Chapter 16 The Black Car Outside My Window
Celene's POV
I knew something was wrong the second I opened the door.
Daniel wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t smug. He wasn’t doing that annoying thing where he leaned against the doorframe like he still belonged there.
He was pale, sweaty, and breathing too fast.
His eyes kept darting past me, over my shoulder, down the hallway, like he expected someone to jump out of the walls.
“What do you want, Daniel?” I asked, already tired.
“I just… I need to talk to you,” he said. His voice cracked halfway through the sentence. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I need to talk to you. Now.”
I crossed my arms. “You’ve talked enough.”
Daniel was standing outside my door like he’d run the whole way there.
His hair was messy, shirt was wrinkled, breathing uneven. He kept shifting his weight, glancing past me into the hallway, then down the stairs, then back at my face like he was trying to memorize it.
“What do you really want this time? Do you want to finish the job you started last time, huh? What is it? ” I asked again. He flinched. Weird...I've never seen Daniel flinch like that before.
“N-nothing. I mean— I just need to talk. Just for a minute.”
I crossed my arms. “You said that the last three times you showed up uninvited.”
“I know, I know, I just—” He swallowed hard. “This is different.”
That alone made me tired. They would be nothing different he had to tell me. I could bet on it.
“Say what you need to say,” I said. “I’m not inviting you in.”
He nodded too quickly. “Okay. Okay, that’s fine. That’s fine.” He said but his eyes slid past me again.
I frowned. “Why do you keep looking behind me?”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, then dragged a hand down his face.
“The guy we talked about last time... your boyfriend, did you tell him about me?” he said.
I blinked. “What?”
“Don’t do that,” he snapped, then immediately lowered his voice again. “Don’t lie to me right now. I’m not in the mood for games.”
I let out a short laugh before I could stop myself. “Daniel, if this is another attempt to mess with my head, you picked a really bad day.”
“Does… does he come around here often?”
I stared at him. “Who?”
“Your boyfriend.”
I let out a sharp breath. “ What are you talking about? I have told you, Daniel. I don’t have a boyfriend.”
Daniel laughed, but there was nothing amused about it. It came out wrong. Broken.
“Right,” he said. “Of course you’d say that.”
“This is not funny,” I said. “What are you talking about?”
He leaned closer, lowering his voice like the walls had ears. “The man. The one who told me to stay away from you.”
My stomach tightened.
“This story again? What man, Daniel?”
His eyes widened. “You’re serious.”
“Yes,” I snapped. “Daniel, stop doing this.”
“I’m not making it up,” he said quickly. “He came to me. Out of nowhere. He knew my name, he knew things about me.”
I shook my head at him. “You’re trying a new angle. Is that it? Scare me into talking to you again?”
“No,” he said. “I’m trying to warn you.”
That made me pause.
“Warn me about what?”
He hesitated. Looked over his shoulder again.
“About him.”
“There is no him,” I said. “You’re inventing a person because you can’t handle the fact that I don’t want you, anymore.”
“I wish that was true,” he muttered.
My patience snapped at that point. I really did not have the grace and strength to be scared at that point. “Daniel, you don’t get to show up here, act unhinged, and accuse me of hiding some imaginary boyfriend.”
“He’s not imaginary,” Daniel said. His voice was shaking now. “He told me what would happen if I didn’t leave you alone. I swear, every time i rememberhow he came to me in that black car, i dont know how i feel.”
I felt a flicker of something cold under my ribs. Black car... the same black car?
“What did he tell you would happen?”
Daniel licked his lips. “Everything.”
I scoffed, but the sound came out weaker than I meant it to. “You expect me to believe some mystery man threatened your entire life?”
“Because that’s exactly what’s happening,” he said. “I lost my job, my funding, my livelihood. People won’t even answer my calls anymore.”
“That has nothing to do with me.”
“It started after you,” he said. “After him...Celene...”
I shook my head, trying not to believe it. “You need help.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “But not the kind you’re thinking.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then he looked at me again, really looked, like he was searching for something on my face.
“Does he know you’re alone right now?” he asked.
My skin prickled. “That’s not your business.”
“Is he watching you right now? Will he watch if i go crazy and grab you right here? What about if I dragged you inside? Huh?” Daniel said. “will he watch you then too?”
“Stop,” I said. “You’re crossing a line.”
“He told me to forget you,” Daniel whispered. “Like you were already his.”
My own anger flared, coming to my defence at his words. “That’s enough. You’re leaving.”
“Ok, ok... I'll stop. Ask him to stop too,” Daniel blurted out. “Please.”
I stared at him. “Stop what? Youre a prick and you deserve every bad thing happening to you”
Daniel laughed again, breathlessly like a crazy person. “You really don’t know.”
“I know you’re scaring yourself,” I said. “And you’re trying to scare me with you.”
“I’m scared because I should be,” he said. “And so should you.”
My heart was beating faster now. I hated that I could feel it.
“You need to go,” I said, firmer. “Before I call someone.”
Daniel backed away slowly, eyes still darting, still searching the shadows like they might move.
“Tell him I’m done,” he said. “Tell him I won’t touch you. I won’t even think about you anymore, please, Cee... please.”
"There's no one after you but your bad karma, Daniel. If you really did all those things you say they are accusing you of, it was just a matter of time before the law caught up with you" I said feeling a little bolder with every word I said.
For a second, he looked angry, like he was about to do what he always did and try to hurt me, but instead, he paused, looked behind me with pure fear in his eyes before he turned and hurried down the stairs.
I shut the door harder than I meant to.
For a long moment, I just stood there, listening to the silence.
Then I locked the door. My chest felt tight. I told myself it was jist leftover irritation. That Daniel was just escalating his usual tactics.
But when I finally gathered the nerve to go to the window....
There was a black car parked across the street.