Beach Week

15- "If someone was planning on killing us, now would be the perfect moment."*

Everyone came back from the zoo excited for the movie they'd discussed watching while they were in the car. Taylor had been one of the first one's to enter the house, followed by Sara and Avery. Once inside, Sara raced upstairs to her bathroom. Her plan was to get upstairs first and hop into the shower, making sure to lock the door and wash up quickly while she had Grayson, Aaron, and Brett downstairs to serve as protection from anyone coming in and writing on her bathroom mirrors again. Avery followed Sara upstairs to take a shower as well, and to get away from everyone after Aaron made a joke about her and Brett being alone for most of the day. They were just friends and she wanted to keep it like that despite the clear attraction between them. Why couldn't anyone else see that she just wanted to protect their friendship?

While her friends went upstairs, Taylor waited downstairs with the guys, rationalizing that she could shower after the movie when there would be hot water for her to take a long shower just how she liked. So while she waited for Sara and Avery to come back down, she sat on the couch with her legs crossed beneath her, deep in thought. She paid little to no attention to the guys, who were talking together, probably about Brett's alone time with Avery. Instead she was focused on trying to figure out if what she had seen before going to the zoo was actually a person's figure, or just a shadow. She didn't want to alert Sara if there hadn't actually been a person there, but the more she thought about it, it only made sense that there was someone watching them.

A shiver raced down her spine at that thought alone. Slowly, trying not to let her thoughts get ahead of her, Taylor got up, unnoticed by the boys who were deep in conversation. She quickly made her way up to the third floor where Sara's family kept the monitor for their security system. She'd seen Sara looking through the recording before and figured that she would be able to manage it easily. Or so she thought.

It took some time for Taylor to find the recording she was looking for because not only had Sara's dad put it into military time, but it was also an hour and a half ahead. When she finally managed to find the right time, she watched Sara drag Brett down to the garage in one of the four screens. Then watched them enter another screen when they made it to the garage. Taylor's focus turned to the camera's view in the top right corner. It was the only camera that was focused at the front door, because the final camera was stationed outside of the door that led to the third floor.

Taylor watched closely, knowing that she'd gotten back to the house only moments after Sara had dragged Brett down to the garage with her. They had talked for a little while, so Brett could clean on his own, before coming upstairs. Taylor bit her lip as she stared at the monitor, watching her own movements. She prayed she had been wrong, and waited to see what would show up. Her heart hammered in her chest, knowing that her suspicions were about to be confirmed. A nagging feeling in her gut told her that something was wrong. Her eyes were trained on the screen that showed the front door when the video footage of Sara and Brett caught her attention. A dark shadow had covered the view. It looked as if someone had put a sheet over the lens, but soon it was gone, and she brushed it off. She glanced back to the front door footage just in time to see a dog that had gotten loose from it's owner race up the stairs and try to get inside. The owner came up a few moments later and tried to get hold of the dog to put the leash back on, lingering outside the window that Taylor had seen the shadow in earlier.

Taylor sighed in relief, dropping her head to her hands and taking a deep breath. She was worrying herself for nothing. All this stress was going to give her gray hairs. After a sigh of relief, allowing her nerves to leave her body, she looked away from the screen, just missing the footage of the black figure standing off to the side, watching Sara and Brett in the garage. Taylor quickly turned the monitor off after seeing for herself nothing was wrong. She stood from the chair and went back down to join her friends, and to see that Avery had rejoined everyone as well just seconds before her.