Page 42 of Meet Me at the Metro (Gildenhill #1)

42

TIMELY NIGHTMARES

T H E O

R ain streams from the sky in a rageful downpour, soaking my hair and clothes. The shadows of the night fill the back of city alleys I pass as my feet move quickly along Baker Street. The shops and restaurants around me are asleep, vacant of lights, or city-goers who usually frequent them during the daytime.

I had grown acquainted with being alone over the years following my dad’s death, but this isolation didn’t feel right. My head whips around, searching for any sign of life, whether a passing car or a familiar face, but I come up short of anything of the sort.

I’m completely, utterly alone.

My voice is strained with worry as I call out to the only name my mind can seem to conjure. “Nora!”

Her name echoes through the void of the desolate avenue ahead and behind me, taunting me with the silence that follows it.

Something isn’t right about this place. Something feels very, very wrong.

I run to escape the ominous air settling around me, sprinting down the vacant sidewalk as fast as possible. The sights around me blur as I race for relief, and suddenly, without warning, the world around me pivots. I swear my eyes—or mind—are playing tricks on me as everything starts to spin frantically, morphing the once tall, terraced buildings and towering city structures into something new.

Somewhere new .

I’m standing in the middle of an empty nightclub. Its bright, colorful lights shift around me, but my uneasiness lingers in the silence still fixed around me. The only sound I can discern is my heartbeat—a pounding, steady thrumming in my chest.

“Theo!”

Nora’s voice has my eyes darting toward the opposite end of what would be the dance floor, though it’s abandoned by any occupants tonight other than the two of us. I make to move toward her, but my feet are fastened to the floor, unwilling to budge even an inch.

“Come here,” I call to her, but she just bemusedly cocks her head like she can’t make out what I’m saying. She’s oblivious to the dark silhouette of a man who appears behind her, and my urgency grows. “Nora, baby, come here!”

I fight to break free of the invisible force tethering me to the ground, but it refuses to let me go. I’m stuck, watching helplessly as the man’s arms ensnare her. Her shrill cry of terror rings through the air as he tightens his hold around her, forcing her restless and thrashing limbs still.

“Let go of her!”

My muscles strain to reach her, but she’s too far. My body is refusing to move, rejecting every desperate impulse inside itself to act—to help her.

I can’t do anything, not even as John’s face appears out of the shadows. He’s wearing a sickening grin as he removes something from his pocket and slowly brings it to the temple of her head. Nora’s eyes are filled with terror as she looks at me, pleading with me to do something.

Anything.

“You promised me,” she murmurs, her voice trembling with despair. “You promised me you wouldn’t let him hurt me again.”

“He’s not going to hurt you!”

John laughs, and it’s the sound of undiluted depravity. “Haven’t you learned not to make promises you can’t keep?”

He presses the barrel of the pistol more firmly against her head, tormenting me.

“Let her go! Please, just fucking let her go! ”

John’s face grows stoic, void of any discernible emotion. “You don’t deserve her.”

The safety switch of the gun clicks, and Nora whimpers, “Please, John. Please stop.”

John glares at me and growls, “This is your fault.”

The club’s lights grow darker around us, painting everything in deep, unforgiving shades of scarlet and crimson. The change is a sickening representation of the panic boiling inside of me. It sets every hair on my body upright and sends a cutting chill up my spine.

“Please,” I say, desperate and broken. I hardly understand how I’m able to get the words out. “Please, don’t hurt her.”

“I’m not,” he says, eerily calm.

I go to scream, but the sound of my voice is stifled, suffocated in a terrifying silence. I’m rendered powerless—stolen of speech.

John draws a finger to the trigger before he gravely informs, “I’m hurting you.”

I’m startled awake at the deafening bang of the gun, my pulse still thundering as I battle to distinguish the dream from reality.

“Fucking hell!” Evie exclaims, pulling me back down to earth. I straighten in the lounge chair inside the hospital room, forcing my senses to awaken as the steady hum of an IV machine reminds me of my surroundings.

Harvey’s giving me a bewildered look from the hospital bed, the crisp white linen of his sheets ruffling as he situates himself to sit up. As he assesses me from across the room, I’m embarrassed as equally as I am relieved.

“All good over there?” he asks carefully, granting me the faintest smile.

I clear my throat. “All good.”

There’s more color in Harvey’s cheeks today, absent of the clamminess and pallor I’ve been getting accustomed to seeing these past few weeks. He’s also got less fluids running at his bedside now, which I conclude is good considering all the medications they had him on only days ago. Just a glance at him, and I can see how significantly he’s recovering from the aftermath of that night. I’m so damn grateful for it, too.

