Page 25 of Haunting Phantom
Fear swirls in her eyes, but this time her whole body freezes, her bottom lip quivering out of control.
“What’s wrong, Autumn?”
“A—Angus is the name of the man who was stalking me for three years.”
“Stalking? What the hell, Angus? You didn’t tell me you were some weird stalker?”
I hear his laugh before I see him, then he emerges from the shadows, tipping his stupid fedora hat at me as his eyes go from blue to bright red, a strange shadow growing behind him.
“What do you mean?” Phantom asks, still holding her, still touching her like he cares.
The only person he should care about is me, goddamn it.
“Five years ago, I started getting weird notes on my door. First, they were little love poems, then they started to get really weird and nasty. One talked about how badly the person wanted to fuck me, and that his biggest fantasy was tying me up andtorturing me until I begged for him to fuck me.” She takes a deep breath, barely able to breathe. “The cops couldn’t figure out who was doing it, even when they started watching the house. Turns out, the reason they couldn’t figure out who was responsible, is because the man died in the building’s pool house while doing maintenance work. I only found out it was him after the police uncovered a bunch of photos of me in his apartment, most of them pictures I didn’t know were being taken.”
“Jesus,” Phantom exclaims. “That’s crazy.”
She nods. “It really is. But what I don’t get is why Eve mentioned him. He’s been dead for years, and not once have I felt his presence anywhere near me. I would know, I wouldn’t be able to feel my skin because of how much it be crawling.”
My gaze shoots back over to Angus, who’s now just watching from the shadows with the sickest smile on his face. Like he’s seconds away from whipping out his old crusty dick and stroking himself.
“I get it now,”I shout towards him.“Your unfinished business isn’t your wife… it’s getting her.”
He nods once, those red eyes only intensifying in depravity.
Sighing, I turn back to Autumn, despite knowing she’s probably going to be my downfall later on, and do the only thing that feels right…
“I’m sorry,”I mutter under my breath.“He told me he had a heart attack, and you were the one who saved him. Then he said he wanted to get in contact with you because you could help him crossover. I had no idea he was planning whatever this shit was.”
Autumn forces herself to smile. “It’s okay, Eve. You didn’t know.”
“What she say?” Phantom questions, drawing her even closer to him.
“She said she’s sorry.”
“You sure that was her saying it? Eve doesn’t say sorry to anyone.”
She hugs herself, staring out at the darkness like she’s searching for answers—searching for me.
“It was her,” she states confidently.
“How can you be so sure?” he asks, looking around as if he’s waiting for me to appear.
“Because girls who suffer trauma tend to feel each other, even when you can’t see them standing in front of you.”
He doesn’t ask for clarification. He knows exactly what she means, and for the first time since meeting her, I kinda feel sorry for her, especially knowing that her stalker is still out there, watching her from the shadows, just waiting for her to die so he can have her all to himself.
Chapter Ten
That weird girl’s back! She’s standing just outside the property line again, staring towards the clubhouse like she wants something. I hate that she keeps coming back, but only when Autumn is here. That woman has more stalkers than she knows about.
“Whatcha looking at, Dollface?”Damien questions, coming up behind me without making a sound, scaring the bejesus out of me.
“Jesus, Sir Holes A lot, could you move any creepier? You about gave me a heart attack.”
He laughs. “Hard to have a heart attack when you don’t have a heart to begin with, Ice Queenie.”
Sticking my tongue out, I wiggle it at him.“Suck on this, asshole.”
