Tom had convinced Andy to spend the majority of the day sitting in a chair waiting for Lilith to come to, but she never did. He was in the middle of scrolling through Facebook on his phone when Tom walked in the kitchen door and set a clusterfuck of bags down on the table. Of course, Andy couldn't see him, but he could hear him. The plastic rustled and Tom leaned against the doorframe.
"Still out?"
"Yep." Andy reached back and tapped his ashes over the fireplace. Normally, Andy refused to smoke in the house. When his grandmother lived here, she was on oxygen and would say, 'You're not helping me breathe any better with those damn things'. He grinned, remembering her, and dropped his phone in his lap. He sat his arm on the back of the chair and sat his chin on it.
The fire warmed his back and crackled gently. Tom stood and walked into the hall and the bathroom. The door shut with a thud and the house was quiet. Andy couldn't help but stare at her asleep on the couch. She had been so scared in the truck- throwing her legs out and even clawing at his face.
The feel of her fingers grabbing at his face and her wide, horrified eyes staring at him had gotten him hard. Not that he normally did this to women. He enjoyed things rough, yes, but the rush of her going limp beneath him was exhilarating.
Andy looked at Lilith and ran his thumb over his lip. He understood the fear women had about men and it thrilled him to a point, but nowhere as much as it did seeing the fight leave her eyes. Andy was not a rapist. He was also never very fond of sharing emotional connections with anyone, but last night had been one of the most amazing nights of his life. Who knew it was so easy to get women to trust you?
Her silky purple robe had been pulled open, revealing her porcelain skin stomach. She wasn't necessarily skinny, and he liked that. Women with a little bit of weight here and there looked relaxed and comfortable. His skin prickled. He was focusing too much on her body. She wasn't his and even though she wasn't really Tom's, it still felt like a violation to be staring at her like this.
His eyes fell further and ran over the band of gray wrapped around her hips. The side of the robe draped over her stomach as she rolled onto her chest. Her arm squeezed the little pillow and her blonde hair curtained her face. This brought a whole new horizon to study. The small of her back that rolled up over her-.
"You should start dinner," said Tom, as he moved into the room and Andy ran his fingers through his hair. He checked the time on the wall and sat up, sliding his eyes back over Lilith. She wasn't going to get up anytime soon.
"'Kay. You gonna watch her now?" He said, before flicking the butt of his cigarette into the fire. The flames swallowed it.
Tom, dripping with water and buttoning up his jeans, waved his hand through the air dismissively. He wasn't planning on it. He had some other things to work on before dealing with her.
"She'll be fine," came the answer, but Andy just shrugged walking past him. It was true. It's not like she could've gone anywhere.
"Chicken?" He asks, standing in the kitchen.
"I was thinking stuffed peppers," Tom says, grabbing the chair from in front of the fireplace and carrying it back to the dining table. Andy had thrown his jean vest on the table and was washing something in the sink.
He didn't look like the 'homemaker' type in his sleeveless band shirts and combat boots, but he was. He had spent the majority of his life taking care of his family. It was a very bad idea to call him a housewife, though. A couple of people had made that mistake before.
"Mushrooms?" Andy asked, already gathering the food out of the fridge. Tom hummed a yes and went back down the hallway.
Andy sliced the long green peppers and chopped off the ends. He threw the seeds in the sink and laid them inside up on a baking sheet on the stove. Their kitchen was just a section of the room between two walls, like a little square. On one side was the doorway to the living room, and on the other was the washer and dryer.
He pulled the chicken out of the fridge and set the bowl on the counter behind him. Andy started cooking when he was six years old with the help of his grandmother. It was a natural talent.
He mixed some cream cheese in a bowl with the mushrooms and some cheese and spooned it into the peppers on top of the strips of chicken. He pulled out a long strip of tin foil.
Lilith opened her eyes.
The first thing she noticed after waking up was the fire. It cast warm, dark light over her face, causing the shadows of the room to leech forward and erase all the detail from the room. The soft noises from the next room echoed around her head. A pounding panged to life in her skull and blended with the noises of the house.
The fear didn't hit her until she sat up and realized she was still in her robe. She took a deep breath in and pulled the belt tight around her. She slipped her legs over the edge of the couch and touched the brown carpet with her socks. Nothing looked familiar.
Lilith pushed her hair back behind her ears and searched her wrists for her hairband. It wasn't there. She couldn't remember where she was. Her head was splintering. She could smell her shampoo so that meant she had just taken a shower.
There was a monster in the mirror wearing her face. The rain had dragged down her makeup and the ends of her hair were soaked.
