Chapter 4: The Second Night

I did not lock my door that night.

I told myself it was because the key stuck.

I got into bed in my sweater and a pair of cotton shorts and lay on my back with the lamp off.

Then I made myself breathe slowly, the way a sleeping person does, and I waited.

It was the second night, and I knew exactly what I was doing.

Nobody had dropped me on the stairs this time.

I had chosen it.

The house creaked as the storm leaned on the roof.

A little after midnight the handle turned.

Boots crossed the floor, more than two pairs, and none of them hurried.

"She's asleep," Stefan whispered. "Properly asleep. Look at her mouth."

"I told you," Jonas said. "She sleeps like the dead."

"Don't say that," Felix said from the doorway.

"Sorry."

Somebody set a chair down against the wall with great care.

A hand tucked the hair off my cheek, and I knew the rough thumb on my jaw was Tobias's.

He did not touch me anywhere else.

I heard him sit.

"I said I would watch," he said. "Go on."

"Tobias," Felix said.

"Go on, if you're going to."

The mattress dipped on my left, and Stefan lay down against my side, warm and heavy, smelling of woodsmoke.

His hand slid under my sweater and spread flat over my ribs.

"God, she's soft," he said, barely audible.

"Hurry up," Jonas muttered.

"She isn't going anywhere."

Stefan pushed the sweater up to my collarbone.

Keep reading free with an account. Start They Thought I Was Out Cold, So I Let All Four Keep Going from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.