Page 63 of Like A Moth To A Flame

Groaning, I sat up, flicking on the lamp. I reached for the bedside table but found it annoyingly empty. I’d taken my dad’s journal downstairs, and I didn’t want to risk waking Amelia to get it. Flipping over, I reached over the other side of the bed and grabbed the shorts I’d shed instead, reaching into the back pocket and finding my phone.

I tried to play a game. It was a stupid phone game of making pizzas, and after ruining the same order four times in a row, I closedit angrily. I didn’t have the sober brain I needed for that right now. I tried reading the news, but my eyes kept skimming over the words until it became a jumbled mess that made no sense.

Finally, my eyes strayed to my texts, and I opened them. It immediately opened on the same black heart. It didn’t take long to scroll to the top, where I found the video he’d sent himself. I wondered if he watched it. How many times?

Why did I care?

I thought about earlier, at the diner, and the things Amelia had said.

“Oh, my god!”

“What?”

“Oh my fucking god, Vanessa!”

“What?!”

“I do know that voice! I know who that is! It’s Tommy! The firefighter?!”

Except she was wrong. The tattoo on his hand proved that much—the tattoo I could see from the thumbnail. It was dark, with thick black lines and rich, deep shades of blue. It wasn’t something that could be covered up easily. If Tommy had a tattoo like this one, we would all know about it.

I looked at the number and tapped on it. It took me to the contact. There was no name, and no location—just a small black heart and a number. Memorizing the number, I switched to my browser and typed it into Google. I came up painfully empty. Sighing, I went back to the contact, and on a whim, I touched it with my thumb and hit send. With shaking fingers, I held the phone to my ear. Was I scared? Anxious? I didn’t even know anymore.

It rang only twice before he answered. I hadn’t been expecting him to answer at all.

“Yes, baby?”

His voice sent a jolt through me, and I shivered. Part of me wanted to tear the phone away, end the call, and throw it across the room. Another, stronger part of me wouldn’t let me. Still, I couldn’t force myself to speak. My voice was stuck in my throat like Rapunzel was stuck in a castle, and I just could not get it out.

“Are you okay?”

There was concern in his voice, and that jarred me even harder. He was worried about me? It was an odd, alien thought that shook me, and I finally found my voice, and when I did, it was breathless and shaking.

“Y-yeah,” I swallowed hard.

There was a long silence, but it was loaded and heavy. What was I doing? What the fuck was I doing?

“T-tell me your name,” I said finally, and I lifted a shaking finger to my lips, biting at the jagged edge of my nail.

“I can’t do that,” he said, and there was laughter in his voice.

“Why?”

“We both know why, Vanessa.”

I shuddered. Something about my name spoken with that voice seemed sinful. It almost seemed wrong.

No, itwaswrong.

It was wrong, but I didn’t want it to be.

“Because I know you?” I said. It was the only thing I could muster.

“You do.”

That alone should have scared the shit out of me, yet I felt nothing.

“If I already know you, then why are you hiding?”

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