“Is that why you’ve not been yourself, because you’re hurt by how he treated you?” Coleen queried tentatively, aware she was encroaching on a sensitive subject.
“Yes and no,” Erin admitted, carefully collecting tears in the tissue paper. “Yes, I was hurt by how he left and then did a disappearing act at work but its more than that. Since we were together, I’ve felt…ill. Out of sorts.”
“Did you use protection?” Coleen asked, the mother in her coming out as she gave Erin a stern look.
Erin could only shamefully shake her head.
“Oh Erin,” Coleen sighed. “You always need to protect yourself. By all means, have your fun, but be careful with it.”
“I know,” Erin was trembling slightly now as fresh tears fell down her porcelain cheeks.
“Come on now, don’t get upset,” Coleen embraced the younger woman, holding her tightly.
“I’m scared I’ve caught something from him,” Erin admitted, sickened by how the fear sounded when she said it aloud.
“Well, getting upset won’t help anything.” Coleen said soothingly, rubbing Erin’s back.
“But I need to find him and ask what he has. But he’s gone! And I’m left feeling sick with no idea what to do about it!”
Coleen pulled away and pursed her lips in concentration.
“That boy certainly does owe you an explanation,” she declared. “Especially if he passed something on to you that has made you unwell.”
“But he’s gone!” Erin wailed.
“Not necessarily.” Coleen’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “I’m sure HR has a contact address for him and Maureen works in the department and owes me a favor. I’ll have a little word with her and see what I can do.”
“Thanks, Coleen!” Erin gushed, hugging the other woman.
“But you need to promise me that this won’t happen again! That you’ll start taking care of yourself.”
“I will, I promise,” Erin nodded sincerely.
“I also think you should take the rest of the day off; go home and sleep. You look like a ghost.”
Erin caught sight of her reflection and had to admit that she was considerably paler than usual with dark circles pooling beneath her eyes.
“Okay.”
“I’ll tell Diane you went home sick.”
“Thanks, Col. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you!”
“I’m here to help,” Coleen smiled.
“You won’t tell anyone, will you?” Erin asked sheepishly, still fretting about becoming gossip fodder.
“Of course not,” Coleen looked a little hurt by the insinuation that she’d spill the details to anyone else. “Your secret is safe with me. Now go home and rest, I’ll contact you when I have some information on him.”
“You sound like a spy,” Erin smiled.
“I’m wasted working here, espionage is clearly my true calling,” Coleen smirked playfully.
***
Driving home, Erin tried to cast thoughts of Sean out of her mind. She reassured herself that she was merely under the weather; probably suffering from a cold or flu and it was nothing more than coincidence that the sickness had come on after she’d had sex with Sean.
The roads were thankfully relatively clear as Erin drove the familiar route from the office to her small house. All the while she kept glancing furtively at the passenger seat, remembering when Sean had embodied the area, how he had smelled; how tantalizing it had been to have him so close to her.
She didn’t regret having sex with him. Of that, she was certain. It had felt too good to have been wrong. Even remembering the slightest detail, like the feeling of his lips upon her skin, sent her into frenzy, bringing her almost to the point of climax. It was though Sean was a sexual drug, one which she’d never be able to get enough of as she was now hooked.
***
“You confuse sex with love,” her mother had once declared on one of her more lucid days at the hospital.
Erin had scowled at her and turned to face the window, looking out on the parking lot and watching various vehicles maneuver around like ants.
“You’ll never find happiness until you see past the carnal desire to what truly lies within a man’s heart.” Her mother continued, her eyelids fluttering as she spoke.
“Mom, you’re high on pain meds. Just rest,” Erin told her flippantly, in no mood to engage in a tense discussion about her non-existent love life. It was hard enough having to see her mother on her sick bed; she didn’t want to taint the experience even more. Erin was using every ounce of strength she had just to hold it together. It was so difficult to see her mother lying helplessly in the hospital bed, strung up to a web of wires that were aiding her breathing.
But still, despite her illness, her mother retained her militant, stubborn attitude. No matter how much her body suffered, her mind remained rigid and righteous.
“You are a beautiful girl, Erin, so stunning. You should be with a man who adores you,” her mother implored, her voice weak but not her will.
Erin smiled thinly to herself. She’d met men who adored her, men who would send her bouquets of red roses and spend thousands of dollars on designer shoes and clothes for her. She appreciated their kindness but the gifts and the adulation failed to win her heart. Despite their best efforts, Erin was destined to be drawn by the men with dark secrets, the ones who left her alone, wanting more. It began to feel like a curse; a predisposition to never finding happiness.
“Mom, please, just rest. We can talk about this another time.”
“There isn’t much time left,” her mother whispered fretfully.
“Don’t talk like that; you’ve got plenty of time left! The doctors say you are improving every day!” Erin came and knelt by her mother’s bedside, clutching the older woman’s slender hand in her own.
“I wasn’t talking about me,” her mother coughed, eyeing her daughter intensely, “I was talking about you.”
