He'll have to break all the rules to keep her, but first she has to break just one and let him in...
It's taken four years, but Anna Fray has finally put the past behind her. Mostly. She fills her days working in a bar and her nights watching bad ro...
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Those few days stuck in the flat had been some of the worst I'd had in a while. The migraine eased —eventually— but in its absence I was left with something else. It was subtle at first, a flutter in my chest or a shiver down my spine, then it started to grow. Soon it was this deep-rooted feeling that I wasn't safe. That somehow, this little flat I'd called home —my sanctuary— had been violated and was no longer a place of security and self-preservation.
I found myself peering over my shoulder for fear there was someone behind me or flinching at the slightest noise. In the beginning, I thought it was just some remnant of the feelings stirred up by the burglary, but then the dreams started.
They were innocuous at first, nothing more than brief flashes of the yard outside, with the tall brick walls and patio steeped in silver moonlight, and the metal stairs casting long thin shadows. It was nothing I hadn't seen before. After all, I'd spent many a sleepless night staring out at that square of concrete; looking at how the moss favoured the north facing back wall, or the old bricks had been dimpled and rounded by years of wet weather and harsh frosts.
The difference was that this image, this memory, came with a sense of foreboding. An irrefutable feeling that there was something coming, or there was something sinister hiding in the shadows.
As if the feeling wasn't enough, my mind taunted me with a face —a lovely angelic face — with pillowy lips and apple-like cheeks. It was the kind of face that should have garnered trust, but instead it made a cold sweat break out across my skin. Each night, no matter how much I tried to take my mind off it, my subconscious played out the same scene. First the yard, eerie and silent, and then, as if in slow motion, my eyes find her in the darkness and her own flashed to mine, empty and hollow. Not just blank like the look I had seen on Book Boy now and then, but completely devoid of emotion. Not even a flash of humanity; that flicker that said, 'I'm like you'.
In that moment I try to run, but like so many dreams before, my legs feel thick and heavy. I struggle to move like the air around me has turned viscous.
To my horror, she moves silently towards me. Her footsteps are soft and steady and ceaseless. The promise of her touch on my skin makes my stomach roll in fear. It's like there's this unfinished thought in my head that knows those hands had done things that would bring bile to the top of my throat. Unspeakable, unforgiveable things. I just couldn't remember what those things were. If I even knew in the first place.
A shiver trickled down my spine as I remembered the dream. The thought of that face, even in the bright harsh world of daylight, still filled me with terror. I didn't recognise the face. I didn't even know how my mind had imagined such a disturbing thought, but it wasn't the first time my brain had excelled its ability to conjure up nightmares.
"Anna?" Kelly's warm voice pulled me from my reverie. I blinked once, clearing the haunting image from my head. The bar rushed back into my consciousness, filling my ears with the clatter of cups and drone of everyday conversation.
