Chapter 3: Aiden Run!

CHAPTER THREE

This was a low blow, but it somehow struck me all the way back to my backbone.

I stood there, feet several inches from the door, breathing frozen in mid-chest expansion. Again, the cell phone vibrated in my hands, the number appearing on the black screen:

“Do. Not. Open. It

These words vibrated in my sight until my heart beat in perfect time with them.

I swallowed. “Ez

A second knock.

"Slow," "Methodical," just like the masked man at the funeral home. And then, of course, there was "the voice, the voice that was Ezra’s." "Aiden. open up." I could sense my hairs rising on the back of my neck.

My feet appeared to be just a shade unwilling to move any closer. In fact, the house was too quiet, too tight, in the kind of house whose walls are holding its breath.

A flash of lightning outside, bright, hard, and for that moment, the corridor behind me was reflected in metal light. It was then that I saw it reflected in the bend of the door handle:

It is a tall shadow, standing immediately behind me.

Black skin with a smooth coat.

I turned around so fast that everything else started to spin into a spiral pattern around me.

The hall was empty. There was nothing. Just the smell, the smell of rain and metal. My heart was dancing around my throat. I took a step backwards, away from the door, scraping my shoulder against the wall. The doorknob rattled again, twice, irritably. Then my phone buzzed again. I had another text message.

He acts as if he doesn't care. He does.

I felt like my stomach dropped.

"Ezra," I called, my voice scant above a whisper. "Say something."

Pause.

ThenLower, harsher than before:

“Aiden. Let me in.”

That wasn't the right tone. Ezra could be cold and sharp, even terrifying when he wanted to be-but he always controlled it. This sounded…off. Strained. Like someone was mimicking him from memory.

A chill ran down my spine.

I reached for the peephole with trembling fingers.

My eye barely aligned before I jerked back. It wasn't Ezra. It was his height, his posture, his build-but the face. the face was wrong. The craft of a mask molded into his features, too smooth, too expressionless, too still. A copy of Ezra's face, twisted into a calm that wasn't human.

I kicked my hair back, my heart pounding in my chest.

“Beep, beep,

FREEZE

“He's still right behind you.”

It petrified

The room was smaller, weightier. The air pressed against my skin with cold fingertips. I turned my head, inch by inch—and, oh, so very inch by inch—to the dark corner next to the bookshelf.

Nothing.

However, the cold remained.

Then there came the whisper, the insistent and raspy whisper, that stroked my ear, almost but not quite out of my imagination.

“Aiden!"

I let out a yell, and I lurch toward it, thunking loudly on the wood floor. I can feel as if my palms are on fire. The phone has slipped from my fingers, and my celular phone has slid across the wood floorboards to come to rest just inches from the couch.

The knocking on the door suddenly ceased.

The silence seemed to encompass all things.

Then the doorknob turned again, all the way around that time. The lock was pulled. There was the sound of buckling metal.

My lungs stubbornly deflated. The door vibrated with each strike. Once. Twice. Enough to shake the frame.

“Aiden!"

Ezra's real voice.

For me, I knew him immediately—a little rough around the edges from running, a little windy from that run and angry.

“"Aiden, open the door"”

I scrambled up and made a lunge for it*—but drew back in the final inches to the handle.

What if it wasn’t him?

Maybe the thing that mocks his voice just wants to copycat him again.

My phone was buzzing. I took the phone in my shaking hands.

It is him this time. He can be let in. Hurry.

The thunder was growing louder. The doorknob turned for the last time.

“Aiden—it’s me,” Ezra panted

There was something in his voice that snapped, something that was clearly fear -

I gripped my breast muscles. I squeezed the fingers on the lock.

It was already open before I could pull back. Ezra suddenly stormed into the room, shutting the door behind him with a bang. He clicked the deadbolt lock into position with quick urgency before planting his two hands flat on the door, as if he had just been running.

His hair was dripping, plastered to his forehead. Rain ran from his jawline and onto a cut on his cheek that he didn't have.

And his eyes,

God.

"His eyes were wild."

“Aiden,” he whispered, taking me by the shoulders. “See that? Did he touch you?”

“I—I don't—” I stuttered, words choking my throat. “Ezra,

I ignored this question, tugging me closer into him; his hands were roaming over me, probing for injuries.

"Did he come inside?"

"No

"Breathing," he wheezed, his brow slanting against my shoulder. His fingers were digging into my arms. Too tight. Too desperate.

The light above flickered.

