Page 20 of Secret Obsession
You can’t be afraid of the boogieman forever, my dad used to say when I’d sneak into the room.You have to realize the boogieman is just a made-up story to keep young children in their beds at night. Look under the bed.
I hated that particular lesson. Creeping toward my shadow-drenched bed, kneeling beside it. Taking a terrified breath and lowering my head to see under it… And being met with hazel eyes staring back at me.
My sister was punished for that prank—a week without dessert. And I was left to my nightmares.
Now I need to face them again.
I rise out of Miles’ car slower than he did. My limbs are coated in ice, each step cracking and aching, until I’m through the front door and up the stairs. My apartment door stands open, waiting for me, but it’s so dark. I fumble for the flashlight feature on my phone, stepping in as quietly as possible. My footsteps are light, but it doesn’t really matter.
Someone wraps around me from behind.
Miles, I know.Logically.
His hand claps over my mouth a second before I scream, and his other bands around my body under my breasts.
I get the flashlight on just as he kicks my door shut. It clicks, and I vaguely register that he must’ve fixed it.
But also—there’s no body.
No blood.
Not a speck of evidence that anything out of the ordinary happened here. Just the slightest smell of bleach, but even that’s fading.
When did they do this? If I had called the police, they would’ve thought I wasinsane.
Miles shuffles us toward my bedroom. I dig my heels in, shaking my head. He just huffs and picks me up, my feet leaving the floor. He marches me inside and drops me on the bed.
I roll quickly and jump to my feet on the other side.
He sneers. “Your lock is fixed. Your apartment is clean. Get some sleep, baby. You’re going to need it for what I have planned for you. And you don’t deserve to sleep on somebody’s couch.”
With that, he turns on his heel and disappears out my door.
What does he have planned for me?
I stare after him, shocked—until I realize he’s left me here. And the whiskey I drank seems to reaffirm its grip on me.
I sink slowly back to my bed. As much as I hate it, I realize he’s right—I need sleep. I just have to hope that nightmares don’t plague it too much.
7
MILES
TWO YEARS AGO
Iskate out onto the ice after Knox. The dance team has come down to watch us practice, and now that practice is over, it seems like an open invitation to take the girls out with us. My brother has a girl on each arm, and he’s helping them shuffle across the rink in their street shoes.
“Not into it?”
I glance at the opposing team’s benches. A girl stands there, her fingers drumming the boards. She’s got long blonde hair. Blue eyes that seem to stab right through me. She’s devastatingly cute in a dark-blue vest over a thick white sweater that conceals her curves, and light-washed jeans.
“Am I not into what?” I manage, gliding closer.
She waves her hand around at the giggling girls, the flirting hockey players. “This pomp and circumstance.”
I laugh. “If you think this is pomp and circumstance, you haven’t seen anything yet.”
She hums, then sits on top of the boards and swings her legs over. Like a player preparing to join the game, except she just stops. Her heels hit the wall, and she stares at me.
