21. Liliana

Chapter 21

Liliana

I wasn't sure what had woken me, but it felt like ants were moving over my skin. I rubbed my arms and sat up in bed, looking around.

After finishing three beers, I'd climbed out of the cold bath, dropped into bed, and blissfully let the beer whisk me to sleep.

It was still dark, the muted glow of the streetlight across from my apartment building casting a sliver of light through the part in the curtains. The clock on the nightstand said it was only three in the morning.

An idle thought that he'd come for me played through my head. But it had been weeks since I left Matteo, and he hadn't reached out to me.

I felt like I was being watched countless times but played it off to my new surroundings. There always seemed to be a tingling on the back of my neck whenever I went out.

I lay back down and stared at the ceiling, watching as the headlights from passing cars occasionally moved across the room. But I couldn't shake the feeling that something just wasn't right. I reached under the pillow, the knife tucked safely underneath my head, and curled my hand around the handle.

After ten minutes of not being able to fall back asleep, I got out of bed, threw on an oversized sweatshirt, and grabbed the knife to take with me into the kitchen.

I stood by the sink and sipped a glass of water, the small clock that hung on the wall ticking down the seconds.

I looked out the kitchen window and felt that tingling on the back of my neck again, that tightening on my arms. And then I heard shuffling, maybe scratching, down in the alley right below the window.

Investigating what made that noise was something only a fool would do, the kind of person who was the first to die in a horror movie.

Fuck that. Not me.

I took my knife, went back to bed, and didn't sleep the rest of the night as I stared at the ceiling because I knew I wasn't alone.