Someone's Listening by Seraphina Nova Glass

Author:Seraphina Nova Glass
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graydon House Books
Published: 2020-05-27T12:42:24+00:00

NINETEEN

After a few minutes of trying to slow my breathing on the hallway floor, a dog comes bounding down the corridor and starts to force his nose under my chin to lift my head. I look up and see Marty running after him, leash in hand.

“Sorry,” he hollers before he gets to me. Then he sees the state I’m in. “Oh my God, are you okay? What’s the matter?” I can’t answer. It takes me a second before I can catch my breath.

“Sss...sorry,” I manage to say. “I’m okay.” I try hard to speak. I’m so embarrassed.

“Christ. You’re not okay. Can I help you inside?” He crouches next to me, offering to help me up. I go through my four breaths in my head one more time. I force myself to gain control. I dig in my purse, scrambling for a Klonopin. I find one and put it under my tongue.

“I can’t. I don’t want to go in,” I say, pulling away as he offers a hand. He doesn’t know what to do, I can tell. He probably wishes to God he didn’t stumble upon me and now he feels stuck, but I really just want him to go.

“I’ll be fine. Sorry. Thanks,” I say, but he sits next to me and waits for me to calm down. Once I can speak normally, I apologize ten more times.

“I need to call the cops before I go in.”

“Cops? Did something happen? What—did someone hurt you?” he asks, confused.

“No. I just—I’ve been getting some threats, and I found another one just now. I need to call... I don’t know if it’s safe to go in.”

“Okay, I’ll call. Don’t worry.” He stands and calls. After a minute of listening to him try to explain what he doesn’t really understand, he hands the phone to me.

“They want to talk to you.” As I walk them through the history, they put me through to Detective Sterling, and I’m sure Marty heard me explain the whole story, although he’d walked away down the hall to politely give me my space. When I hang up, he and Figgy come back over.

“They on their way?” he asks.

“Yeah.” I am still shaking. “Thanks.” We stand there awkwardly. He tries to fill the silence, which, from the little I know, doesn’t seem like his quiet nature. He’s obviously uncomfortable.

“You don’t have to wait. It could take forever.” I say this, but to my surprise, I don’t want him to go.

“I don’t mind. You don’t really look like you should be alone.”

“I look a mess. God, I’m so embarrassed.”

“Don’t be,” he says, then silence again. “Sorry about Figgy. He won’t take his walk in this sleet, so we were making our rounds down the halls. I should have had him on the leash.”

“Oh, he’s fine.” I pat Figgy’s head. “Helpful actually. Is he trained to help people...like a therapy dog or something?”

“Kind of, I guess. My wife brought him to some kind of training like that. Not sure exactly what it was called, but yeah, he’s good like that.

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