The Follower by Kate Doughty (ebook reader with built in dictionary TXT) 📕

but the hours tick by and she cannot sleep. She runs her hand over the bandages that cover her face and tries not to think about being back in this house. Every shadow seems deeper than it should be, every noise sounds like a footstep. She can’t seem to untense, not even when Rudy and Amber are here. And Bella and Jada . . .

It was in the way that they’d stared. Bella kept a peppy smile on her face, assuring Cecily that she would be all right, acting like Cecily was still perfect, like nothing was wrong. And Jada kept glancing between Cecily and Amber, as if searching for tension. When she did look at Cecily, her eyes were sad, as if she was just about to tell her bad news. She knows that they meant well, but . . . it’s going to take some getting used to.

Her phone pings. It’s the sound of a text from Bella: Think about what I said, OK?

She texts back: I will.

And it keeps her up all night. Could she really start doing makeup again? She still has most of her products, and Amber could lend her the rest, but . . .

She tosses and turns, and even once, in her exhaustion, almost gets out of bed to go downstairs to stroke Speckles for comfort before she realizes what she’s doing. Speckles is gone. Her mind flashes to an image of his poor little body, all ground up, and she has to run to the sink to vomit.

Will life ever be the same again? Can things ever be better?

She can’t sleep with thoughts like that, so she lies awake in bed. Her thoughts ricochet between Speckles, Bella, and the open house, and she can’t get any of them out of her head. All she wants to do is hide. Hide from her followers, from her friends, from this house and the way that it creaks and groans . . .

And creaks again. And again. In a regular rhythm.

Footsteps.

Cecily closes her eyes and tells herself that she is just being paranoid, that it is nothing—

Another noise.

Not from above, but below.

Cecily feels dread curdle in her stomach. Her family is asleep, out cold from their preparations for the open house tomorrow. They have been for hours. But someone is below. The thought rises in her mind: This is the same person who hurt her.

Cecily freezes. She can’t move, can’t breathe. She needs to tell someone, to do something—she wills her body to move—

But nothing. The minutes pass, and she listens to someone as they walk around downstairs and she still can’t move. The terror has her, she can’t move, she can’t—

Below her, there is silence. Through her panic, Cecily realizes that something is off, wrong, about the quiet. But she can’t tell what it is.

A creak cuts through the silence.

And then a solid, heavy thunk. As if someone is right underneath her. The kitchen. They’re in the kitchen.

Someone is stirring on the second floor. She hears the shifting of covers, and then tiny footsteps as Amber tiptoes past the room. She sticks her head in, sees Cecily there, frozen in terror, and doesn’t even have to ask to confirm it: They had both heard someone downstairs.

Then Amber is gone and the footsteps downstairs begin to move fast, and Amber and their parents and now Rudy are in the hallway.

“Cecily! There’s someone downstairs!” It’s a hissed whisper. As if a spell is broken, Cecily can move again. She scurries to her siblings on the landing. Mom and Dad arrive as she does. She catches Amber’s eye, and Amber holds it. Amber knows that she was awake. That she has been awake for some time.

Cecily averts her gaze.

“Cecily—you’re awake,” Mrs. Cole gives her a tight hug. “It’s all right, it’s going to—”

Mr. Cole interrupts her. “You four—stay here. Get ready to call the police. I’ll go down and investigate.”

Before Cecily can fully register what her dad is saying, he’s pushing his way past her. As Cecily listens to her father walk downstairs, she realizes what’s wrong.

The footsteps she heard below were just footsteps. There were no other sounds—no creaks from the second step on the stairs, groans from older floorboards, confusion or bumbling as someone navigated an unfamiliar landscape. No noises of someone bumping into new furniture or the assorted renovation equipment that had been changed and rearranged every day. Instead, there were just footsteps and perfect quiet. A quiet that would have been impossible for anyone who wasn’t intimately familiar with this house.

She’s about to explain her rising panic to Amber when they hear Mr. Cole yelling from below: “Marie! Get down here!”

Mrs. Cole and the triplets dart down the stairs. Four sets of feet echo in the stairwell, in the hallway, through the cavernous home, all sense of stealth abandoned. Cecily feels sick; the smell of something sweet in the kitchen reaches out and turns her stomach as she passes through. Their father is a few steps away from the landing.

He turns on the light.

And Mrs. Cole gasps.

There, on the floor of the foyer, in broad, messy strokes, dark and red and bloodlike, are the words:

GET OUT OF MY HOUSE

Beneath those dripping words is the family plaque, neatly broken. Split into five pieces. Cecily wonders if that was the thunk she heard.

Mr. Cole darts through the foyer, lights snapping on as he rounds the corner and heads into the kitchen. The others follow him but Cecily stays, staring at the words. She feels dizzy. He was here. Whoever did this was here, had been here, could have walked up to her room, could have done anything to anyone . . .

She hears a shout from the other room and runs down the hallway, where her family is standing in the brand-new kitchen. But it doesn’t look so brand-new anymore.

The marble countertops have been smeared with the same blood-red paint. The floor has been covered with a strong-smelling liquid that Cecily recognizes immediately: bleach.

Mr. Cole vanishes again. When he reappears a few seconds later, he’s