Page 55 of I'm Yours

I listen for the sounds of scratching or anything that would tell me that there’s a giant animal outside getting ready to break in my house and eat me alive but I don’t hear anything. My imagination starts running in circles around me, laughing and mocking me and my living alone in the dangerous woods status. I’m pretty sure I just heard a chainsaw. Is it Friday the 13th? Is Jason Voorhees out there and Ginny is trying to protect me? Did something just scratch my window? Pretty sure fingernails just scraped down the glass.

If I get out of bed I’ll probably fall and see something in the mirror. My cell is probably dead or has no reception. Good thing I’m not a virgin. I’d be sure to be a dead woman in the next sixty seconds.

“Shit,” I mumble because I can’t talk too loud or the killer will know I’m here. It’s a sure thing that I’m about to die. At the same time, I can’t just lie here and wait for him or her to come in and attack me.

On shaky legs I stand and move to the doorway, flipping on my bedroom light. The light switch to the hallway is right around the corner so I stick an arm out and hope it doesn’t get chopped off to flip it on, too. Rolling my eyes at my own ridiculousness, I forge ahead.

“I am brave!” I whisper shout to myself and shake the nerves out. I’m normally not this nervous but lately there’s been too many times where I’ve felt someone watching me or lingering close. It’s hard to shake it off like I’d like to.

I clutch my phone in my hand that I thankfully remembered to snag off my nightstand and look at the screen, wondering what to do. Do I call 9-1-1 and risk that I’m overreacting? Call Samuel? Alan? Is Reed an option? Twelve years ago he would have been the only option but now… I don’t know if I’ve earned that right. Yet.

I have all the shades drawn closed but don’t hear any movement inside my house so I continue to turn on lights as I make my way through the house, thumb poised over my phone screen to make a call should an emergency arise.

At the back of the house that overlooks the lake where it sounded like the noise came from, I tug aside one of the shades. I look down at the cement patio and see the motion light Alan had installed a while ago turned on, a huge pot of flowers next to some chairs knocked over and the ceramic broken, soil and flowers scattered around on the ground. I let out a sigh of relief and shake my head at my own stupidity. Samuel always tells me that it’s better to be safe than sorry and to stay alert, trust my instincts because if something feels off, there’s a good reason for that.

I take a few seconds to look around the area a little closer and that’s when my heart drops. It’s not large animal prints that I see in the spilled dirt. It’s a footprint. Of a person.

“Oh my gosh.”

With shaky hands, I drop the shades and take a step back. I lift my phone to look at the screen and decide I need to call someone when a pounding on the door startles me, pulling a scream from my throat.

I drop to the floor, hoping my shadow wasn’t seen through the covered windows. “Oh, shit. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh, shit shit shit.” I hit the speed dial to Samuel, very aware of the fact that it’s four in the morning and he’ll be sound asleep but if I don’t call him, I know I’ll get my butt chewed for not letting him know. I might be older, but he still hovers.

More pounding at the door makes me yelp. “Sadie!” a deep voice shouts through the door and I still. I don’t think murderers and thieves typically announce their arrival. “Sadie! It’s me!” I know that deep voice.

“Reed?” I whisper, wondering why in the world he’d be here. Is that who broke the pot outside? Why was he lurking around my house in the middle of the night?

“It’s Reed, Sadie. Are you okay?”

I get off the floor and open the door, a panicked expression on Reed’s face greeting me. Before I can say a word, I’m engulfed in his arms, his face pressed into the crook of my neck. “Oh, thank God.” The words are breathed hot against my skin, his hold on me tight.

“What’s going on?”

He squeezes me once then releases me, advancing into the house without invitation. I shut the door behind him and wish I had a sweater or robe to wrap around my barely covered body to ward off the chill he brought in with him.

“Reed?”

“Dad has an alarm that’s triggered by motion detectors at the house,” he explains, pointing next door. “It’s gone off before because of animals so they also installed cameras so they wouldn’t panic if it was just a bear looking for food.” I almost laugh at thejust a bearcomment because most people wouldn’t look at it that way.

“Okay?”

“The alarm was triggered at home that there was something here.” He clears his throat and looks me straight in the eye, but the fear in his own is unmistakable. “Someone.”

“Someone?” The word is barely whispered, tugged from my throat. I can hear the shake in my voice, feel the tremble that rolls down my spine from the fear that’s suddenly surrounding me. Now I wish it was a bear or mountain lion that’d knocked down the pot.

He nods once, shoves his hands in the pockets of his dark gray sweats. Despite my nerves over someone lingering around my house at night, I can’t help the way my eyes fall to the way his pants fall low on his hips and they hidenothing. “Yes.”

“I don’t… what do you mean?” I know what he means but something inside me needs the confirmation. I need to hear him tell me that a person has been on my property in the middle of the night. Maybe because I’ve been feeling it for months now and need the confirmation that my instincts aren’t completely off.

He turns and motions toward the couch then takes a seat, pulling me closer to him when I sit too far away for his liking. “A few years ago there were apparently some teenagers vandalizing some of the homes along the lake during the off season because for those of us who don’t live here year-round, they weren’t occupied as much.”

“Right. I’d heard about that but they caught the kids. They’d broken into a few homes and taken some TVs and things like that.”

“They did. But because of that, Dad wanted to make sure the house was safe. He first installed the motion detectors, like I said, then he added the cameras because he was getting all these alerts when it was actually only an animal on the property. Anyway, about twenty minutes ago, the motion detectors at my parents’ place caught movement. Dad woke up to the alarm because it triggers some app on his phone that alerts him. He looked on the cameras fully expecting to see just an animal but there was a person walking around the side of the house. Looks like a man, by the build.”

“But if that was at your house and not mine, how did my pot get broken?”

“A pot was broken?”

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