Evie paces the bleak space of the room, peeping into unmarked beige-colored drawers and cabinets as she expresses, “If that’s your good, remind me never to be around for your bad.”

“Noted,” I grumpily mumble, crossing my arms along my chest.

“I thought my snoring was bad, but that—”

“Leave him alone, Evie.”

“Fine,” she sighs and mutters, “But it’s not my fault he decided to fall asleep and wake up convulsing in his chair.”

“You’re so fucking dramatic. I did not wake up convulsing .”

Evie shrugs. “Looked like it to me.”

I pivot my arm so that Harvey doesn’t see the moment when I subtly flip her the bird.

Her grin widens the second she notices it. “You know what... you look like shit.”

“You have such a way with words, you know that?”

“Yes, I’m aware.”

“You two are ridiculous,” Harvey chuckles. “And one day, that sharp tongue will cost you, Evie.”

“And when it comes, I’ll be more than willing to pay the price.”

Evie loves having the last word, and honestly, I don’t have the energy to deprive her of that today, so I remain quiet despite every urge to throw back some witty remark. The room goes silent for a few beats, and the quiet grants my mind just enough time to spiral back into the traps of that dream again. The nightmare wasn’t real, but it was enough to have doubt creeping into every crevice of my brain.

What if I can’t keep her safe? What if the authorities don’t locate John soon? He’s on the loose, with no inkling of his actual whereabouts. That thought is terrifying.

I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if—

“You do look tired, Theo,” Harvey says, drawing me out of the terrifying scenarios wreaking havoc in my head. “Have you not been sleeping well?”

I shake my head. “Not really.”

“Are you having nightmares again? ”

The question tenses every fiber of my muscles, and immediately, I want to avoid even acknowledging its existence. However, Evie and Harvey’s eyes are branded on me. I can feel them even as I divert my gaze to the window, giving a glimpse of the setting sun outside.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve been having them, too,” Evie mutters.

“Talk to us,” Harvey insists.

“I’m fine, really.”

“None of us are fine, so stop with the nonsense. A lot has happened over the last few months. Let’s be honest here; it’s been hell, to put it quite frankly. Evie knows it. I know it. You know it, Theo.”

I release a strained breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding in and mumble, “I know, and I’m sorry. I just—I feel myself slipping again.”

Harvey tilts his head inquisitively. “How so?”

“The nightmares. The panic attacks. The brain fog. The constant anxiety. They’re all coming back, and I’m terrified. I felt like I had finally gotten to a point where I was healing from everything that happened to Dad, but now this ,” I gesture to my friend—to the state that he’s in and the medical equipment scattered around the room. “All of this is just so fucked, Harv. You shouldn’t be here right now. None of this should have ever happened, and the worst part is that you haven’t gotten a lick of justice for it. He’s still out there, and you’re still in here.”

“They’re going to find him, Theo,” Evie snarls, her cheeks growing red with anger. “And karma will be a nasty fucking bitch.”

“But how long will it take for that to happen? I promised to keep Nora safe, but what if I can’t? What if he tries hurting her again?”

“It’s completely valid to feel worried, but those ‘what ifs’ are going to kill you, mate,” Harvey says. “You have to focus on what you can control. You’ve been doing everything possible to fulfill your promise. She knows it, too.”

He’s right. He always is, but it was easier said than done to wrangle all the fears swimming around in my head. I surprise myself when I begin to admit more of them out loud .

“I don’t want Nora’s last few months here to be like this. We deserve more time and deserve to spend it better than this. I don’t want this to scare her away from considering staying. I don’t— fuck, I— ”

“You don’t want her to leave,” Harvey finishes for me.

Evie frowns. “We don’t want her to leave either.”

“And you don’t think she’d be willing to stay?”

“I don’t know.” My head falls into my hands as I mull over our conversation a few nights ago. “She’s worried about being unable to afford living here past the year. She doesn’t think she’d be able to keep up with rent, but I told her she could stay with me.”

Evie’s entire body piques with elation. “You asked her to move in.”

“I mean, not exactly. I—”

“You asked her to move in! Oh my God, Theo!”

“He’s trying to steal our bloody roommate!” Harvey teases.

“You fucking snake!”

“Would you two calm down?”

I bite back my smile. The idea of her clothes being scattered along my flat and my bed suddenly becoming our bed made me obnoxiously giddy, but I refused to let them see that.

“She didn’t say yes yet.”

“ Yet,” Evie emphasizes. “Keyword.”

“We’d have to figure out school. She’s worried that the university won’t accept her for another term.”