She groaned and grabbed her head. She was afraid to stand up. This was the worst hangover she had ever experienced. Her skull was pounding. Beep. She moaned against the screeching sound. Beep. Beep. The alarm was ringing through her, pushing against the back of her eyes. An alarm? She thought before looking up.
"They're evacuating."
She wanted to lay back down and deal with this all later, but something coming down the hall made her lookup. It was a man. A tall man with dark auburn hair and narrow, light eyes.
"You're awake," He says, smiling, and looking a little awkward. She felt a pang of worry go through her. Had she done something embarrassing? This was starting to feel like a drunken disaster.
"Did I pass out or something?" She asks, standing up. She put her hand on the edge of the armrest as a wave of dizziness overcame her. She took a step towards him.
"Tom," He called, before leaning against the wall. She tilted her head, looking at the wall, and bit the inside of her lip. That name sounded familiar. She couldn't put her finger on it, because every time something started coming to her, the pain would hit again.
Another guy came from the kitchen, but he leaned against the door frame. She looked up and her smile dropped... She stared into his stormy eyes and a shiver passed through her.
Andy.
He covered her mouth, pinched her nose, and put his weight on her. Feeling her fight against him was better than any high he had ever had. He was kneeling over her, and she was throwing her arms out at his face. They grabbed and scratched, but they lost force with every passing second. She looked up into his eyes and started crying.
His eyes were watching her with everything he had. A feeling that he had never felt in his life washed over him. It built up and when her harsh smacks became slow touches he let out a groan.
Lilith's lungs burned and she sucked in against his grip, nothing but fire swirled inside her. She wasn't ready to die. He pressed his free hand into her chest. Her throbbing lungs stopped. His skin was so soft. She felt tears roll down her face and empty darkness started pulling her back. She wished she could rip it all off. Then her arms fell limp and she was unconscious.
The fear and recognition flashed in her eyes before she screamed. Goosebumps swarmed Andy's body and she stepped back, falling next to the couch, her eyes the size of two half dollars. Her robe fell open and she found that she couldn't move. She could only see his eyes staring down at her, and feel his fingers on her face.
Tom didn't know what to feel. He could tell that she was alight with horror, and Andy seemed to be the core of it. Tom looked over to Andy and saw his shoulders straighten as his jaw tensed. Tom frowned. Andy then stepped toward her and she let out another blood curdling scream.
She inched back, but Andy wrapped his hand through her hair and pulled her up. She took a tentative step and squeezed her eyes shut.
"For a moment, I thought you might've forgotten me," he bit his smile back, trembling with excitement. She grabbed his hand and tried to pry her hair free, but he just slammed his foot into her body. She dropped like a sack of flour. He stood over her.
"I have food to cook," He said, with a confident smile, and turned her chin with the toe of his boot. He passed Tom and scoffed with a smirk. Tom was left standing, glancing occasionally around the room.
Lilith was trembling, blinking rapidly trying to keep the tears at bay. She had never been hit before. She pulled her knees up to her chest and saw out of the corner of her eyes that Tom was looking at her. He was a tall man but was a couple of inches shorter than Andy. He had a proper look about the way he held himself.
She thought that he was going to grab her too, but instead, he just gestured for her to come. Shaking, she slowly moved towards him and he put his hand on her upper back. He guided her down the hall to the first door on the left and stepped away.
"Stay." He commanded, before walking into the door on the right. It was a bedroom, she noticed, as he pushed the door to. Thoughts started waterfalling through her, pushing the pain away. Andy had taken her from her home. Her mother was probably already at the apartment.
Wait. She reached into her robe and the hard lump of her phone brushed against her fingers. She yanked her hand out. Thank god. She ran her hands over her stomach. She winced and traced over the foot-shaped bruise. It was already turning a deep red.
Tom opened the door and placed a stack of clothes in her hands. He raised his brows and ran his fingers over his eyebrow in thought. He was dressed well in a midnight blue button up and had the sleeves rolled up.
"Change into these," he said, looking at her, and then gave her a soft push into the bathroom. He reached in and switched on the lights. "Put your clothes here." He pointed at the counter and shut the door, looking a little distracted. She stepped forward and looked into the mirror.
It wasn't pretty. There were yellowing bruising around her mouth and purple dots where his fingers had curled around her and forced her head down. She touched them and frowned. She pulled her robe open, stopping to look at the red splotch, and slid the robe off. She folded it and laid it on the counter.
She picked up the t-shirt and pulled it on, then picked up the jeans. She stopped and frowned. She had this exact pair of jeans at home. How did they know what size-
The phone. She pulled on the jeans and dug out the phone. She locked the door and walked over to the window and turned the phone on. It took a couple of tries and pulling out the battery and putting it in again before it lit up.
