Deep November

five.

I'd never been in love before. Never as a child, nor as a teenager, and definitely not as an adult.

But the first time I saw her, I swear my entire life as I knew it shattered completely; my world turned off its axis and onto a path that only ever lead to her. It were as if my entire being was devoted to her, despite the fact that she didn't even know who I was.

The delusional part of my brain told me she knew me, and if she didn't then she would and if she felt anything similar to how I did, then she'd feel like she'd known me in another lifetime, like we'd been together before in another time, another place, and we were just now getting back to one another.

The rational part of my brain told me that I was going crazy. I had a job to do, one I was being paid heavily to complete, and I couldn't do that if the target of my murderous tendencies was also the object of all my desires.

The internal struggle was something I'd never experienced before, and for the time being, it felt as if lying to myself and living in a state of perpetual delusion was the only thing keeping me going.

After I had trackers placed on her car and bugs placed in her office for a while, I knew it was safe to break into the house.

I knew where she'd be, how long she'd be there, when she'd be on the way back. I knew exactly how much time I'd have to go through her house and collect anything I may need. At this point, I knew her routine; everything she did in the run of a day, everyone she saw, where she went, what she ate, how long she went to the gym.

I was confident I'd be able to achieve my goals before she was back, and she'd be none the wiser.

The decision was made on a whim, as a lot of my decisions lately seemed to be, and on this whim I'd also decided amongst myself that I would go in without any prior information. Completely blind as to what the possibilities were, all I could do was hope and pray that my state of delusion could help me power through it.

Once again I made a questionable decision and while I'd made a lot of questionable decisions since taking this job, but this one had to be the worst one yet.

When she'd gone for work for the day and the house was empty, I went in alone. I didn't call Cristina, I didn't notify anyone; there was no blueprint of the floor plan, no disabled alarms, no Cristina chirping in my ear complaining about my lack of body cam.

I went into her house of my own accord, telling myself I was looking for personal items to keep in mind when the time came to put my show into action.

I kept lying to myself to make all of this feel okay.

Really I just couldn't help myself and I needed to know more about her. I was curious, and while I knew so much already, I still longed for more. My fingers itched and my mind swirled as the craving to be near her was so close to overwhelming me.

I unlocked the front door with ease, and immediately after entering realized I had about sixty seconds to figure out the code to her home security system before it went off and I had to haul ass out of there.

If I'd called Cristina she would've been able to disarm it remotely before I unlocked the door, but calling Cristina was not something I'd planned on doing.

If she found out I went in blind, I'd never hear the end of it.

Thinking on my feet, I took the UV light pen out of my pocket and clicked it on to look at the fingerprints left on the keypad to the alarm. There were fingerprints on four numbers, the four that undoubtedly made up the alarm code.

What would you pick for a code, Addie? If I was you, what would I pick?

I didn't panic, I stayed calm, and staying calm was probably my only saving grace. It could be any random order of these four numbers and while that seemed impossible to guess in the thirty seconds I had left, I knew it couldn't be hard.