Chapter 39

Then, with the help of my precious Jack, I opened the door. The room was empty and none of the flowers I had brought from the day David had surprised me were here, there was no trace of the fear I had felt that day.

I put my bag in the cupboard and took out my cell phone before clicking the lock, a few messages covered the screen but I ignored them and put the device in my pocket. I didn't want to know anything other than the records and my patients today.

Jack helped me find out what was happening on the ward, there were some new patients and others had been transferred to the infirmary. Elai was one of the patients who remained on the ward and even though it was bad that he was still there, it brought me some relief that I wasn't completely alone with new patients.

"Oh, that's great." Mrs. Jones mumbled as she passed my room.

She didn't need to continue her sentence, I knew very well that she wasn't happy about my return. She didn't understand, or didn't want to understand, that patients were more than diagnoses and medicine consumers, and knowing that I treated them like people seemed to infuriate her.

"Witch," Jack muttered, sitting down in the chair that faced my desk.

I laughed, perhaps now my peace was beginning to return. At least until one of the attendants knocked on my door and came in with a solitary rose with two small daisies wrapped in a card, which she left on my desk and apologized for disturbing me for leaving before I could say thank you.

"You've barely arrived and you're already being flirted with, it must be the old man from room 502." I smiled at Jack before looking back at my desk.

Then I picked up the note and took a deep breath before biting my cheeks to hold in my anger.

"One for each thing you do with him."

After one night and two kisses, I knew what he meant. David's curved, slightly sensual handwriting painted the paper of the note, I knew it was him. My chest tightened with anguish and the fear that he would do something worse than Mike had done.

Until then, David had simply stalked me, manipulated me, and nothing more. What worried me was that he hadn't intervened in what Ben and I had done, especially as he knew about it, even though we were alone in the room.

A painful chill ran down my spine, there was no way David could have known that I had slept with Ben unless there were cameras in his house too. This caused me to gasp for breath for a few seconds until Jack shook me awake and brought me back to the present moment.

David wasn't going to stop and if Ben was in any danger because of him, then I should get away from everyone and start again from scratch. Forget that I once lived here and that I had a family in the next town.

My body felt like it had gone into a fridge and the shaking made my body shiver again, maybe the peace was just a way for David to show that he was around.

I went about my day as I had been doing for the last few weeks, trying to ignore how much I was still being watched. I finished with the patients at the hospital and it was time to rush off to college, to face the huge number of slacker students and lazy teachers.

That was all I needed to complete my day.

Mr. Matthew was the quietest, which made me pay more attention in class than taking notes and sending emails to the coordinator.

No sign of David or even Jess, the snakes had lost their queen some time ago and after that, I began to think that she had dropped out of postgraduate school. Which I already imagined would happen, although I still tried to believe that she was more than just nails and hair.

At the end of class, Mr. Matthew assigned me to take the materials to the teacher's room, which wasn't difficult since he didn't have that much material.

I went down the elevators and turned left into the room, put the materials on the table, and left. The teachers' room was close to the office and therefore close to the exit, so all I had to do was go straight across the campus and soon I was out.

Surprisingly it was quiet, with no David behind me or the bad feeling I had when I was at my mother's house. Mike was gone.

I crossed the rest of the campus and Ben was on the other side of the street, waiting for me leaning on his car. His size helped with that little detail.

"What's so funny?" He got into the car and I noticed his gaze on me, a little bigger than it used to be before we spent the night together and it made me blush as much as it made my heart heavy. "Wait, am I the joke?"

I laughed, closing the door.

"Maybe."

"Don't you dare stop telling me, or I'll have to charge you later," Ben grumbled, adjusting the gear to get us out. "Hey..."

I threw my bag on the floor of the car and reached down to fasten my seatbelt to my body before turning around to see what he wanted, I was pulled against him.

"Hell." I cursed after being kissed without even expecting it.

"Rough woman." He laughed, pulling the car away. "And fuck, I like that."

I smiled, not as much as I would have liked. David had invaded my mind earlier today and he stayed in it for the rest of the day.

Maybe I loved him, it drove me crazy. To love a guy who stalked me and watched me at every moment, maybe even the intimate ones. It could be a possibility and maybe he was right, he was the only one who could take me to heights I'd never reached. Ben was incredible, but he didn't get me anywhere near what David did.

He had marked me and addicted me to every single thing he introduced me to. His needy kisses, his precise touches, and his perfume.

I honestly didn't know what else to do about it, apart from trying with all my might to forget him.

It didn't take us long to get to the house, Ben turned on the lights and grabbed two bottles and a packet of crisps before we came across a small box on the counter, my heart raced when Ben also realized there was something strange.

It hadn't been there when we arrived.

Ben picked it up slowly and joined me in the living room, leaving it in the middle of the coffee table.

"That's fucking bizarre." He sighed, sitting down next to me.

We stared at it for long minutes before I finally answered him with something other than a grumble.

"About as bizarre as receiving a broken mannequin hand in a box full of red paint." I shrugged, hoping that now I wasn't human at all.

"My brother is bizarre..." he grunted. He grunted. "That little shit, I'm going to have him committed as soon as I can find him. My parents would go mad just knowing what he's up to."

I sighed, fear was now beginning to take over my body and now I didn't need to get anything from David I had already understood his message.

He was still watching me.

This made me look around the house for anything that looked like a camera, but the fear of the box brought me back to the present. We needed to open the box and one thing I was sure of, there was something wrong.

"Shit, that's a lot of shit..." I muttered, looking at the stylus that Ben had stretched out to get from the drawer under the television.

"That's not even close, redhead." He sighed, tearing the tape that held the lid on the box.