She wondered how he had forgotten her phone, but when her home screen popped up and she pulled up the contacts, she understood. There wasn't a signal. She waved it around the window and cursed. After a couple of minutes of dancing around the room, holding it above her head she turned it off and crammed it into her bra. She grabbed the window snaps and pushed them up. They didn't budge.
There was a knock at the door.
"Come out," he said. Lilith looked in the mirror and made sure the phone was hidden. There wasn't another knock. She unlocked the door and slowly opened it. Tom reached out and took her chin, turning her face side to side, then took in her overall appearance. Her chest tightened and she had the urge to slap him. Why did everyone think they could look at her like that?
"Stop it," she said, heart pounding. "Stop looking at me like that." Her voice threatened to crack. She wanted to burst into tears. Tom saw her curl in on herself, sliding her arms around her body.
"Out." He moved so she could step into the hallway. Then suddenly a chill went through her.
"Nora!" Tom tensed up. He expected her to snap, but this was happening a little quicker than he had hoped. Then she took off into the kitchen.
Lilith stood at the edge of the dining table staring straight at Andy. He looked up from his phone and crossed his arms.
"Who?"
"You know damn well who I mean," she hissed, tears already wetting her face. She leaned into a step and Andy stood up. She balled up her fists. Andy squatted down to look her in the face and gave her an ugly grin.
"Oh, you mean your shitty little cat?"
And that was it. For the first time in Lilith's whole life, she started a fight. A fight that she was ill prepared for, but emotionally wired for. She had punched him and he stumbled back, hitting his ass on the hardwood floor. It wasn't the only punch she threw, but they probably didn't hurt. She knew that she didn't have much force to throw, but the thought of him hurting her child was enough to send her off the deep end.
Tom had seen him sit down at the table. Lilith knocked him over with the first hit and now she was on top of him throwing more. Tom didn't think she would attack him after he kicked her. He was blocking most of them, and barely caring to fight back when she grabbed two handfuls of his hair and slammed his head into the floor.
Lilith was audibly sobbing. So, when Tom stood up and lifted her off of Andy she shouted, "I'll kill you!" She was kicking, so Tom had to really hold onto her. "I'll kill you if you've hurt her."
Andy stood up. She had busted his lip and he wiped it with his shoulder.
"You should be worried about yourself, sweetheart." He stepped towards her, but she spits on him. If Tom hadn't pulled her back, Andy probably would've strangled her.
Tom, over the fight already, sat Lilith in the end chair and pushed her right up to the table. Then he looked to Andy and he threw himself back into his seat. Blood came back to the cut on his lip and he sucked on it. Andy was on fire. The kind of fire that made him want to leap across the table and slam the little bitch into the wall until there was nothing left.
"She's in the fucking box in the room." He crossed his arms and stared at Lilith. Tom nodded.
"In a box?" She screeched. Tom held her chair against the table.
"Shut up," he looked at her, "Both of you. I'll get the box. I don't want to come back to a bloodbath." His voice was deep and almost boomed through the room. It didn't affect Andy, but it was enough to make Lilith want to start crying all over again.
He left the room and Andy chuckled, thinking about maiming her. Lilith came down and she could barely breathe. Her emotions were a ball of tangled barbed wire bouncing around inside her. Every second they got tighter and more tangled. She didn't know if she'd ever been able to get them straight again.
She had been kidnapped. How fucking stupid do you have to be to get kidnapped? She grabbed her hand and pushed her finger back to the point that it felt like snapping.
"If you want to hurt, just wait till he goes to work." Andy hissed across the table. Lilith nearly snaps her finger off, right then and there. She grabbed onto the edge of the table, but then he set a box in front of her. Nothing moved inside. The box was cardboard and was folded closed. Was her cat dead inside? She stared at it and blinked back the feeling.
"Nora?" She reached for the box and then heard a soft meow. Her heart exploded, and she sucked in three lungfuls of air. Nora meowed again, louder, protesting the fact that she was in a box.
She pawed at the top and Lilith tore it open. Nora bounded out of the box and mewed, then jumped onto Lilith and pounded her with the top of her little blackhead. Her face, shoulder, neck, nose, and chin all got bopped with excitement. Lilith wrapped her arms around the small, purring body and shut her eyes.
I'm going to die here.
Everybody was sitting at the table. Andy was at the end, sending messages to the abyss, Lilith was on the other end, quietly pecking at her plate with a plastic spork, and Tom was sitting on the left side, actually eating. He had to be back at work in an hour or so. Graveyard shift was the black coffee of hospital work. He had considered taking a day shift, but when he met Andy everything had changed. The graveyard shift was going to give him the extra money and time he needed.
