Page 24 of Lured By Shadows

So how the hell was it open?

I moved slowly, every step feeling like a question I wasn’t sure I wanted answered. The curtains fluttered gently, brushing against my thighs like warning hands. Outside, the balcony glistened with moisture, the air thick with mist. Beyond the railing, the road sat dim beneath tired street lamps, empty and still.

And yet, I felt it.

A strange lingering presence. As though someone had just left. As though something had slipped away seconds before I noticed, leaving the air charged with an uneasy echo.

The electric hum beneath my skin told me I wasn’t imagining it.

I stepped back and slid the glass door shut, my hands shaking as I turned the lock. The click echoed too loudly in the stillness. I peeled off my clothes with numb fingers and tugged on an oversized t-shirt, barely aware of the goosebumps dotting my skin. I checked the lock again.

And then again.

Each time, I hoped it would calm the thoughts racing through my head, but instead, the room only felt smaller and more suffocating.

No matter how many times I checked, the feeling didn’t fade.

I climbed into bed and pulled the blankets tight around me, as though I could hide from the sense that something had come too close, brushing against the edges of my world. The shadows in the corners of my room felt heavier now. The silence felt alive.

And worst of all, his scent lingered.

Culver’s cologne.

Which was totally impossible.

Faint, but unmistakable. It clung to the air, my sheets, and even my skin, as though he’d passed through the room and left part of himself behind. The thought was ridiculous, and I knew my mind was twisting the quiet into something darker just because I couldn’t stop thinking about him all day.

Still, my heart kept pounding as I lay there curled beneath the blankets, unable to settle. I didn’t want to close my eyes.

And when I finally did, it wasn’t sleep that came.

It was his image and those tired green eyes hovering in the dark.

***

“I used to shine bright like gold—”

I swiped my fingers across my phone screen before the alarm could finish the line, silencing it with a sharp tap.

Except I hadn’t really been asleep when it went off.

I’d been lying there with my eyes open in the dim gray light slipping through the curtains, trapped in that awful space where your body is exhausted but your mind refuses to shut up. Sleep hadn’t come properly last night. I’d drifted in and out of some murky half-conscious state, waking each time with my chest tight and my skin cold.

This house sat tucked away from everything, distant from neighbors and surrounded by fog-heavy woods and long stretches of silence. The isolation pressed against me in a way that felt strangely personal. My stomach churned with a lingering sense of unease that had nothing to do with nightmares and everything to do with instinct.

I dragged myself out of bed and moved through my routine like a ghost: washing my face, brushing my teeth, pulling on clothes. When I finally glanced up at the mirror, I lingered.

The girl staring back didn’t feel like me.

Bloodshot eyes rimmed with darkness. Skin dull beneath the surface effort of concealer and blush. Makeup helped, but only barely. It couldn’t hide the exhaustion written all over my face.

Navigating an unfamiliar school in a foreign country already felt overwhelming, and adding whatever was happening with Culver on top of that had stretched me painfully thin.

At least it was Friday. One more day, then maybe I could breathe.

Yawning, I wandered into the kitchen and grabbed a yogurt from the fridge, eating without really tasting it as I stared out the window. There weren’t any nearby houses within sight or sound, just a distant roof barely visible through the trees.

So when I heard the slam of a car door, my head snapped up instantly.