Dead Pretty

it out of my bag. I touch the screen, illuminating it, and turn on the Flashlight app.
Light shines out from my cell. But it’s not enough. It hardly illuminates anything.
My breath is coming in quicker. Fear of the dark starting to take over.
Calm down, Audrey.
I shine the flashlight down to the floor to find the things I dropped. I locate my keys and rape alarm. Bending down, I pick them up and pocket them. I put my bag down near the wall by the door.
I need to get the lights back on, but I can’t remember where the fuse box is.
Okay, so truth is, I don’t actually know where the fuse box is.
I’m not a practical person. I always relied on my dad and then Cole for this kind of thing.
Fucking fuck.
My anxiety is quickly building. I can feel fear and adrenaline starting to pump around my body.
I need to calm down.
I’m fine. It’s just a bulb that’s blown out. I’m not in any danger.
Deep breath.
I suck in some oxygen and slowly release it.
Right, if I were a fuse box, where would I be?
A cupboard maybe.
Think, Audrey. Do you remember any fuse-looking boxes in any of the cupboards in the kitchen?
Nope. But then would a fuse box even be in the kitchen?
Why don’t I know this?
Because you’re useless, Audrey.
I can’t even argue with myself on that one because it’s the truth.
Closet! In my bedroom!
There’s a white box up above the shelf where the hanging rail is. That’s surely got to be it.
Holding my cell in front of me, shining the light ahead, I start making my way toward my bedroom.
I see it the second I step into the hallway.
“Oh fuck. No.”
A dead rat. On the floor outside of my bedroom.
No.
My heart bangs hard against my ribs. Tremors run through my body. The hand holding my cell shakes.
My mind flashes to the first time I ever saw a dead animal, my memory dragging me back to a place I never want to go, rooting my feet to the spot.
Swinging open the door, I expect to find another one of those notes that this stranger has been leaving daily for me.
But there is no note.
Only a dead bird.
I didn’t know in that moment … I thought it had died of natural causes.
It hadn’t.
It was a gift from Tobias. One of his many sick gifts.
It’s starting again.
No. No, it’s not. This is a rat.
Not a bird or a cat.
A rat.
Calm down.
But I can’t seem to.
My pulse is beating wildly.
Rational thoughts only, Audrey.
There are a hundred reasons as to why a dead rat is in my apartment. It could have easily gotten inside.
Rats can do that. They can go anywhere.
Only it’s not a small rat. In terms of rat size, it’s definitely at the larger end of the scale.
It could have gotten in under the front door. They do that.
Not that I have a big gap under my door.
Maybe a window? It could have crawled in through a window.
Yeah, it shimmied up the drainpipe to the second floor and crawled in through my locked window.
Fear sprints down my spine, spinning me into action. My pulse is beating wildly in my ears.
I whirl around. My cell flies out of my hand.
Shit!
I hear my phone clatter to the floor, but I don’t have time to stop and look for it.
I have to get out of here.
I rush through my apartment, heading for the only exit I have—the front door.
There’s no outline of light around the door, meaning the lights are out in the hall too.
Breaths are panting out of me. Reaching the door in no time, I grab the handle and yank it open.
And a dark figure is standing there.

I don’t scream.
Instead, I yell, “Fire!” at the top of my lungs. Because that always brings people running.
Self-defense class taught me that screaming or calling for help will bring no one. But yell fire—actual danger—and people will come running straight toward it.
Then, I clench my fist and punch upward as hard as I can, upper-cutting, hoping to connect with some part of the person’s body. But it’s dark, and I can’t see a goddamn thing.
I hit bone—chin, I think—and pain explodes in my hand.
I hear a grunt of pain and then, “What the fuck, Audrey!”
Jack.
It’s Jack. And I just punched him in the face.
“What the hell are you doing, standing outside my front door?” I snap at him. My heart is knocking so hard against my ribs that I expect one of them to break at any moment.
“I knocked!” he exclaims. “I just wanted to check if your lights were out too!”
He knocked on my door?
I must not have heard him when I was too busy freaking out over the rat.
The big, dead rat that’s still in my apartment.
Fuck.
“We have to get out of here.” I try to shove him backward, so I can get past him, but he’s not budging.
Two strong hands curl around my upper arms, gripping them, stopping me. “Audrey, what the hell is going on?” His voice is gentle but firm.
“There’s—” I cut off, my jaw clenching tightly shut. Because what am I going to say? There’s a deceased rat in my apartment, and because of that, I think someone is here to kill me?
If Jack doesn’t already think I’m crazy, he most definitely would if I said that.
“Nothing. Nothing’s going on. You just startled me.”
“Audrey, you just screamed fire, punched me in the face, and then told me that we have to get out of here, so when you say nothing is going on, I kinda find that hard to believe. That, and the fact that your whole body is shaking.”
I’m shaking?
It takes me a second to realize that he’s right. And also that his hands are still holding on to my arms.
I step back out of his grasp and wrap my arms around myself to stave off the trembling in my body. “Well, it’s the truth. Nothing is wrong.”
There’s a