Page 102 of Red Flagged
I got out, heart hammering, and walked up the front path. The sound of the gravel shifting beneath my shoes was deafening in the silence. I stepped onto the porch, scanning all the broken down boxes sitting near the front door. Then I noticed the wooden knocker. It was a lion, and felt oddly fitting given who Aurélie was as a person. Fierce, golden, and queen of the motorsport jungle.
The thought almost made me smile.
I lifted the knocker and banged it against the door twice.
Not a single peep resounded through the house. It was almost like she wasn’t here, but her car was… I swallowed the lump in my throat as I bounded down the front steps to look at the house as a whole.
I couldn’t see much in the dark without any exterior lights on. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and turned the flashlight on, pacing the front to peer into windows. Mostly there were just shadows of boxes and half-assembled furniture on the first story. No other indicators that anyone was home.
The longer I stood there, the louder everything got—my own pulse, the hum of insects in the grass, the whisper of the sea breeze moving through the pines. Every sound scraped against my nerves. I tried to tell myself I was overreacting. She’d unpacked all day. She was probably passed out with her phone on silent.
But my hand wouldn’t stop shaking when I checked the screen again. Andstillnothing.
“Come on, baby,” I muttered, pressing call one more time. The ring barely lasted before her voicemail picked up. Her soft French greeted me. I hung up before she finished sayingbisous.
Something was wrong. I could feel it in the way the air sat heavy, in the stillness of the house.
I swallowed hard, took a step back from the door, then another. I circled the porch, scanning the windows, the hedges, every shadow. The beam from my phone shook with my pulse.
Nothing. No movement. No sign of her.
By the time I reached the side gate, my throat was dry and my breath was uneven. The latch screeched when I lifted it. I winced, listening for a response I knew wouldn’t come. I rounded the back corner of the house, and then I saw a glow bleeding through a narrow, cracked window about twenty feet away. Yellow light, faint but steady.
Every muscle in my body went rigid.
My mind jumped straight to the worst possibilities: break-in, intruder, someone hurting her.
And before the thought could even finish forming, my body moved.
I sprinted across the grass, the wet blades slapping against my shoes, grabbed the frame, and shoved the window open wider. The hinges groaned.
“Fuck—” I gritted out, heart slamming against my ribs.
I planted a hand on the sill, hauled myself up onto the narrow stone ledge, swung a leg over, and dropped inside. Brushing my palms on my joggers, I turned, and almost went down hard. I was standing in a bathtub, the porcelain slick beneath my shoes.
Then I looked up, and there was blood.Everywhere.
Towels crumpled on the tile, streaked and soaked. There was a smear across the counter. A faint spatter trailed from the shower drain like something dragged. The air was thick with the metallic sting of it, humid and wrong.
It looked like something out of a fucking horror movie. My brain refused to make sense of it—every instinct screaming,too much, too red, too wrong. Too late.
For a full second, I thought she was dead. The sound that tore out of me wasn’t human. My vision tunneled, heart beating so fast I feared it would break my ribs, and my blood ran cold.
“Auri?” I called out, voice wavering.
I stumbled out of the tub, knees hitting the edge hard enough to bruise. “Auri!”
My hands shook so violently I could barely steady the light from my phone. The glare caught every surface—the floor, the counter, the edge of the sink.
Still, there was no sign of life or movement.
“Aurélie!” My throat closed as I rushed toward the door, half-blind with panic.
Then I saw her through the open door into what I assumed was her bedroom. There was just enough light that I saw her lying on her side in bed, the blanket twisted around her waist.
She was alive, but it didn’t feel like enough.
I moved toward the bed, slow like I might break her just by breathing. My limbs didn’t feel like they belonged to me. Everything inside me was trembling—my muscles, my hands, my fucking soul.