Erin had laughed nervously and dismissed the comment as being the product of her mother’s medication. She didn’t know what she was saying. Yet the strange omen had lingered in Erin’s mind long after she’d drove away from the hospital. It gnawed at her mind in the dead of night when she awoke sweating from a nightmare about her own demise.
What if she really was running out of time? What if her own dark desires were leading her to the point of no return?
***
Arriving home, Erin pulled in to her driveway and switched off the car engine. Her neighborhood was quiet mid-afternoon. Most people were away at work and children had yet to return from school. Stepping out of her car, she shivered in the cold and then headed in to her house.
The air inside smelled clear and fresh; this was a pleasant change from the acrid, rotting stench that had disgusted her previously. Feeling weary, Erin decided to shower and change into some more comfortable clothes. She hoped that Coleen was right; that she just needed to rest and get over Sean and then everything would be all right, she could stop feeling so inexplicably hopeless about it all.
Showered and wearing sweatpants and a hooded jumper from her college days Erin headed in to the kitchen to make hot chocolate and prepare some dinner. She was suddenly ravenous again. Browsing through her cupboards and freezer, she eventually settled upon a whole pizza, accompanied by macaroni and cheese. It was normally the amount of food Erin would consume over a number of days, but as her stomach felt hollow and empty, she knew she could eat it all in an entire sitting. And she did.
An hour later, Erin was sprawled out on her sofa, feeling contentedly full. On the television, a DVD of one of her favorite action films was playing. Erin had always enjoyed action films, she enjoyed the fast pace and the thrill of them. Chick flicks bored her. They were so predictable and full of ridiculously high expectations. Erin would much rather lose herself in a plot filled with gunfire and assassination plots.
The sound of rapid gunfire echoed out from the television and Erin stretched her long legs ou
t beneath her and yawned sleepily. Finally, after feeling on edge for the last few days, she began to relax a little and feel more like herself. Full of food, her eyelids grew heavy and as the film entered the middle half of the narrative, she fell asleep.
Erin awoke suddenly to the sound of gunfire. Confused, she looked around and her eyes settled on the television screen. The film had reached its dramatic climax and there was a shootout occurring between the central characters. Rubbing her eyes, Erin tried to banish the fog of sleep which clung to her.
Outside, the day had darkened to night and the only source of light in the room was emitting from the television, casting the house in an eerie artificial glow. Groaning, Erin pulled herself up and headed over to the front window with the intent of closing the curtains and putting on the lights. But as she reached the window, she froze. The hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stood to attention and Erin stood motionless, the sensation freezing her with fear.
She was being watched. She was completely certain that somewhere, in the darkness, were a pair of eyes watching her every move. The thought sickened her and after her initial fear, she forced herself to shut the curtains, locking her voyeur out.
It is a horrible sensation, to know you are being watched. You can just feel eyes upon you, shadowing your every move. Yet looking out in to dense darkness Erin was powerless to spot the owner of the eyes; instead, all she could do was squirm as she felt them upon her.
With the curtains closed, she felt better, but only slightly. Her skin still crept from the sensation of being watched. Fearfully, she moved into the hallway and checked that the front door was locked. It was.
Then she carefully made her way to the back of the house and checked the locks on the back door. They, too, were locked securely. She was safely within her house, yet she felt like she was under siege.
The gruesome murders were suddenly at the forefront of her mind. What if whoever she could feel watching her was responsible for those brutal killings? What if she was next? She’d always felt some strange connection to the deceased; what if she was predicting her own death? What if her mother had been right, that she was running out of time?
Panicked, Erin moved back in to the living room, to the comfort of the voices on the television, and positioned herself in a ball on the sofa, no longer wanting to stretch out. She looked at the window, now concealed behind the curtains and wondered just how long someone had been watching her. She must have been asleep for almost an hour. Had they been there the whole time? If so, what were they waiting on? Erin didn’t want to find out. She felt sick with fear and violated over having been watched while she slept.
The hairs on the back of her neck refused to settle, sensing that someone was still lurking outside, just beyond her front door.
Running her hands through her long, dark hair, Erin tried to think of something, anything else. But her mind kept returning to the news stories of the murders. All of the victims were young women, all of them alone. Erin could easily become another name to attach to the list. She could imagine her ghostly face staring out of the television screen at people as they ate their breakfast the following morning and the newscaster announced that tragically, the killer had struck again. They were a small town under siege from an unknown assailant and a part of Erin knew that she was tied to it all, as crazy as she knew that was.
Growing up, she’d listened to a lot of punk music and become obsessed with the tragic story of Sid and Nancy.
“It’s so macabre, what you listen to,” her mother had declared, eyeing her daughter warily. “It will do you no good to fill your head with such darkness.”
“They’re not dark, Mom, they’re tortured,” teenage Erin would say defensively. Despite living a comfortable life, Erin knew how they felt, as she herself felt like a tortured soul.
“You need to distance yourself from all that darkness,” her mother would continue, subconsciously clutching at the golden crucifix she wore on a delicate chain around her neck.
“Why, because you don’t like it?” Erin had challenged, ever the petulant teen.
