Firethorne

Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Maya

H e’d given me an escape in more ways than one, with the books that took me away from this cruel, harsh world. But I was never quite sure what was going to happen in my real life from one day to the next.

Who was the real Damien Firethorne?

He’d started out as a devil, who seemed to revel in my misery. But now, he was slowly becoming something else. A saviour, maybe?

From the depravity of that night at the party, he was beginning to show me a different side to him. Dare I say, a thoughtful side. A side I never expected to see with a man like him.

His daily visits often surprised me. He would ask me about myself and my ideas, and he’d actually listen to my responses. Something my own father had never done. In fact, I don’t think anyone had really taken the time to listen like he did.

But the nights were the worst.

I’d read Emma on the sofa until I could barely keep my eyes open, then I’d put it on the coffee table and padded silently through to the bedroom, hoping I’d sleep better in the bed. A lot of nights, I’d slept on the sofa, but sleep rarely found me. Tonight, I’d hoped it’d be different. But as the wind whistled through the trees and rain began to tap on the windows, I struggled to drift off.

I closed my eyes, lying still, hoping I could quieten my noisy mind for just a moment to allow sleep to creep over me. But quiet and silent meant time to think. Time to play over and over in my head every little thing that’d happened to me. Time to question, why me? Time I didn’t want to have.

As I lay still, my mind started to play tricks on me. My ears hearing noises that my brain interpreted in the worst way.

Was that the creak of a floorboard outside the door?

Was someone out there trying to get in to hurt me?

To take me away?

Was it The Butcher?

I heard a rumble of thunder in the distance, and I jolted, sitting up in bed and staring around the room, watching the shadows of the trees dance on the walls. Taunting me. It didn’t feel right to stay in here. I wanted to put my mind at rest that everything was okay, so I got up and walked across the carpet, heading for the door.

I creaked the door open slowly, and then stepped out, taking gentle, cautious footsteps as I made my way to the living room. My senses were alert, listening intently. More rumbles of thunder and a flash of light made my heart skip a beat, and I reached out to hold the wall, to steady myself for a moment.

The rain was lashing the windows harder now as the storm picked up. And I came to the living room and peered around, trying to see if anything was out of place. That’s when I noticed my copy of Emma lying open on the coffee table. I hadn’t left it like that, and my heart hammered in my chest as my breaths came a little quicker now. I leant down to pick up the book, and a crack of lightning sparking up the night sky made my head shoot up. And there, reflected in the window, standing behind me was a dark figure.

I screamed, spinning around, ready to fight for my life, but there was no one there.

I scrambled for the light switch, switching it on and bathing the apartment in light. The storm was raging now, and even though I could see that there was no one here, that figure still haunted me.

Was I seeing things?

Did I imagine the whole thing?

Maybe it wasn’t a figure, but something else?

The mind can do strange things to you when you’re grieving, like I was. Acute stress and trauma can play with your senses and make you doubt your own existence. Perhaps I needed to give myself some grace and recognise that my mental state wasn’t as strong as it used to be. That after everything, I needed time to heal, both mentally and physically.

I slammed the book shut and headed back to the bedroom. Then, once inside, I closed the door and pulled a chair across the carpet to place it under the door handle. I couldn’t lock myself in, so this was the next best thing. I lay back down on the bed again, above the covers, and I tried to focus on the steady beat of the rain as the thunder began to subside. And eventually, I drifted off to sleep.

Crack.

A spark of lightning woke me with a start, bathing the room in light, and for a split second, I saw a dark figure looming over me at the end of the bed. I screamed and scrambled to sit up, kicking my legs as I crawled up the bed. But no sooner had I seen the figure, it disappeared.

I panted, staring at the spot where I’d seen that figure only moments ago. Maybe my mind had placed it there, like an image from my dreams projected into the real world. That had to be what I’d seen, because the windows were secured, no one could enter the apartment that way, and the chair I’d placed against the door hadn’t been moved.

I was going insane.

I spent the rest of the night sitting on the bed with my knees tucked into my chest and my arms wrapped tightly around them, waiting for the sun to rise so I could drink way too much strong coffee to stay awake and count the minutes until the night came again. Until the nightmares and night terrors found me again.

Would they ever go away?