Excerpt: Untitled

Her mother snorted. “So why didn’t you heat up what I fixed you? Don’t you know that’s, what, four pieces of bread and two or three pieces of meat, and do you know how much sugar’s in that oatmeal?”

Sarah grew tense, and she curled her toes into the carpet, shifting and cocking her hip. She knew she’d be here for awhile, so she might as well settle in. She set her food on the top stair and leaned against the banister, crossing her arms over her chest.

“It’s wheat bread and a wheat bun, and the meat is all made out of turkey,” she said. A dull throb bloomed in the back of her head, reminding her that a migraine was mostly likely on the horizon for round two, especially if she didn’t get some food in her and if her mother kept talking.

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Sarah glared at her screen and hit the tiny block button. “’Do you want to block bourbon from sending messages and reading your Tweets?’ Fuck yes,” she said, confirming the action. “You have blocked bourbon. If you later choose to unblock them, you can do so in the settings panel,” she read out loud. She wanted to hear some noise; her room was too quiet, and the window was still open. In fact…

Maybe now that it had been loosened up by whoever was opening and closing it she could try again and close it for good. Maybe nail the fucker down, she thought. However, when she looked over at her window, it was closed.

“Motherfuck, what the hell?” she whispered to herself before peering more closely at the window. There was something different about it other than the fact that it closed just now without her noticing.

A piece of paper was caught between the frames, simple – white and lined – and folded in two. Sarah hefted herself up and jerked the paper away from the window, staring at its blank side and hesitating to open it. She couldn’t help her curiosity, though.

The scrawl scratched across the paper was ornate, decadent, something fine and practiced with tall curves and precise points and crosses. She swallowed. It was intimidating in and of itself, and that was without reading it.

Dear Sarah, it said, I told you something so trivial would not stop me. We shall be seeing each other soon.

Sarah dropped the paper, staring at it like it was poisoned after that. “Shit,” she hissed, and then for good measure, “Shit, fuck, fire hell dammit what the fuck.”

She was sure that she imagined the quiet laugh she heard following that, deep and masculine and definitely sinister. Still in all, imagined or not, it sent a chill up her spine and made the tiny hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stand up.