Page 19 of The Taskmaster
My head whipped to the side as the tapping started again. The window in my living room was open, and the blinds I had there were blowing, tapping against the glass. I knew it hadn’tbeen like that when I went to sleep. I always kept my windows closed at night. I hated the bugs that came in, and it wasn’t safe to leave it open overnight. Not in a neighbourhood like this. Not when there were men like him out there.
Sickness and dread twisted my insides as I stalked over to the window and pulled it shut. Then I marched the small distance to my kitchen to check no one was hiding behind the door. Not that they’d have much room to. My apartment was tiny, and my kitchen had the space for roughly two people to stand in, no more than that.
There was no one in there, but as I turned back to face the living room, I noticed the letters on my coffee table had been moved. I swallowed through a throat coated with sandpaper as I glanced from the coffee table to my bookshelf, and that’s when I noticed it. A photo was missing.
I stalked over to the shelves, put the knife down, and picked up the frame where the photo of me and my dad had been propped up. Then I started moving other frames, thinking stupidly that maybe the wind had blown it somewhere. It hadn’t. I peered at the floor, praying it had fallen off the shelf, but it was nowhere, and a painful sob threatened to break free, a sob I didn’t want to release. I didn’t want to give in to the sorrow that losing it would cause. That photo had been taken on the day my dad got the all-clear from the doctors following his cancer treatment. We’d gone to a restaurant to celebrate, and every time I looked at that photo, I remembered the feeling of pure joy, happiness and relief we all felt knowing he wouldn’t have to go through any more agonising treatments. It meant everything to me, that photo. But it was gone. Someone had come in here and taken in. Someone who wanted me to feel frightened, unsafe, violated.
Him.
I turned to face the room, and through gritted teeth, I said, “This fucking stops, now. I won’t let you do this to me. Not anymore.”
He was back again. My stalker. I should’ve known after what’d happened tonight. That attack was no accident, I was targeted. I knew it. But this time, I would catch him and make him pay.
I marched back to my bedroom and threw the knife back into the drawer, then gathered my hair in my hands, ready to put it into a messy bun so I could start to get ready and make a battle plan, but as I did, a section from the side of my hair fell out of my hands, back onto my face.
What the fuck?
There was a chunk of my hair missing.
He’d cut my fucking hair.
That bastard had come into my apartment, walked into my bedroom when I was fucking sleeping and cut a lock of my hair. A big fucking lock of hair. I was seething.
“Fuck you,” I said as I glared at my reflection in the mirror, and then, still feeling the weight of my wrath burning a hole through my soul, I shouted, “FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FREAK! YOU DON’T GET TO DO THIS TO ME ANYMORE! I’VE HAD IT! YOU’VE STALKED ME FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME!”
I put my hair into a messy bun, secured it with a claw clip, then took the piece that was hanging free and pinned that back with a few bobby pins. I huffed as I stared at the mess. A messhehad made.
I needed to step up my game and track this fucker down.
No one messed with a girl’s safety and peace of mind. But her hair? That was a different thing entirely. I was ready to take this fucker down.
Chapter Thirteen
THE TASKMASTER
Iwatched her on the monitors in my living room. A wall of monitors to stalk my prey. Half of them were set up to follow my next player, the other half were on her. I couldn’t help but smile when she took the knife from her dresser and held it up like she was auditioning for Kill Bill. She looked surprisingly cute doing her ninja shit.
She flung her bedroom door open as if she were about to go into battle, and the look on her face when she saw that things weren’t right in her apartment, that the photo was missing, made me grin wider. I can’t deny, I may have cackled slightly.
Why not?
It was fun watching a player squirm. Only, she wasn’t a player. Not really. She was my pet project. My way of showing Walters what happens when you fuck around. He’d soon find out. They both would.
And then I saw her shouting. Heard her screaming about this being the last time I’d get to do this to her, that it was the last time I’d ever stalk her, and I felt a jolt, like a glitch in my matrix, as a strange heaviness invaded my whole body. Red mist appeared that hung heavily over me, choking me.
She was being stalked already.
This wasn’t her first time.
And she thought that person was who’d been in her home a few hours ago.
Who the fuck was it?
Who else was watching her?
Did they have cameras set up in her apartment, too?
Were they watching me earlier and fucking laughing at me?
