37 | new year's dawn

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- Reader Discretion is advised -

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- Reader Discretion is advised -

Lexi had always told me that my curiosity isn't the best of weapons. Even if it gives answers to most of her questions. Sometimes I become too invested with morbid curiosity. I tend to get myself into trouble. Like that night at a Fresher's party in uni. I am not proud of that one night stand but I live with it. Perhaps it will apply the same here where I follow my tempered ex and his unexpected date through winding halls.

We are in the uppermost floors so these are mostly residences and when I say that, I mean Daniel's residence. From the dome, I follow them through the dark twisting halls and up. They took the lifts, laughing and talking about something I couldn't make out while I took the next lift up. Risky I know but once I arrived upstairs I realised we were in the penthouse. My heart plummets realising that no one else could access this floor without Daniel's hand print or the pass code.

I remember this place, yet I am no more familiar with it. Perhaps it was the circumstance before. I was so busy worrying about the whole situation with the press that I didn't even notice everything else. How there's a grandeur staircase that winds up to the second floor. Or that there's a bigger space than that of just the big living room. The windows flickered with the lights of the party going on below. The music is nothing more than just a few odd hums through the walls. I looked around wondering where Mallory and Leo had gone. The bedroom upstairs perhaps? I wonder how Daniel would feel about that. Or maybe the kitchen?

I took a step and realised how loud my shoes were. They weren't as audible upon the carpeted floors from down stairs so, I took them off and trudged around the place. The dim lights barely illuminate my every step. I had barely taken any further steps than down the hall to the meeting room and the living room so I had to be careful where I ended up in. Then, just as I had taken one cold step, I heard a loud door click. There, down at the end of the first hallway. I follow it like a moth to a flame. The light through the crack of the door, flickering as though someone had been walking around.

I got close enough to touch the door and I realised it wasn't shut. Ajar, I let myself peer through — but I stopped.

What the hell am I doing? This is my ex. I shouldn't care about his whereabouts when my boyfriend is literally down stairs. What the hell is the benefit to stalking my ex at a party he wasn't even supposed to be in in the first place?

"Going somewhere?"

I gasped, recognising the low guttural voice that made my skin crawl. There he was, standing stone faced with his hands in his pockets. Stumbling back, I walked right into the room a few steps and he followed me in — locking the door behind him.

As I continued stumbling back, I hit a glass desk and he stopped just a step away from me. His face illuminated by the warm light of the fireplace. I notice the small changes on his face. How his eyes got duller, his hair got longer, his skin got rougher. How his eyes no longer contain that condescending gaze and instead holds a menacing one.

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