Dead Pretty - Samantha Towle Page 0,19

gotten inside.

Rats can do that. They can go anywhere.

Only it’s not a small rat. In terms of rat size, it’s definitely at the larger end of the scale.

It could have gotten in under the front door. They do that.

Not that I have a big gap under my door.

Maybe a window? It could have crawled in through a window.

Yeah, it shimmied up the drainpipe to the second floor and crawled in through my locked window.

Fear sprints down my spine, spinning me into action. My pulse is beating wildly in my ears.

I whirl around. My cell flies out of my hand.

Shit!

I hear my phone clatter to the floor, but I don’t have time to stop and look for it.

I have to get out of here.

I rush through my apartment, heading for the only exit I have—the front door.

There’s no outline of light around the door, meaning the lights are out in the hall too.

Breaths are panting out of me. Reaching the door in no time, I grab the handle and yank it open.

And a dark figure is standing there.

I don’t scream.

Instead, I yell, “Fire!” at the top of my lungs. Because that always brings people running.

Self-defense class taught me that screaming or calling for help will bring no one. But yell fire—actual danger—and people will come running straight toward it.

Then, I clench my fist and punch upward as hard as I can, upper-cutting, hoping to connect with some part of the person’s body. But it’s dark, and I can’t see a goddamn thing.

I hit bone—chin, I think—and pain explodes in my hand.

I hear a grunt of pain and then, “What the fuck, Audrey!”

Jack.

It’s Jack. And I just punched him in the face.

“What the hell are you doing, standing outside my front door?” I snap at him. My heart is knocking so hard against my ribs that I expect one of them to break at any moment.

“I knocked!” he exclaims. “I just wanted to check if your lights were out too!”

He knocked on my door?

I must not have heard him when I was too busy freaking out over the rat.

The big, dead rat that’s still in my apartment.

Fuck.

“We have to get out of here.” I try to shove him backward, so I can get past him, but he’s not budging.

Two strong hands curl around my upper arms, gripping them, stopping me. “Audrey, what the hell is going on?” His voice is gentle but firm.

“There’s—” I cut off, my jaw clenching tightly shut. Because what am I going to say? There’s a deceased rat in my apartment, and because of that, I think someone is here to kill me?

If Jack doesn’t already think I’m crazy, he most definitely would if I said that.

“Nothing. Nothing’s going on. You just startled me.”

“Audrey, you just screamed fire, punched me in the face, and then told me that we have to get out of here, so when you say nothing is going on, I kinda find that hard to believe. That, and the fact that your whole body is shaking.”

I’m shaking?

It takes me a second to realize that he’s right. And also that his hands are still holding on to my arms.

I step back out of his grasp and wrap my arms around myself to stave off the trembling in my body. “Well, it’s the truth. Nothing is wrong.”

There’s a brief pause and then a flicker of illumination from a cell phone screen before a bright light in the form of a phone flashlight comes on.

And I see Jack’s face for the first time tonight.

The face I just punched.

“So, there isn’t a fire?” he says, eyes fixed on mine.

“Nope.”

“Why did you say there was?”

“Because … you startled me. I thought maybe you were a robber, and the best way to get people’s attention to come and help is to yell fire.”

Although I am just realizing that no one came running to my aid.

Guess my neighbors don’t give a shit about a fire burning the building down.

I am also still consciously aware of the dead rat and the fact that a psycho killer could be lurking somewhere close by.

I hold off the shudder that wants to make its way through my body.

Jack’s eyes briefly leave mine and stare over my shoulder, into the darkness behind me.

“Look, I’m going to go downstairs to the super’s place and see what’s happening with the lights. Do you want to come with me?”

Do I want to stay in my pitch-black apartment, alone with the dead rat and God knows who else? Or go