Chapter 3

Ingrid immediately pressed the record button on the front door cam, making doubly sure that everything would be saved and recorded. However, the screen flickered twice and turned black.

There was the sound of something breaking outside the door.

Tyler had smashed the camera.

Ingrid's face turned pale. She picked up the oxygen tank and tried to wheel me into the bedroom for safety. However, I kept my hand firmly on the wheelchair brakes.

We couldn't go into the bedroom.

In my past life, the first thing Tyler did after breaking into our house was unplug the CCTV camera in the living room before forcing Ingrid into the bedroom, where we didn't have a camera installed.

I had to stay in the living room. We had to stay here, no matter what! Even if the court couldn't get a testimony out of me, the CCTV footage would be more than enough evidence to convict Tyler!

Ingrid realized that the wheelchair wouldn't budge and hurriedly batted at my hand.

"Nick! Behave! We'll wait inside the bedroom for the people from the management office to come!"

I shook my head and lifted my floppy left hand, smacking it repeatedly against the CCTV recorder on the coffee table.

She followed my line of sight and finally understood what I was trying to say.

"You want to stay here with the CCTV camera?"

I didn't nod. I just spread my lips into a grin and stared at her with my usual silly smile.

The warning didn't go off in my head again.

Ingrid's eyes deepened with doubt, but there was no time to ask me about it any further.

A faint scraping sound came from the lock. Tyler was trying to pick the lock, and Ingrid's shoulders shook with every scrape we heard.

However, she still stood in front of my wheelchair, grabbing the pepper spray from the entryway cabinet.

It was a habit she'd developed after she started looking after me. She always shielded me behind her no matter what happened because I couldn't fend for myself.

She hurriedly fastened the safety chain on the door and even pushed the shoe cabinet against it to stall Tyler. Then, she called 911.

"Officer, someone's pretending to be a repairman from a repair platform and trying to break into my apartment! There's an immobile patient in the apartment. The address is Bayou Apartment, Unit 1203!"

The operator on the line told her to keep the line connected and stay away from the doors and windows.

Soon, the scraping sound stopped. Tyler's voice then sounded. "There's no use even if you called the police, Ingrid Sanford."

This was the first time he'd called her name in full. Ingrid's hand trembled hard.

"Who are you, really?" she demanded.

There was no answer from outside. A short while later, we heard Tyler's footsteps gradually fading away.

But still, Ingrid couldn't relax. She continued describing the situation to the police while checking all the doors and windows.

She checked the kitchen, the second bedroom, the bathroom, and every other window or entryway, making sure they were tightly shut and bolted from the inside.

She then sent another SOS message to the management office, asking them to immediately seal off our apartment entrance at once.

Miles finally started to get anxious. "The cameras show that the repairman just entered the fire escape three minutes ago, but he never went down the stairs. Make sure your doors are locked tight! We've sent our guards over!"

Tyler hadn't gone down the fire escape?

A flash of what happened in my previous life suddenly appeared before my eyes. The security door in the living room was intact, and there were also no signs of Tyler trying to break in from any of the windows. The police simply couldn't find how Tyler had managed to enter our apartment.

But after regaining my senses, I realized that, according to the old renovation plans, there had been an abandoned access door behind the wardrobe in our master bedroom. The door led to a utility access chamber outside the apartment building that was connected to the fire escape.

The developer had only nailed a thin board across the access door before handing over the keys to us. It was now covered up by the custom-made wardrobe that was fitted into place.

Tyler knew about it all along.

I frantically pounded on the armrests of my wheelchair, managing only a series of gasps and broken whimpers. My left arm was going numb, and my right arm still hung limply from my side.

I knew where the entrance was, but I couldn't even say a complete word like "bedroom". The voice in my head kept warning me that everything would be reset to the moment before Ingrid opened the door if I exposed myself now.

I could only pray that Ingrid would trust me one more time.

"In… In…"

Ingrid couldn't quite understand what I was trying to say. She crouched down and asked, "What? What's 'in'? Inside? Where?"

I then whirled my electric wheelchair to the side with the controls, knocking against the bedroom door again and again.

Ingrid finally came over with me to look. Suddenly, she heard the sound of wood breaking coming from inside the master bedroom.

Her face paled instantly.

"There's someone inside the bedroom…"

She quickly rushed me over to the front door, but the shoe cabinet was in the way. By then, Tyler's footsteps were already nearing us from the back.

When Ingrid looked back, she saw Tyler casually walking out of the master bedroom door. She instinctively held up the pepper spray with extremely shaky arms, but she didn't run. She still shielded me firmly behind her with a determined expression on her face.

Tyler grinned menacingly at her as though she was a lamb waiting to be slaughtered. He locked the bedroom door from the inside and looked right past her at my face.

"I never thought that you'd still be such a pain even after six years, you idiot."

Then, he retrieved a charred car emblem from his pocket and threw it at my feet.

"Looks like that car accident back then didn't kill you after all."