Tag: suspense

Slowly he began to wake.

Night sounds falter, eerily silent . . .

Then not so silent.

Running water.

Logan could hear the sound of running water.

That instantly snapped him awake and he bolted upright, ignoring the resulting stab of pain between his eyes and the flash of dizziness that made him want to lay straight back down.

Amelia.

The bath where he’d put her to perform first aid on her burn was empty.

She was gone.

All he remembered was Amelia’s eyes growing wide, her shrieking his name, and then something slamming into his head.

Now whoever had broken into her home, set it on fire, and then followed them here had taken her.

Springing to his feet – or staggering might be more accurate – he ran to his bedroom intending to call for help.

Instead he skittered to a stop in the doorway.

Amelia wasn’t gone.

She was here.

Lying naked and spreadeagled on his bed, her wrists and ankles tied to the corners of the bed with rope. The burn on her leg was red, blistered, and peeling, with a kind of yellowy liquid oozing out. On her chest there were bloody marks, as he stepped closer he saw what they were. The marks spelled out a word. Butterfly.

Logan ran to her and touched his fingertips to her neck checking for a pulse.

Relief left him shaking when he found one.

They were both alive.

None of this made any sense. Hopefully when Amelia woke up she could shed some light on this very unusual situation.

A loud explosion startled her.

What was that?

Something was roaring and crackling, and she turned her head towards the sound then immediately wished she hadn’t.

Her house was on fire.

Not just on fire it was a raging inferno.

Tears were rolling down her cheeks, she was aching all over, she was scared and confused, and hot . . .

Her house wasn’t just on fire it had exploded and burning pieces of debris were everywhere. One had landed right beside her and Logan, and it had caught the edge of her pajama pants on fire.

That should hurt.

Amelia knew that.

But she was caught in some kind of fog that protected her from feeling pain.

When the house blew up Logan had thrown himself over her, but now he seemed to realise something was wrong. He darted up, took one look at her, then snatched her up and ran with her.

She didn’t really no where.

Suddenly the light was too bright.

She could hear sirens but they were muffled.

Then her pajamas were wet.

Why were they soaking wet?

She thought she should know the answer but she didn’t.

“Amelia?” Logan’s voice floated through the fog to her.

“Yeah?” she said, because she knew he wanted her to say something.

“Are you with me? It looks like you zoned out, I need you with me, okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed, and tried really hard to focus. They were inside now, in a bathroom, she assumed it was Logan’s, he’d put her in the bath and was running cold water. “I’m cold,” she said, starting to shake.

“Your PJs caught fire, your leg got burned, we’re going to try to keep it as cool as we can while we wait for the paramedics,” he said, speaking slowly as though he thought she might not still be quite with him.

The fog that had descended on her was evaporating by the second, and as it went the pain in her leg came back. Along with the shock of everything that had happened tonight.

At least she was safe now. She no longer believed that Logan was a threat to her, he was just her sexy cop neighbour who had saved her life.

She was about to thank him when movement caught her attention.

Someone else was here.

“Logan,” she shrieked a split second too late as someone sprung into the room and knocked Logan out.

Now she was on her own.

Logan scanned the dark street and immediately zeroed win on the house across the street. There was an open window upstairs, he could tell because a curtain was fluttering.

HIs gaze dropped to the ground beneath the window and he saw her.

Amelia.

His adorable neighbour who pretended that she didn’t watch him while he worked in his yard or played with his dog or left for work. He had intended to go over, introduce himself, ask her out, but he’d been swamped, between moving and a heavy caseload, including a high profile case, he just hadn’t found the time.

Now it seemed they were about to meet.

He ran across the street, when he reached her he found her eyes open, staring blankly up at the cloudy sky. She started when he leaned over her, their eyes met, then she opened her mouth and screamed at the top of her lungs.

Instead of being startled, Logan had to smile. It was this very same scream that had woken him up and alerted him that something was wrong. If she hadn’t screamed then her fate would have been sealed.

“Its okay,” he said, reaching out tentatively and touched her shoulder. Not so much because he didn’t want to scare her, but more because he didn’t want to hurt her, she’d just jumped out of a second story window. “I’m a cop, my name is Logan, I live right across the street.”

“Logan,” she breathed, like she wasn’t sure him being here was a good idea.

“I already called in back up, can you tell me what happened? What made you scream?”

She didn’t answer him. Instead she just stared at him with a lopsided smile. “You’re even cuter up close,” she said, then giggled and immediately winced. “Omg cant breathe can’t move.”

“You probably broke some ribs when you jumped out the window,” he said with an amused smile. He had to agree with what she’d said, she was even cuter up close. “Can you tell me what happened?” He had to know what was going on so he knew what his next move was.

“I’m embarrassing myself,” she grimaced.

“Not at all,” he assured her.

“I woke up because something was touching me. Thought it was the cat. It wasn’t. It was a man,” she relayed haltingly.

Protective instincts rushing into overdrive, Logan went to stand but Amelia reached out a hand and curled it into the sweatpants he slept in. “I’ll be right back,” he promised.

That seemed to freak her out. “No, thats what people say in horror movies before they die. Don’t go, please.”

He was going to argue with her, remind her that this wasn’t a horror movie it was real life, and that he was a cop, he knew what he was doing, but he was preempted when Amelia’s house suddenly burst into flames.

Something tickled her cheek.

Amelia swatted at it and rolled over in bed. She didn’t want to wake up yet, not when she and Logan were about to rip each other’s clothes off.

Dreams were so amazing.

Pretty much the only place a shy girl like her could get the man of her dreams.

She was just drifting back off to sleep when something tickled her cheek again.

Was it her cat?

Fairy had a habit of batting at her face in the middle of the night, insisting it was morning and she be delivered her breakfast.

“Its too early, Fairy,” she mumbled, snuggling down under her blankets.

Breathing.

She could hear breathing.

And not cat breathing.

With a gasp she bolted upright.

There was someone in her bedroom.

She didn’t even think about what she was doing, she just opened her mouth and screamed at the top of her lungs, then launched herself off the bed and out the window, which she kept open even in the middle of the middle because she liked to be warm during the day but cold at night.

Her bedroom was on the second floor and she went rolling down the roof then she was falling.

And falling.

It seemed to take forever for her to hit the ground.

When she did it pain flared through her body.

She wasn’t sure how badly she was hurt.

Before she could even contemplate moving a figure appeared above her. It was dark out, and cloudy, snow was fluttering down around her, she couldn’t make out the features.

Then light blinded her and the face leaned closer.

Logan.

It was Logan.

Was Logan playing her game? Afterall he is a cop. Wait that didn’t make any sense. Was that what she meant to think? No, she meant was Logan the man who had been in her bedroom? He was a cop he wouldn’t have broken in.

Amelia opened her mouth and screamed again.