The Carrero Contract - Amending Agreements (Book 2 of Contract Trilogy)

4

I wake up with my book over my face haphazardly, where it's obviously fallen when I drifted off, jumping in alarm at god knows what and blinking in the darkness of my room as I open my eyes to pitch black. My heart's pounding crazily and the sweats hit me fast as I come to, in disorientation. Groggy from the effects of the meds I took hours ago as I slide it off and try to get my bearings.

I am unsure why I woke, as I was not even dreaming, and I feel completely odd in a sort of disconnected almost drunk way; which I presume is cough med related rather than sickness. Pushing it on to my bedside table as I feel around with shaking hands. I roll to my side to try and drift back off, but a little noise in the next room pricks up my attention. Like a tiny warning bell sending me into immediate high alert, it brings me to my senses in a breath pausing way.

I pause, holding painfully still and listen, not moving. Heartbeat rising as I try to focus on what I thought I just heard and strain so very hard to listen over the sound of my shallow breathing and erratic pounding rhythm as fear takes a low grip of my insides.

I hear something. Closing my eyes to cut off my attempts to focus on sights I cannot see and just listen very hard. So much so I can hear the blood rushing inside my head as adrenaline courses through my body. I know I am not imagining things; I am sensitive to things like this, ever since I came out to live alone again. I catch it again, so very faint, almost surreal but definitely in my apartment.

A scrape, as though something is being shifted or moved around on my threadbare floor through the door, and I sit up to strain towards it as stealthily as I can muster. My bedroom door is closed, which it makes it hard to hear anything at all but it's unmistakable as it comes a little clearer and closer. I push my bedclothes back and sit very still, poised in a sitting position; completely petrified with a million things racing through my mind that I try to silence and just pull myself together.

Footsteps!

They sound as though they are trying to be light on their feet, but every time they venture nearer my room, the floorboards make a dull aching thud underfoot, where they are loose and I know for sure;

There are people inside my space!

No one knows who I am here!

I slide out of bed as quickly and silently as I can as trembles take hold in the cold air. Holding my breath, nerves on an all-time high as I vibrate inside, I try to hold my shit in while simultaneously waking myself fully.

Someone is in my apartment and I have no clue if this is a random robbery or something worse completely. The woman on the third floor was raped by an intruder last month, he took nothing of value and the attack seemed to be purely sexual. I am not about to go down without a fight if that is what this is. I am not some mere girl who will take being raped again so easily.

I may not be a stranger to it, but it's still something I never want to experience again.

I keep a baseball bat under my bed and I reach for it quietly, crouching down as low as I can to slide it out slowly without making a single sound. My entire body is internally shaking yet my hands seem still as I grasp it tightly; knowing full well that I am my only saviour in this.

There's a creak outside my door and I pause, heart hammering through my chest, body turning cold with tingles and clammy with fear. I have been in situations like this before and I know I need to keep my wits about me until I get out the other side. Women are murdered every day in this city, and I am no one special that will ever be missed.

I have no hero to intervene this time and for the first time, I wish Alexi was here, a pining so strong it almost rips my chest in two. I push him out of my head, hating that in moments of weakness I still need him, and grit my teeth in an effort to focus.