ROGUE

Run For Your Lives

Emily's POV

It was not the cold that kept me awake that night, but the relentless gnawing of guilt and fear. The darkness of my room seemed to be filled with Dex's shadow, each corner whispering his name. I could still see the twisted smile on his face, could still hear the chilling words he'd whispered into my ear. The memory of it was as sharp as the blade he carried.

Dex Harrington, the man everyone loved, turned monster. His obsession had cost a life - Mark's - and yet he wore his guilt like a badge of honor. I was left with his ghost, his face etched into my mind, his scream echoing in my waking dreams.

In the silence of that night, I questioned everything I'd ever known about Dex and myself. How could I have been so blind? How could I have missed the signs? A million questions surged through my mind like a torrential flood, drowning out any semblance of peace.

I was plunged into the nadir of my torment, my mind a tempestuous sea, when the shrill ring of the phone cut through the veil of despair that had suffocated me for so long. I froze, caught in the specter of trepidation that it might be him, the gaunt shadow that plagued my waking hours - Dex.

Heart pounding in my chest like a funeral drum, I forced myself to pick up the receiver. The voice on the other end wasn't his. It was Nathan's, gasping and stammering over words like a man lost in a fierce hailstorm.

"Emily," he rasped out, "Y-you need to stay the fuck away from Dex, okay?" His voice trembled with an ominous note I'd never heard before.

I held my breath, waiting for him to continue, each second ticking by like an eternity. "Nathan, what are you talking about? What happened?" I managed to ask, though fear constricted my throat till speaking felt like swallowing shards of glass.

"Dex killed Mark. He's the one who set his house on fire and now Victoria's dead," Nathan's voice broke on the last word as if it were too hideous to even utter.

A cold shiver seized me as if winter itself had reached into my marrow. "What?" I asked in disbelief while a dreadful realization began to creep in.

Nathan confirmed my darkest fears. "He's taken lives, Emily. Probably more than you can fucking imagine. And I'm next." Breathing hard like he'd just scaled a mountain, Nathan launched into sordid detail. Each chilling fact he shared formed a horrific portrait of the man who'd once given me roses and kind smiles from across the store counter.

The room spun around me as though I stood on the precipice of a chasm, teetering on the edge of sanity. Nathan's words pounded against my skull, each syllable a drumbeat of dread. Dex, the monster. Dex, the murderer. My mind raced with images I wished to forget - his twisted grin, his bloody hands.

"No... no..." I stammered into the receiver. But denial was a fickle friend, slipping away as Nathan continued to reveal the grisly truth.

I could imagine him then, pacing in his apartment amidst half-packed boxes and discarded belongings, glancing nervously at every shadow that dared creep into his line of sight. His fear was palpable even over the phone line; it seeped into my bones and coiled in my gut like a venomous snake.

Suddenly, Nathan's voice was replaced with a garbled noise, followed by eerie silence. "Nathan?" I shouted into the receiver, my voice tremulous. Nothing. With mounting terror, I slammed down the phone and hugged myself tightly as if trying to hold in my spiraling thoughts.

A knock at my door had me jumping out of my skin. Paralyzed with fear, I remained silent as the knock came again – more insistent this time. Then came a muffled voice through the timber: "Emily? It's Lily."

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. Still, the creeping dread remained like a shroud, clinging to me as I shuffled toward the door.

"Emily, are you okay?" Lily's soft voice filtered through the door, trembling with apprehension. Beneath her usual self lay an edge of urgency that made my heart lurch. A foreboding silence stretched between us, filled only by the frantic drumming of my own pulse in my ears.