Page 61 of Pride

I wouldn’t be next.

I’d do everything in my power to stop that happening.

Then I turned my back on those words, and I walked out of the door.

Alex put my case into the car and spent the next hour grilling every one of my neighbours about the loft space and whether they’d had any visitors that’d used it lately.

Ethel had no idea what he was on about and said she thought the landlord had closed the space off years ago. Like me, she never went up there.

Meg and Charlie hadn’t been in their house for very long and said they’d been told it was being secured in the next few weeks.

And our elusive neighbour on the end was nowhere to be found. That would have to be a conversation for another day.

We drove to Gracie’s apartment in silence. Alex held the steering wheel in a death-like grip, turning his knuckles white, while I tried to ignore my churning stomach, because I was sitting in a car with a man who was insanely attractive, who wanted to get to know me, and I couldn’t get lost in that... because another man wanted me dead.

“He won’t bother you again,” Alex reiterated.

“I hope you’re right,” I replied.

“I’m always right. Trust me.”

“You ask me to trust you a lot.”

“And this time, I’ll prove to you what kind of man I am.”

He turned to look at me before focusing on the road ahead, and the way his eyes burned made the churn in my stomach turn to a flutter.

I did want to trust him.

I wanted to give him a chance.

But until I knew who S.K.A.M. was, and that I was safe, I had to be guarded.

I couldn’t deny, though, it felt nice to have him by my side.

Once we arrivedat Gracie’s building, we got out and walked through the doors into the small hallway leading to her front door. I felt relieved to be here as I knocked on her door, but no one answered. After knocking more times than was considered sane, ignoring Alex’s pleas for me to give up because she clearly wasn’t home, I heard the door behind me open. I turned to see Gracie’s neighbour who lived opposite had come out to see what all the noise was.

“I think she’s gone away for a few days,” she told me. “Something about a work team building thing.”

It wasn’t unusual for Gracie to go on one of those. I know her company did that kind of thing all the time. What was unusual was for her not to tell me. She always told me where she was.

It explained why she hadn’t replied to any calls or messages, though. She always had poor or non-existent reception on her phone when she was away at a work event like that.

My initial relief at being here turned to disappointment and then irritation.

What the hell was I going to do now?

“When you see her, could you let her know Emma stopped by?” I asked.

“Of course.” She smiled then closed her door.

“Come back to mine,” Alex said, and when he saw my horror at the thought of going back to that room, where I’d hallucinated in the worst way and spent the grimmest hours recovering from whatever the fuck had happened to me, he added, “You don’t have to stay in the same room. I have lots of bedrooms you can choose from.”

I couldn’t afford a hotel.

I had no one else to turn to.

Except him.