Page 6 of Stalked By the Alphas

5

HAZEL

The last of the tourists finally leave the shop, arms laden with books and souvenirs. It is the start of the summer season, and while I’m grateful for the business, it’s been the most challenging few hours of my life. Well, adult life. I need those tablets. Maybe I even need to go and see a doctor to get something more substantial. I was trying to avoid going down that route because I’m already labelled as not coming from a good family or different from other omegas because I want a life for myself. I don’t need prospective mates knowing I’m also on medication for an anxiety that is growing increasingly worse as the days pass. I went years without feeling this level of anxiety. I think as a child, I pushed the abuse under the mental mat, and it stayed there. I never spoke about it to anyone so to me, it didn’t exist. It never happened.

Only now, I think I’m feeling the effects of that denial. I didn’t realise it until I saw that card. That has unnerved me more than the photo for the time being. But the image is a serious problem. How did someone get into my house to take a picture of me while I was sleeping? Was it even that masked magician from the party nearly twenty years ago?

“Fuck, Hazel. Get a grip, woman.”

I sag against the counter, exhausted and on edge. The adrenaline that’s been keeping me going for the past few hours is starting to wear off, leaving me jittery and aching.

I flip the sign to ‘Closed’ even though there are hours left in this working day. I lock the door, leaning my forehead against the cool glass. My reflection stares back at me, pale and drawn. The magician card weighs heavily on my mind, its sinister message etched into my brain.

Always watching.

A shudder runs through me. I need to get home, and I need to feel safe within my own four walls. But even as I think it, doubt creeps in. Is anywhere truly safe anymore?

I hurry around to the counter and snatch up the photo. It’s grainy and almost looks like those images you see on the news of criminals being caught on CCTV. It doesn’t look like someone stood over me and took it. But maybe I’m trying to make sense of this in a way that doesn’t freak me out and force me to leave my home. It’s the only sanctuary I’ve got. I rack my brains to think of some way this could’ve happened, and then I remember the plumber who came around to fix the leaking toilet a few months ago. I was downstairs working in my office when he was upstairs. Could he have installed a camera? It’s not impossible and definitely something you hear about happening.

But to other people.

Now I have to go home and search my bedroom for a hidden camera and hope to fuck I find one, or that means someone broke into my house while I was sleeping and took a photo of me. Neither option is good, but at least one is less worse than the other.

Right?

With shaking hands, I gather my things and leave the shop, locking up behind me. The short walk home feels endless, every shadow seeming to loom menacingly. I clutch my keys tightly, ready to use them as a weapon if needed.

As I approach my cottage, I scan the area carefully. Nothing seems out of place, but that does little to ease my nerves. I unlock the door quickly and slip inside, immediately engaging all the locks and the chain.

I lean against the door, taking deep breaths to calm my racing heart. The familiar scent of home usually comforts me, but today, it feels tainted somehow.

Pushing off from the door, I head straight for my office. I need those herbal tablets desperately. My hands shake as I fumble with the bottle, finally managing to shake two out. I swallow them dry, grimacing at the bitter taste as they get stuck in my throat. I swallow again, and they go down, making me gag slightly. My palms are sweating as I steel myself for what comes next. I need to search my bedroom for hidden cameras.

Looking up at the ceiling, I breathe in and out a few times, trying to calm my nerves.

“Just get this over with, Hazel.”

I climb the stairs slowly, aware of every creak and groan of the old wood. At the top, I pause, staring at my partially open bedroom door.

After a second, I enter the room. Everything looks normal at first glance, but I force myself to look closer. I climb onto the bed and search the light shade, nothing. I check behind picture frames, inside the lamp, and along the edges of mirrors. My hands shake as I run them along the undersides of furniture, feeling for anything unusual.

Nothing.

Relief floods through me, quickly followed by a new wave of panic. If there are no cameras, then someone must have been in my room while I slept. The thought makes my skin crawl. How was this possible? I securely lock both doors and check them religiously every night. How did someone get in?

Unless they didn’t, and this was photoshopped, or whatever it’s called. Again, it’s not impossible, you just don’t think these things will ever happen to you. Not knowing what to think, I head back downstairs, knowing I need to eat something before I have no energy to do anything, let alone fight off a home invader in the middle of the night .

“Stop it, Hazel. No one invaded your home. Whoever this is, is just trying to scare you.”

It’s what I tell myself over and over again as I make some soup and bread and sit down to eat it, facing the window in the kitchen, just in case.