“I hardly think they’d be averse about it,” Harvey assures. “From what she’s shared with us, she’s doing great in her classes.”

“Besides, you’ve got connections, Theo. Your stepmum is literally the head advisor. That gives her an easy way to register for more classes.”

“Yeah, Evie, I know, but I’m not really in a position to sway Kim’s favors right now. I haven’t spoken to her since fall break.”

“Oh yeah,” she winces. “Forgot about that...”

“So go talk to her then,” Harvey suggests. “Smooth things over.”

I scoff. “How the fuck am I supposed I do that?”

“ Apologizing? I mean, even if it’s not completely sincere, at least it’d give you a means to convince her to help Ellie stay another term.”

Evie cocks a pierced brow my way, challenging me. “Stop being a taint.”

“The fuck did you just call me?”

“A taint . The anatomical region between a man’s ballsack and anus. You’re being one, so stop.”

Harvey shakes his head disapprovingly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “ Good God, Evie... ”

“ What? You sure as hell weren’t going to say it, so someone had to!” Harvey glares at her indignantly, and she tries to redeem herself. “All I’m saying is that if you want Ellie to stay so bad, you’ll push your pride and hard-headed ego to the side and find a way to help her.”

“You know what, you’re right,” I admit, pushing off my knees as I rise from my chair.

“Oh my God, please let me hear you say that again.”

“Fuck off.”

“Love it when you talk dirty to me.”

I stride to Harvey’s bedside to hug him before I leave. When I pull away from our embrace, he’s looking at me with a bright, knowing smile. “You’re going to talk to Kimberley, aren’t you?”

I puff out a heavy gust of breath. “ Yep.”

The train station is busy this evening, bustling with hurried bodies just getting off work. Hectic chatter fills the air as I quickly slip onto a soon-to-be-departing train heading toward the direction of campus.

I only hoped Kimberley would still be there, working in her office. If not, I’d be rerouting this trip to my childhood home, which I prayed would not end up being in the cards for me tonight.

The thought has me pulling out my phone to text Nora, who I’d assume is still staked out at Connor’s rehearsing lines.

Heading to campus. You still with Conn-twat ?

I grab the handrail above me as the train rushes down the track. I lift my head and watch as the platform outside fades to a blur, but the abrupt buzz of my phone has me glancing down again. I’m surprised to see how quickly Nora’s responded.

Where to? I need to talk to you.

Something about her text has my gut twisting. I never much appreciated that statement and all the foreboding implications it could apply. I was already on edge. Reading her message felt like stepping toward a ledge overlooking a valley of total unease. I didn’t like it one bit, but I forced myself to breathe—to stay composed.

Administration’s office.

My pathetic eyes don’t stray from the thread of messages between us until the train pulls to its next stop. A wave of bodies moves toward the doors as they open, releasing a horde of passengers as it welcomes new ones. It’s when the doors close and the train starts moving again that I feel the irrefutable urge to send another text.

What’s up? Are you okay?

Seconds turned to minutes without a response. I’m chewing the inside of my lip when the train halts to the next platform. The second the doors open, I’m rushing out of them, but the hot, dry air of the station does nothing to quell the heat building along my chest and neck.

I need to chill.

Nora is fine. She’s with Connor. She’s safe. She just needs to talk to me about something. I’m sure it’s not a big deal...

I happily welcome the chill February air into my lungs as I step out onto the city street. It’s just as crowded as the tube, but I hurry along the congested sidewalk, refusing to slow my pace. I know that if I stop for even just a moment, I’ll consider changing my mind about paying a visit to my stepmum.

The tall spires of school come into view ahead, and as they do, my phone dings with a new text. I pull it from my back pocket to read the message, but as I do, a passing pedestrian jolts my arm, and my phone tumbles onto the concrete.

“Fuck me,” I hiss, scrambling for it as it skids along the pavement.

It’s lost within a maze of quickly moving feet for several moments, but I eventually find it and fetch it off the ground.

I’m fuming as I inspect the damage that’s been done—severely cracked glass and a white malfunctioning screen. My phone is ruined to the point of no return, and I can’t even read Nora’s last message.

“ Dammit, dammit, dammit... ”

I don’t let the mishap falter my steps. I continue toward Gildenhill as planned. Harvey told me to focus on what I could control, so I stick to the task at hand and make a mental note to call Nora as soon as I reach the school and find a phone.

However, I’m still a little pissed off even as I reach the central courtyard of campus.

Only a few students remain on site as the setting sun finally disappears along the horizon beyond. I’m only meters away from the administration office when I see a silhouette approaching the building from the side. I halt in my tracks, squinting to discern the moving figure beyond the shadows of the approaching night. I can make it out as it passes beneath the dim orange glow of the lampposts planted along the sidewalk.

