Page 38 of Half the Summer's Night

I hitsendand go into my bedroom and lock the door. I doubt the flimsy lock could actually keep my killer out, but it gives me the facade of safety.

I can still hear him downstairs, though.

My phone dings several times in quick succession—Chloe and Penelope sending their flurry of responses.

Chloe

Girl you had us so fucking worried

Penelope

Couldn’t have spared a text for your old friends? A meager, simple text?

A meme of a sad-eyed cat.

I text back more apologies, my throat getting tighter with each one. Especially since my killer’s presence is still wafting up from the first floor. And the fact that he’s down there with a dead body makes me feel—strange. Afraid, yes. But relieved, too. Because he saved my life.

And there’s something else, a darker undercurrent that pulses with my blood. I fall back on my bed and press my legs together, and it doesn’t go away. Chloe sends another meme. Iheart it without looking at it, then tell them both I’m going to bed.

I’m wide awake, though. Wide awake and throbbing with something dangerously close to desire.

A loud, decisive thump echoes from downstairs. My body quakes, and I honestly don’t know if it’s fear or anxiety or something else. Something I don’t want to think about.

I squeeze my eyes shut, listening. The house is silent.

Don’t come down until morning.

His words echo around in my head, and the truth is, I don’t want to go down there. I feel safe up here, behind my door’s lock. Insulated.

Even if I’m vibrating with adrenaline.

I push off my bed, my body shaking, and stumble into my attached bathroom. I lock that door, too, then peer out the small oval window. Not that I can see anything outside.

I move by rote to turn on the water and strip out of my clothes as it warms up. I stare at the spray, feeling numb and detached. I don’t know if he’s still down there. I don’t know what he’s doing, or did, to get rid of the body. I don’t know why I’m trusting him not to frame me for his actions. Or do something worse.

But I need to wash the death off my skin. I need the numbing effect of hot water and scented steam. That death down there, it’s not like what I deal with in my examination room. It wasn’t sterile or scientific. It was terrifying. It was?—

A warmth creeps between my legs.

I climb under the spray, hot enough to scald my skin as it streams over my shoulders and down the furrow of my spine. I hope it’s hot enough to burn this terrible clenching away.

It’s not. And yet here I am, in a fucking shower. Who gets into a shower with a killer downstairs? I’ve watched hundredsof classic horror movies with Penelope and Chloe. I know what happens when you mix killers and showers.

But nothing happens. There’s no creak as the bathroom door slides open—and it always creaks. There’s no heavy thud of my killer’s boot steps on the tile flooring.

Just the water.

Just the heat.

Just my memories. Of the death. And of my killer snaking his hand around my waist, telling me he would take care of everything.

I shudder and run my own hand over the place where he touched me, marking it like a map. I tell myself I don’t want him coming upstairs, but that’s not entirely true. Because I imagine it.

Imagine him creaking the door open.

Imagine his heavy footsteps on the tile.

Imagine his gloved hand sliding the shower curtain aside so he can see me, naked and soaked.