Page 23 of Stalked By Shadows
I stared at the window out front a little longer. Long enough to feel myself begin to fall asleep again. As my eyes began to close, a shadow rolled across the curtains outside, blocking the lights for a few seconds. I shot up, ready to race to the window and throw back the curtains.
Micah caught my wrist, nearly giving me a heart attack.
“Fuck,” I said, pressing a hand to my chest.
“Shh,” Micah said. “Come back to bed.”
“Something is outside.”
“Yes, and it needs to stay there.” He had pushed the mask up on his forehead, and held my wrist tightly in his grasp.
“What is it? A bird? One of your neighbors?”
He sighed. “It’s a discussion for another day, I think. Your brother doesn’t want me putting thoughts in your head.” He tugged at my arm again, and I gave in, sliding down beside him and turning to stare into his pale blue eyes, which looked like ice in the dim light of the room. The chittering came again, which made me tense. He didn’t react at all. “You’re safe. That’s all that matters.”
“Is it something that could hurt us?” I probably sounded like a little kid to him, but after the year I’d survived, the whole world seemed like a fucking death trap to me.
“Not really.”
“That’s not very reassuring.”
He let go of my wrist and stroked my face. “We are safe. You are safe here with me. It’s only a weird noise. You can think of this as a dream if it helps.”
I shivered as the same feeling of that day in the desert filled my gut.
Micah lifted his blanket and curled closer to me, adding his quilt over mine. He wrapped an arm around my waist and tucked his face into my pillow beside mine. The warmth of his breath on my face was soothing.
“Put your mask back on,” he instructed. I tugged it into place, sad that I couldn’t stare at him while I drifted off to sleep again. If I could sleep after the weird noises continued outside.
“Lukas isn’t here,” I whispered.
“No. He’s not,” agreed Micah. “But the middle of the night is not a good time to put things in people’s heads. Our brains are too vulnerable from sleep to process correctly. How about tomorrow when the sun is out and we have both had coffee and food, we discuss it?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he promised.
The sound changed, becoming more like a scream, an animal in pain. I tensed, fearing it was Jet for a minute. “Jet?”
“He’s right beside us,” Micah said, his arm tightening around me. “Reach up and feel him if you need to, but leave the mask on.”
I did reach up, petting Jet’s wide flank and receiving a few licks in return. Was he unaffected by the noise? He didn’t seem alarmed, though he stayed curled up on Micah’s pillow.
“Focus on me and Jet,” Micah said. “The more you think of the sounds the more they intensify.”
“Self-persuasion?” I wondered. Was this more shit from in my head? No that couldn’t be right, Micah heard it too.
“Only a little, but that doesn’t matter. Now close your eyes. You’re safe. I’m here. You’re not alone. Sleep,” Micah instructed.
I don’t know if it was magic or something else, but I did close my eyes, sucked in a deep breath filled with the scent of him, the weight of his arm around me comforting, and I fell into a deep dreamless sleep.
* * *
Knocking woke me the second time, only when I shoved the eye mask off light filled the flat and the clock said it was almost eleven a.m. “Wow,” I grumbled and looked toward the door.
Micah sleepily got up, pulling his own eye mask off and heading to the door, not seeming to care at all that he was wearing only undies.
He opened it and stood there, framed in the glory of the morning sun and I took a few seconds to admire his ass, the soft bubble sweetness that it was before looking beyond him through the doorway. The man that stood there was closer to my height, but other than that was very average looking, brown hair, brown eyes, wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. A younger man stood behind him wearing shorts and a tee. The second man looked barely legal, hair a pale chocolate brown falling into his eyes and around his chin. His eyes were brown too, but he was pretty in a noticeable way.