Save Her by Abigail Osborne (i can read books .txt) 📕

house, she thought. Irrationally, she ran to the window, even though she knew she could not jump from it, it was far too high. The window was textured for privacy and the yellow light of the street light was fractured by the pattern, but Flora was sure a black figure was walking down her driveway, away from the house. With shaky hands and a feeling of déjà vu, she called Sophie.

It didn’t take long for her to hear the key in the front door, the scraping of the welcome mat and the bang of the front door. But this time there was no sinister silence.

‘Flora?’

Flora didn’t answer, her teeth were chattering, and she was trying really hard to hold it together. This was one time too many that she was sitting in the bathroom feeling vulnerable and frightened. Why was this happening to her? She wasn’t a bad person. Did Cecelia hate her that much? Was it definitely Cecelia? The unanswered questions were overwhelming her. The light came back on, startling her.

Hearing Sophie’s footsteps on the staircase, she unlocked the door and ran from the room, meeting her friend just as she breasted the staircase. Flora flung herself into her arms. ‘I can’t take it anymore, Sophie,’ she cried. ‘I’m so scared all the time.’

‘Shh, shh,’ soothed Sophie, holding her tightly and stroking her hair. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.’

Flora let herself be led to the spare room. ‘How did you know I was sleeping in here?’

‘Well, first of all, I know you. Second of all, Sam’s not here. Third of all, wait that doesn’t sound right. Thirdly?’ She nodded. ‘Yes, thirdly, I don’t think I’d be sleeping in a bed that had worms in it for a very long time. I would have burnt the bed, to be honest, but that’s just me.’

They cuddled up in bed and the fear that had gripped Flora so tightly started to release its hold.

‘Now you’ve calmed down do you want to tell me what happened?’

Flora pulled herself from Sophie’s arms and rested her head on the headboard. Exhaustion pulled at her: being terrified was extremely draining. ‘I don’t really know. I heard the front door open. Then it slammed shut. Then the power went out.’

‘Didn’t you see who it was on the cameras?’

‘No. They cut the power to the house so they stopped working. Someone was in the house again, Sophie.’ Her fear, never far away now, rose up once more. The futility of her situation brought her to tears. She was at a loss as to what to do.

‘I think we should call the police,’ said Sophie.

‘Not now. I’m not ready for that. I can’t think straight. I just want to sleep and then talk about it tomorrow when I’m not exhausted. You’ll stay with me, right?’

‘Of course I will. I’m going to ring Sam. He needs to come back home. He said he wasn’t going to leave you again.’ Sophie’s face clouded with anger.

‘That was my fault. I told him to go.’

Sophie went into the other room and Flora could hear her voice muffled through the walls. She hoped Sophie wasn’t being rude to Sam. He really hadn’t wanted to leave her, she had insisted.

What was she thinking, encouraging Sam to go away when the last time had ended so badly? Look at what her determination not to let fear run her life had done. It had literally left the door wide open for someone to scare her more. Flora tried hard to fight the fatigue that was drawing her eyelids together, but the fog of sleep was descending.

Flora woke up the next morning with Sophie, fast asleep on one side of her and a fully dressed Sam, asleep on the other side, each of them cocooning her with an arm. She placed a hand on each of them and felt happier than she had in a long time. Her life was such a rollercoaster. One minute she would be scared out of her mind and then the next minute she would be filled with a determination not to be afraid. Swinging from emotions was draining but seeing both Sophie and Sam lying next to her put things into perspective. She had two people that loved her. She wouldn’t let anyone take that away from her. Not even Cecelia.

She could withstand anything as long as she had Sophie and Sam. Her two guardian angels. She knew that nothing would ever change that.

36

The firing range had become Sophie’s happy place. At first, it had been a means to an end, part of her plan. But now it was a place she could come whenever she needed to think. She found that training her gun on the target helped her to focus her mind. Her investments had doubled in value since she’d taken this up as a pastime. As firing a gun seemed to sharpen her sense and her mind. She was sure that she had had brainwaves that would never have occurred to her otherwise.

According to the range owner, Roger, a middle-aged, sweaty man who wore the same fleece every day, she was a natural with a gun. He kept badgering her to join a competitive team he ran, waxing lyrical about how there were not enough women with potential. She now avoided him whenever possible. She had much bigger things to worry about than how underrepresented women were in the shooting world.

She needed to get her own gun. It was harder than she thought it would be. To buy a gun she needed a licence from the police, for which she needed references from two people who had known her for more than two years. It was hard to accomplish this when she only had one friend in the world; and under the police rules her husband couldn’t be a referee. What about one of the clients? she mused. She had known some of them for several years. Excuse me, sir, could