“The darkness will destroy you,” her mother had warned. Erin had scoffed at yet another ambiguous warning about how she was going to be ruined by the darkness which she let in to her heart. To her, it sounded like the laments of her mother out of touch with the modern world.
But now, as a grown woman, Erin shrunk up on her sofa and eyed her windows cautiously. Beyond the curtains, she imaged the killer prowling around outside her house, eager to taste her blood.
Erin feared that the darkness her mother spoke of had finally found her. That her years of listening to music by the damned and chasing bad boys had somehow led him to her. Perhaps the killer was able to sense when someone’s heart wasn’t pure. Try as she might, Erin was compelled to go against the virtuous path and descend into the darkness.
As a teenager, she wore thick black eyeliner, black dresses, and heavy black boots. The blackness of her ensemble only reflected the darkness within her heart.
“You look ridiculous,” her mother would state with dismay, shaking her head sorrowfully.
“I look just fine,” Erin would retort, sticking out her dainty chin in defiance. Mother and daughter were destined to never understand one another. At times, it was difficult to imagine that they shared a bloodline and were cut from the same cloth. The only thing they shared was their stubborn nature.
“You look like you’re going to a funeral!”
“Maybe I am!” Erin would reply callously. She resented her mother for her inability to understand her.
“You’d be so beautiful if you dressed like a normal girl.” Her mother would say pleadingly.
“Can’t you just find me beautiful how I am?” Erin would ask sadly. Her mother’s face would pinch, giving her daughter an answer without needing to say any words.
Her own mother might have been appalled by her appearance, but the bad boys weren’t. They loved Erin’s gothic punk look and always complimented her on it. In their eyes, she was beautiful, and that drew her to them even more.
***
The sound of her phone ringing made Erin sit up with a start. Following the source of the sound, she rummaged in her handbag, which was on the floor on the hallway, and retrieved her cell phone. The incoming caller was Coleen.
“Hey, Col.” Erin greeted her, trying to sound breezy and light, not scared and fearful as she felt.
“Hey, Erin, how are you feeling?”
“Much better, thanks. I think you were right, I just needed to rest.”
“Aww, I’m glad you’re feeling better. And just in case you weren’t, I’ve got something that might cheer you up.”
“Oh?”
“You got a pen and paper close?”
“Hang on,” Erin rummaged around, then walked into the kitchen and found a notepad and pen.
“Yeah, got them.”
“I’ve got Sean’s address,” Coleen declared mischievously, lowering her voice slightly.
“How did you manage that?” Erin had been dubious of her colleague’s original promise to locate him.
“Like I said, I had a favor to collect.”
“Well, thanks, I really appreciate it.”
“You can thank me later, after you’ve been round and read him the riot act!” Coleen said emphatically.
“He thinks that just because he’s absolutely gorgeous, he can treat women like crap!” Coleen continued, getting fired up.
“I’m sure he had his reasons.” Erin stated sadly, too tired to feel the heat of her friend’s fury toward him.
“Well, I look forward to hearing what they were! You got your pen ready?”
Coleen relayed an address located in the central part of town. So when Erin had originally drove him that way home he had at least been being honest with her.
“It’s a fairly rundown part of town,” Coleen added, her tone becoming cautious. “Want me to come along with you?”
“Thanks but no, I
need to do this alone.”
“Okay, good luck!”
Erin ended the call and stared at the address now written down on her notepad. A part of her was desperate to go there immediately, just to see him again. But she also knew she was owed answers and the only way she was going to get them was to confront him.
Tentatively Erin glanced down the hallway and her front door and the killer she was certain was lurking beyond. Her logical self told her that there was no way there was anyone lurking out there, that she was merely going mad. Leaving the house to head for his apartment might do her some good; prevent her from staying in all night and going mad with suspicious illusions.
Acting on her decision, Erin grabbed her purse and moved toward the front door, but before she released the lock, she paused and looked down at herself. Wearing sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt, she looked a mess. Her hair was unkempt after having slept on it, and she wasn’t wearing any make-up at all. Did she really want Sean to see her like this?
Glancing up the stairs, she debated going and getting changed, styling her hair and at least applying some mascara. But she knew that if she delayed even a little, she’d talk herself out of going. She would go upstairs, get changed, and then think better of going at all. And she had to go; she needed answers.
Regardless of her casual appearance, Erin bravely opened the front door, bracing herself slightly in case someone did suddenly run at her. They didn’t. The front drive of the house was empty and silent. With the torn-off page of the notepad containing Sean’s address clenched in her hand, Erin quickly locked the door behind her and darted over to her car.
She felt safer once she was inside her car and had locked the doors, then she unfolded the paper and re-read the address. She had a faint recollection of where it was; the neighborhood contained a nightclub she’d once frequented. Not that she’d have told Coleen that, since it was an S and M nightclub and catered to very specific tastes, tastes Erin didn’t want to share with any of her co-workers.
Phases of Passions (Trilogy Bundle) (Werewolf Romance - Paranormal Romance) Page 6