Page 20 of Don't Watch Alone
No footsteps. No keys jangling. No Gus.
Just silence.
I slide to the floor, the cold tiles pressing through my jeans, and I press my forehead against my knees. I’m going to be in here all night. Alone. No way out. Trapped with a pile of fucking clothes and a mannequin.
My thoughts spiral. Janice. Andrew. Andy. It has to be the same guy. How did he get pictures of me? How did he know where I lived? That note wasn’t a coincidence—it was a message. It all fits, a puzzle snapping together with a cold, final click.
My eyes flick up to the mannequin.
Still as ever. Plastic smile frozen. Neon bright. A fucking joke standing in for my sanity.
He’s out there.
And he is watching me.
Chapter nine
Blaiz
Finally,thebackroomdoorcreaks open, flooding the tiled floor with the intense glare of the store’s fluorescent lights. And there he is—Greg, looking like he just experienced a powerful gust of wind. His thinning hair sticks out in odd directions and the smirk he usually wears like a trademark is gone, replaced by that familiar look of annoyed disbelief.
“Did you sleep here last night?” he asks, his voice carrying that low, gravelly tone that always sounds like a hidden threat, even when he’s pretending to sound concerned.
“Not exactly a choice,” I say, rubbing at the soreness in my neck from spending the night curled up on a stack of jeans that still had security tags pressed into my spine. “I got locked in. I was finishing up; sweeping, putting things back in order, when Iremembered the mannequin needed to be redressed since someone bought the whole outfit last night. After I got it fixed up, I was going to take it back out to the storefront, but the door wouldn’t open. I yelled for Gus, I figured he might still be making his rounds, but either he didn’t hear me or he just didn’t care.”
Greg narrows his eyes and folds his arms. “Blaiz, the door wasn’t locked.”
I stare at him. “The fuck it wasn’t. I tried that handle at least five times. It wouldn’t budge.”
“I’m telling you, it was never locked.” His tone is sharp now, defensive. “Why the hell would I lie about that?”
Because you’re Greg. Because lying is as natural to you as breathing. Because you’ve probably never once admitted when you’ve screwed something up, and you sure as hell don’t want to admit it now that you forgot to give me a key or broke the lock or god knows what. My rent’s due in five days and my bank account is already empty. Telling Greg to shove this job up his ass will have to wait until I findanother one.
“Did you ever get a hold of Mary?” I ask instead, turning the conversation away from the locked door that apparently never existed.
Greg shakes his head. “Nope. She never answered or returned any of my calls. I’ve called her three times now and nothing. I think she quit. I’ve got an interview scheduled with someone this morning.” He glances around at the quiet store, then back at me. “Can you hang around while I do it? It’s just me today, and I need someone to cover the floor while I am interviewing the guy.”
I blink at him. If I hadn’t gotten stuck back there overnight, I wouldn’t even be here right now. So how the hell was he planning to hold this interview if I hadn’t been, conveniently, locked inside? That thought settles within me. Coincidence? Maybe. But something about it doesn’t sit right. Mary vanishing without notice doesn’t sit right either—she’s not the kind of person who just quits and you never hear from her again. She shows up early. She answers calls. She’s not like Greg.
My eyes drift to the backroom door again. It’s open now. But I know what I felt last night. That door had been a barrier. A fucking prison. No broken lock, no damage. Nothing to prove I wasn’t just losing it.
“Yeah,” I say after a beat. “Sure. I’ll stay.” My voice is flat. I watch Greg head toward his office.
But deep inside me, something twists. This job, this place, even Greg—it’s all starting to feel off. Not just frustrating or exhausting. Something worse. Something I haven’t figured out yet.
I stand in front of the mirror, barely recognizing the reflection staring back at me. My hair’s a tangled mess, no matter how many times I drag my fingers through it, and the scent of denim and stale air clings to my clothes. I’ve been wearing the same damn outfit since yesterday morning—same jeans, same shirt, same mounting regret. There’s a smudge of something dark on my cheek, probably from the boxes I used as a pillowin the backroom, and my eyes are sunken in with exhaustion that no amount of cold water could fix.
“Please, please, please,” I mutter, trying to persuade a strand of hair into behaving, though it keeps springing loose like it knows exactly how to piss me off. “Let today be quiet. Let no one from yesterday walk in.” The idea of someone recognizing me, clocking the same clothes, making assumptions—that I rolled out of some stranger’s bed, too hungover to function—causes a rush of heat to crawl up my neck.
I’m almost satisfied with my half-salvaged appearance when I catch movement near the front entrance. I glance over and there he is.
Andy.
My stomach drops. No. No fucking way. What is he doing here? My brain scrambles for a reason, any reason, but nothing sticks. Is he here to buy something? Just passing by? Or is this another one of his “coincidences”? He walks in like he owns the place, like this is all normal, his eyes scanning the racks before locking on to me.
He smiles.
That same smooth, deliberate smile that’s all teeth and no humanity. Every nerve in my body goes on alert, screaming at me to move, to hide, to do something other than just stand there like prey.
