Page 47 of Stalk

“You need to calm down before you leave,” he says. Mattia places a hand over my racing heart. His other hand caresses the side of my neck, as if he’s my lover. Or a friend of mine. But he’s not. He’snot.His touch burns my flesh. “Let me at least get Marco to take you home. You can’t risk leaving and being seen?—”

Instead of listening to him, I do what I do best.

I run.

I don’t hear the door close behind me, if it closes at all. I don’t look back to check if he’s running after me or not. Mattia can chase me if he wants—that’s the least of my worries. It’s not like I didn’t know this was coming; Catherine demanding I come back. Still, the visceral reaction that began at my gut and has quickly spread to my chest, my temples, the meat of my shoulders, the base of my throat leaves me ill. Vulnerable.

Running helps ease all of that discomfort. As my feet hit the pavement with urgency, my sense of flight taking over completely, my muscles tense and strain. I run past passersby who cuss me out, past restaurants closing up shop for the night,past trash cans, and homeless people asleep on benches. I run until I end up at the destination I wasn’t aware I was moving toward.

Cleo’s apartment looms above me, dauntingly high in the night sky. My heart feels like a hasty knock against a front door within my chest. A bead of sweat runs from my temple, down the slope of my cheek, and down to the sidewalk below.

Despite my calves which ache in silent protest, I walk toward the front doors and buzz up to Cleo’s apartment.

Please be home. Please be home.

Seconds tick by with no response. I squat on the ground in defeat, not moving out of the way of the doors. My heart doesn’t slow. My body begins to move inside of itself. Suffocating me.

And then— “Ren?”

My eyes squeeze painfully shut. A sob I didn’t know I was holding back detonates and escapes from my chest. Cleo’s arms circle around me as my tears fall.

“Oh, honey. Okay. Shh, shh. It’s okay. Stand up,” she says softly. “Let’s get you inside.”

The next morning, I wake up on Cleo’s couch, instead of in my bed. My alarm screams at me from my phone atop a nearbycoffee table. I begrudgingly roll on my side and reach for it, then push the stop button with much more force than is required.

It feels like I’ve been beaten to a pulp. Each time I blink, it feels like there is a ton of weight on my thin eyelids. My throat is raw and dry from when Cleo finally rescued me last night and I immediately ran into her bathroom to throw up the delicious dinner Mattia made for me. My back is stiff and my legs are sore.

I knew Catherine wouldn’t just let me go like an unwanted, forgotten ghost. I knew it was only a matter of time before I was dragged back to her circle of hell. Yet, as usual, my mind wasn’t in control of my body, and my body fully rejected my reality.

I have an hour before I have to go home. That thought alone gets my heart rate up. With an overly dramatic groan, I sit up and stretch my arms out, then check my phone.

Seven missed calls from Mattia and several text messages. I drop the phone in my lap and rub my eyes. I hate that I ran away from him last night. I hate that I don’t have it in me to call or text him back—partly because I’m emotionally exhausted and partly because I’m fucking embarrassed. Especially after he tried to help me. That’s all he’s done. Callous as he may seem on the outside, I know he cares in his own way.

I’ll text him back later. If I have it in me.

I hear Cleo’s bedroom door open and the shuffling of feet. “Good morning, psycho,” she sing-songs.

A smile takes over my face. “I’m not even going to fight you on that one.”

She snorts. “Coffee?”

“Always.”

I make it back home twenty minutes before Catherine is expected to arrive. She’s never held a meeting with me at my house before. The mix up in our usual routine combined with the spell of silence she cast upon me up until last night leaves me nauseous and fatigued. However, being back at home, in my own space, settles something inside of me. At least here, the atmosphere is less cold than in her office.

Until she arrives, that is. Because as soon as I’ve made two cups of coffee, she rings the doorbell, almost as if she can sense I’m ready for her intrusion. As I walk to the door, icy goosebumps ripple down the length of my spine.

I don’t want this to last any longer than absolutely necessary, though. So I rip off the Band-Aid. I don’t allow myself a moment to catch my breath before I swing open the door.

And there she is. Lips pursed, makeup flawless. Her icy blond hair is picture perfect, not a single hair out of place. Behind her pointed sunglasses, I can feel her treacherous blue eyes staring into my soul.

“Good morning,” I say as calmly as I can with a woman like Catherine staring me down.

She nods at me and walks in. I softly close the door behind her as she taps away in her heels, presumably making her way toward the smell of coffee.

“You haven’t changed a thing since your mother passed,” Catherine notes coolly before disappearing into the kitchen.

I pick up my pace to join her at the kitchenette, where our mugs sit. “N-no. I guess I could do that. Maybe I should.”

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