The Stranger by Kiersten Modglin

Author:Kiersten Modglin [Modglin, Kiersten]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-31T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

TIBBY

I don’t know how I managed to fall asleep in a room with this stranger, but somehow I did. I use the word sleep lightly. I slept, though not well. I tossed and turned, uncovered and covered, struggling to find a way to be comfortable. When I’m fully awake again, I realize the struggle was likely more internal than external.

I survey the room slowly. It’s still dark out, and the clock on the nightstand tells me it’s just minutes after two in the morning.

I check Walker’s bed from where I’m lying and notice it’s empty. Instantly, I sit up, taking in my surroundings from the new angle. The bathroom door stands open, light off.

“Walker?” I call, my heart picking up speed as I realize I’m alone in the dark without a clue where he is.

I stand from the bed, jumping far away from the edge so a monster doesn’t get my feet. As a fully grown adult, I still reserve the right to do that, thank you very much, especially after the night I’ve had.

I peek out the window, staring into the dark parking lot, and breathe out a sigh of relief.

His car is still there. He hasn’t left me. I don’t know why I feel so much comfort over that realization, but I know that I hate it.

I hate myself for trusting him, for wanting to stay with him, for telling him anything about me, and for falling asleep.

I’ve gotten weak. Careless. Trusting.

I move around to the nightstand and flip on the lamp, placing my leg on the bed to check my wound. The towel Walker wrapped around my calf fell off in my sleep and there are just a few pieces of toilet tissue still stuck to it, but it seems to have stopped bleeding, though there is dried blood all across my shin. I pull the tissues off and toss them into the trash before slipping on my boots and stepping outside.

I need to find him, to make sure we’re okay. That everything’s okay.

My breath freezes in the air in front of me, forming a white puff of fog. The snow has finally stopped, at least for now, and the world around me is silent.

“He went that way,” a man’s voice says from my left. I jump at the sound, turning to face it. The man standing there looks to be in his fifties or sixties, with thin, graying hair slicked back over his head and a silver mustache.

“Huh?”

“You looking for the manager? He just went that way.”

“Oh.” My heart plummets. “No, I wasn’t, but thanks.”

He shrugs, puffing on the cigarette between his lips before pulling it away and flicking the ash. “Figured your room is probably as shitty as ours. Heat barely works. No TV. I just got him to come fix some things, so you can catch him if you need anything. Before he goes back to bed,” he scoffs, rolling his eyes.

“I’m okay. Did you… Did you see another man by any chance?”

He squints, staring into space.

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