Submitting novel Chapter 49

I needed to end things with Ivan quickly because of another reason. Him not being alone in this complex game of souls. Dimitri could have come in at any moment and the walk to the car, getting the supplies and then coming back wouldn’t take so long. And it didn’t as I heard him close the front door and go directly upstairs to Liza to give her whatever the baby needed.

I had to make sure that nothing seemed suspicious to him. Especially not Ivan’s sudden absence.

Quietly, I closed the door to the living room behind me and walked back to the kitchen, and stood exactly at the spot where he last saw me, with the exact expression of utter fear and shock smeared all over myself.

His slow steps reverberated in the upper hallway, but it never came down the stairs. Instead, they stayed still until the creak of the door to my room made me realize that he just walked into my room. This was definitely not in the plan. Well, I didn’t have a blueprint plan before they barged into the house, but this was not in my improvised plan. It definitely managed to rattle me as I scrambled to decide my next course of action.

Perhaps it is best that he didn’t come downstairs. Through the innumerable possibilities, he could have easily found Ivan’s dead body. Let alone the fact that a missing Ivan would have definitely made him start collecting the pieces of the puzzle. So I also needed to make sure that he didn’t make it downstairs.

My steps up the staircase were anything but quiet, as the old wooden planks creaked more loudly than they ever have. The darkness was not much of a help but I didn’t need the light either to walk through the house which once used to be my safe haven. Things had completely flipped over now.

The door was almost closed shut with just the smallest bit of opening, too small to let me in but big enough for me to peek inside and scale the surroundings before I made my move.

My room was also left dark with the lights turned off but brighter still as the moonlight from the night struggled to enter the room through the white satin windows, bellowing in the wind. And there he was, standing in front of my bed. Staring at something that only he could see.

“It’s your room. Come in.” I didn’t know that my heart could beat as fast as it did when he spoke up so nonchalantly. He knew exactly where I was and that further sowed the disturbing thought that he might also know what I did.

“What are you looking at?” I was genuinely curious and instead of trying to distract him, for some very odd reason I actually wanted to know what was going on in his mind.

“When you moved here and started living with Liza, I used to watch you sleep.” The chill I felt, froze my whole being. Making it impossible for me to breathe as I stood there still, waiting for him to talk about more of this horrifying reality that I was completely oblivious too.

“As a matter of fact, I was here before you even moved in. Such a shame that there were no houses nearby where I could live, but instead I had to drive all the way from the city every night so that I could see you, be close to you.” He turned around, his dark figure looking at me with crystal green eyes. “It was worth it every time.” I could feel the anxiety brewing in me like hot bubbling poison, and I couldn’t afford to be possessed by it. Being in control was of utmost importance, so I did what I had to.