Gabriel?
Oh, he’d be down there in the game room right now, drunk as piss, probably getting his dick sucked by all the college girls.
I opened the door
How strange.
I wasn’t usually this easily frightened, susceptible to suggestions. . .
But tonight. . .
I was afraid.
And never in my therapeutic career had I felt afraid.
The long, dark hall loomed in front of me.
I was being ridiculous.
After all, the bathroom was not that far away. Just down this hall and to the left.
Why were all these lights out?I thought irritably. I couldn’t see a damn thing.
Carefully, I turned the lamp on right beside the door so I’d have at least one light to guide my way back.
I didn’t want to get lost, it was fucking freezing out here, and I was only wearing tiny little matching flowered pajama shorts and a pajama top.
My heart was pounding as I hurried down the hall, slipping through the darkness until my hand closed with relief on the bathroom doorknob.
But even the bathroom with its lovely, old-fashioned tiling failed to interest me.
All I could think about was.
What didhand her over to memean?
What in the world could Gabriel want with me, a professor 15 years older than he was!
I looked anxiously at myself in the mirror.
Long dark brown curls spilled out of my braid, making me look wild and unkempt, my eyes wide like a startled fawn behind my nighttime glasses.
And then something almost moved in the glass, something in the shadows behind me, something I couldn’t quite see, but I felt the danger.
I whirled around and bolted for the door.
And then I was running, my steps almost silent on the thick, plush carpet, the only sounds the jagged panting of my breath.
I rounded the corner, my hands outstretched so I wouldn’t slam into the stone corners or go headfirst out one of the narrow windows.
Where was the light?
I had just turned the old lamp on a few minutes ago!
What had happened to it?
Why was it so dark?
What if I went into the wrong room? Or got so turned around I didn’t know where I was?