It’s a hooded man, and his startling familiarity has my pulse skipping a beat. When he glances over and gives me a glimpse of the face beneath his dark hood, I realize who it is.

It’s John.

The revelation has my adrenaline pumping, and pure, enraged impulse has my legs moving after him as he slips through the main doors of the administration’s building. When they click shut behind him, I start into a sprint.

I’m not letting him disappear again. This fucker is going to pay for everything he’s done, and I can’t wait to be the one turning his pathetic arse into the police.

I stealthily slip into the building. The office lights inside have grown dim, only illuminated by a single light somewhere distant. I use the darkness to my advantage as I silently move through the space, weaving through the dated chairs of the lobby.

Where the hell did he go?

I briskly glance around, scoping every hidden corner and piece of furniture in sight that could be concealing him. The only place he could have retreated to was one of the several offices along the corridor I’m carefully approaching.

I slow my breathing as I step down the hall, following the trail of light seeping beneath one of the solid wooden—slightly ajar—doors.

It’s Kimberley’s office, but my instincts warn me not to go inside. When I’m mere feet away, I discover exactly why.

Kimberley’s voice pours out of the room—a low, snarled hiss—and halts me dead in my tracks. I crouch to keep from being noticed.

“Stop looking at me like that. You’re the one who’s fucked this all up. You’ve made an absolute mess, and it won’t be my job to clean it up.”

“We had a deal! You said you’d keep me out of trouble.”

“The deal is fucked, John. Absolutely fucked. You expect me to keep you out of trouble when you’ve gone out and got a warrant out for your arrest? You’re an idiot.”

“Fuck you!” John’s shadow swallows the light seeping into the hall as he paces the office back and forth. “You swore you’d help protect me from this. That you’d help me get her back.”

“Oh my, God. Enough about her,” Kimberley groans. “I swear, that’s all any of you even seem to care about anymore. Ellie. Ellie. Ellie . She’s got you boys wrapped around her finger, doesn’t she? It’s embarrassing.”

“You didn’t seem to take this stance when you propositioned me to do all this!”

“Because I was manipulating you, moron! I was using you. You think I give a flying fuck about you two’s relationship?”

“You’re a bitch.”

“Better than being an obsessed, nefarious ex-boyfriend.”

“I refuse to go down for this alone! I’ll tell the cops everything. About our deal. About your plans.”

Kimberley laughs. “You think they’ll believe your word over my own? You’ve got no proof, and they’ll chalk you down to everything you’ve set yourself up to be. The heinous ex-boyfriend who murdered out of jealousy.”

“I didn’t kill Theo!”

“Clearly! You went and accidentally almost killed his friend instead. You bloody idiot.”

Every hair on my body stands upright.

“You’re fucking crazy, you know that?” John sputters. “I’m not helping you anymore. I’m not killing him.”

The silence that follows his words is crushing, closing down around me—suffocating me—until I’m forced to hear nothing other than the pounding of blood as it rushes to my ears.

I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t fucking believe it.

As if Kimberley could sense my lingering doubt, she uttered the words that hammered the final nail in the coffin.

“I don’t need you to do it anymore. You’ve proven incapable of handling the job.”

Heart pounding, I listen as her heels travel closer, her shadow finally joining John’s at the doorway. I hold my breath as she comes into view, watching with terror as she draws a pistol to the back of his skull.

“I’ll do it. All I need you to do is play the part.” She releases the safety switch of the gun. “Think you could do that for me?”

John begins to quiver, and I slowly rise to back away down the hall, every limb in my body trembling. I’m terrified to stay and watch for what might come next, and I refuse to find out what would happen if Kimberley were to find me now.

I have to get help. I’ve got to get to the police.

I run for the front of the building, but my flee for refuge is stolen from me as the corner of a chair in the lobby snags my foot. My body is sent sprawling to the floor, stirring up a series of commotion as a slew of other chairs go crashing to the ground with me.

Swift footsteps come stomping down the hallway as I clamber back up. As soon as I’m standing again, I bolt for the exit, not daring to spare a glance back .

The doors swing open the second I reach them, hitting me with force so hard my feet stumble back and threaten my balance. I regain it quickly, but the person coming through them has me weak in the knees.

“Nora.”

Her name is devastating on my lips.

I have no time to warn her—no time to explain why Kimberley steps toward us with John held at gunpoint.

“Well, well, well,” Kim croons, a wicked smile growing along her red-stained lips. “You two are just on time.”