deranged psycho getting off on his fear instead of just…how ridiculous it would have been for someone to break into someone else’s home and then fail at leaving a threatening note.

“I don’t know.” He sighed and sank onto the sofa again. Kit hopped up and propped his front paws on Lorin’s shoulders, laying his front against him like a pancake.

He was still shaking. Still restless.

Lorin cradled his back and pressed a kiss between his eyes.

“The poor thing is scared,” his grandma said, looking at Kit, and Lorin scowled at that because where was the compassion when he was falling apart just seconds ago?

“We both are,” he grumbled.