Page 1 of West (The Moral Compass 1)
Chapter 1
Sutton
YouKnowyou’regoingto have one of those days when you open your eyes and it’s a lot brighter than you expected. Well, yep that’s gonna be today. It should still be dark if my alarm had gone off at 5:30 a.m. as it should have.
I reach over, pick up my phone and stare at the time for what feels like a full minute. Thiscannotbe happening to me.
“Oh no, no, no, shit no,” I whisper to myself under my very awful morning breath.
The phone displays 7:36 a.m. I am two full hours late for getting up and getting myself dressed and prepared for the biggest job interview of my life. What’s worse is that I have an awful feeling that there is someone in bed with me.
How much did I drink last night? And worse still, who the hell is in my bed? What the actual fuck is happening here?
I honestly didn’t think I’d had too many last night. Come to think of it I remember coming home alone and getting into bedalone.
Okay, Sutton, on with the big girl pants. You need to work out what and who happened last night. Better still, get them out of here now so that you can try and start your day and try, with all your might, to get this shit show onto some sort of road.
I grab my phone from the nightstand, slide out of bed like a ninja, and tiptoe down the hall to the bathroom. I lock the door and sit down quietly on the toilet. Breathing a sigh of relief, I realise I’ve got my pyjamas on, and they’re intact. I start to look for clues.
Look around, Sutton! There must be something here that belongs to whoever is in your bed. Think, Sutton, think! What the actual fuck happened last night?
Still armed with my phone, I call the only person who could possibly untangle this mess. I call Kara. It rings for what feels like forever, and then a groggy voice answers.
“Hey, what’s up?” she rumbles.
“What the actual fuck happened last night?” I ask in an urgent, strangled whisper.
“I don’t know what you mean. Why? What’s up? And why are you ringing me at stupid o’clock?” she grumbles.
“Oh, come on, you must know what happened. Did someone follow us out of the pub?”
“No, why? Sutton, you’re not making any sense. What is going on? It’s too early for your shitty drama-filled phone calls. Either spit it out or I’m hanging up,” Kara says, sounding more and more pissed off.
“There. Is. Someone. In. My. Fucking. Bed!” I spit each word out so I don’t have to repeat it.
“What? Oh shit. Where are you?”
“I’ve locked myself in the bathroom. I thought I might find a clue as to who they are, but there is nothing in here. What am I going to do? I need to get out of here, but I’m scared.”
I can hear Kara trying to breathe through her laughter, but I’m not finding this funny one damn bit.
“Kara, it’s not fucking funny. I could be dead in the next ten minutes. Tell me now if anything suspish happened last night. I remember coming home on my own and going straight to bedon my own.You remember that interview I told you about? The one that’s today? Do you know how important it is to me? I’ve already slept in and now this fucking nightmare. I think I should call the police.”
“Calm the fuck down, Sutton, If the person in your room was gonna murder you, or worse, it would have happened by now. You need to find out who they are, and then ring me back. I need a brew and a cig now that I’m awake.”
“Don’t you dare hang up on me, Kara. I need you on the phone whilst I work out who this is, and you can phone the police if it’s some scary-ass guy I’ve never even seen before. Okay?”
“Fine, but hurry the fuck up. I need to pee, and I’m not taking you with me.”
“Okay, I’m unlocking the door and going back into my room. You still there?”
“Yep, but for fuck’s sake hurry up. The suspense is killing me.”
I unlock the bathroom door and walk quietly down the small hallway to my bedroom. Pushing the door open a little, I poke my head around the corner. Yep, they are still there. I can feel my heart beating out of my chest.
“Shhh, heart they will be able to hear you,” I whisper to myself, trying to calm it down a little. I scan the room and decide that the wooden coat hanger on the back of my door is a suitable defence weapon.
Armed with the coat hanger, I move with stealth around the bed.