Ezra ceased. Ponderously, his head rose. “There's someone else present.”

“You?”These voices converted my cold lump into an icy furnace. “The edges of the room are closing in on me again. “Are you home?” “What are—”

“You came here. The same one that took her?” “No, we—”

“And then, behind him,” Mic

There was a figure that was tall and thin, barely beginning to reveal itself, crossing the ceiling. Like a plume of smoke. It was one of the spirits. The features warped in a scream as it swung back around Ezra.

"Ezra..

"He didn't turn,"

‘He just didn’t notice that.’

He never saw them. The sightless eyes of the ghost were on me, mouth open as though about to speak.

Or warn.

Ezra

His arm jerked me hard against him, wrenching at my wrist, and the lights went black with a loud snap.

Then the darkness engulfed us.

Ezra’s breath danced across my ear. "Stay with me."

I hadn't the chance to respond before something smacked against the outside of the door-BOOM-hard enough to rattle the dust loose in the ceiling.

"Shock upon shock. And another."

Ezra backed me behind him, his posture shifting from tense to menacingly serene in a split second. "He followed you," he repeated.

“E

The crack was in the doorframe.

“Your masked friend.”

Although he himself did "not bat an eyelid

My throat actually constricted. "You saw him?"

"Oh yes.” His voice fell to icy. "And he saw you.

It ceased thudding.

Silence.

"Now tell me," he continued, his eyes drilling into me. "What's happening at Sotheby's?"

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Ezra once cocked

"Bathroom," he whispered. "It's the safest place. Go."

“No,” Ezra said, “I won't let you go alone. I

His hand cradled my face, making mine meet his. His eyes relaxed, but not on me. "Aiden. Please." The word 'cracked' something inside my chest. 'Alright,' I nodded

Ezra didn’t notice this.

Or didn’t care.

“The pounding continued—closer this time.”

We were in the bathroom. He pushed me inside and locked the door. The tiny bathroom was suffocating under the darkness. Nothing but his breathing.

He knelt before me, his palms pressing against my legs for support. "Look at me," he said.

"So you're that person's lover." His eyes drilled into mine as the rest of the world narrowed to a point.

"You do not open the door for anyone but me," he whispered. "Not even if you hear my voice again," he added.

‘E

His fingers sank into my skin. “A man who dares think he can take you.”

My breathing stalled. “Why?”

Ezra drew closer, his lips hovering mere centimetres from my ear, and whispered, "There"

“Because you're mine.”

I literally skipped a beat.

He drew back far enough for me to see his face, though I didn’t need to. It was Levi. His eyes tracked every flicker and every tremble. There was a spark of fiery anger that lay just beneath the surface.

However, the sound of steps could be heard coming from outside the house.

Slow

Exploratory

Inside

Inside. I could feel the icy chill of my blood running through my veins. "He's got in," I whispered

The lines of his face hardened into a violent but controlled expression. He gave a mute shrug and took hold of the door-handle.

"Aiden," he growled low. "Whatever happens, don't scream

“Ezra

He looked back at me, and his smile was wrong. It was soft, but weird.

"I'll take care of him."

"Then he opened the door."

And he went out.

“The hallway swallowed him whole.*”

I stood frozen to the tile floor, panting, my heart stuck in my throat. The house seemed to groan with each movement that Ezra and the masked stranger made as they circled each other.

Then...

A crash.

A quick snuffle.

A thud sufficient to shake the walls.

A muffled voice,“

"Stay away from him,"

Ezra

It was my body which reacted before my brain actually did.

I stood up quickly, flinging open the door to the bathroom. "I had just come out of my room, and I saw that the corridor was open, with pieces of light filtering from the moon through a broken window." "And there

.." "A presence," I felt, I knew, I was afraid of " "At the end of the hall" Ezra loomed over a figure lying on the floor.

Man in a black hoodie.

Face occluded.

Mask broke.

“The hand of Ezra ran red.”

His eyes blazed, and I heard the heavy rise of his chest as he looked at me.

“Aiden,” he whispered, almost fondly. “Come here.

“I could not get my legs to move. I

"It's over," Ezra said, taking a tentative step towards me the way one would toward some sort of cornered creature. "You will never be hurt by him again."

But the body behind him-

The broken, distorted form- Angle

“It moved,” she said

A rasp of breath.

Ezra didn't catch that; he raised a hand to me.

"Come to me, Aiden."

Then the fingers of the mask began to quake.

His head came up. "Aiden, run," he breathed, his voice raw around the edges.