Nobody asks to hang out when you work the night because they all think you're sleeping. Tom hadn't been sleeping though. No, he was helping Andy prepare the house. Between getting Andy off pain pills, buying the building supplies, paying the PI, and getting Andy to get rid of the PI, expenses were piling up.
Tom stopped eating. Though being there to clean up his messes and put her back together might just make him look like the hero. He smiled and politely excused himself.
Andy had tricked her into going towards the truck. She remembered all the people crowding the stairs and nodded internally. One of them would've seen her. They would've noticed him. They had cameras and the traffic cams would see him stuffing her into the vehicle. She refused to believe anything less hopeful.
Andy closed his flip phone and traded it for the other. Everything was going well enough. His friend, probably the only one he had left in this part of his life, informed him that the apartment camera's failure had successfully been blamed on an electrical fire.
A lot of the apartment building had gone down with the fire. He didn't care. The only thing he was bothered by was the street cameras. The locals wouldn't think of him, but if the cheap cameras had been updated, then they'd have his face up on the news. It was the one thing he couldn't have checked.
Everyone at the fire was too busy getting footage for their socials to notice that he slid away in the other direction. The lift into the truck was seamless. He had traded the license plate on the truck for one he found on a cute little Sedan. After, he'd chucked it in the sewer.
So if everything felt so smooth, what was chewing through him? He licked his chapped lips and tapped his cigs on the table. He flipped the lid open and popped a new one up, pulling it out and lighting it. He had been smoking twice as many than normal. The threat of jail time did that. Andy knew he forgot something, and it was eating at him from the inside out.
Andy stood up and slammed his hands down on the table in frustration.
"Fuck!" He kicked the closest chair across the room, and Lilith jerked up, stirred by the outburst. He hit the table. "Fuck." Again and again. "Fuck, fuck, goddammit!" He grabbed his head and pounded his wrists against it.
Lilith stared at him, doe eyed, and forgot the first thing about predators. You're not supposed to draw their attention towards yourself. But, oh boy, did she forget. The big baby blues of her eyes lured him in like headlights. In about of anger, he threw the table against the wall, dishes shattering and food flying, and then stopped before her. Her head snapped to the side once he connected his hand to her face, and the force sent tears dropping to the floor. Her eyes didn't start to drown until he bent down and grabbed her chin.
He jerked her forward to meet his eyes and that's when he noticed the rectangle pushing through her shirt. She gasped and grabbed it with her hands, but he pushed her against the wall and forced his hand down the neck of her shirt.
"No- Get your-" Lilith grunted, pulling his arm away and shielding the phone. Andy, fed up, threw her to the ground, throwing a chair over the table. He got down over her and she tried rolling over, but he grabbed her by the throat and slammed her head down.
"Get off me!" She wailed, cradling her chest. Every time he ripped her arms away, another arm seemed to show up. It wasn't until he breathed in that he realized he still had the cigarette in his mouth.
"Don't-" he paused, slamming her head down again, "-make me-" he slammed it down again, hearing her scream, "-kill you!" She grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled his head to the side.
"You can try!" She hissed, forcing a leg up between them. She wrapped it over his shoulder and pushed his head to the side again, managing to force him onto the ground. But it didn't last long. He threw her leg off his shoulder and grabbed a handful of her shirt. A scream of frustration flew out of her mouth, and she pushed him away with her foot. The other leg came up and both of them wrapped around his head. The entire bottom half of her body was off the ground. Her hands were over his.
Andy was only getting her phone over her dead body, but he was ready to arrange that. He tore both of his hands away from her and yanked her shirt up, then saw it tucked between her breasts. Not being able to see, she grabbed at his face and a finger or two slipped into his mouth. He bit down and she yanked her fingers back out, yelping.
This childish scene was enough to pull Tom's attention. He was sitting on the couch tying his shoes when he rolled his eyes and looked around the corner. What a scene to behold, he thought, as he watched her evade Andy's grasps at the phone, blinded by her shirt.
She let a hand fly and it smacked Andy right across the face. She was putting up a decent fight. He traded the phone for her neck and she started coughing.
"You fucking bitch!" He growled, wanting to shake her like a rabid dog.
"You're-" She squeezed her legs around his head, "-the bitch." Her voice was scratchy. Momentarily, the phone had been forgotten and the only goal was to beat up the other.
In a desperate attempt to loosen his grip, she forced her body up and she was just far enough to pull his hands away. He swiped the phone from her bosom and she pulled her shirt away from her face. He raised it and shook it, parading it like he had won.
But he hadn't. At least not yet. There was only one thing she could do, the only thing that she could think of that he wouldn't have a defense for. And this phone was worth her life. She unraveled herself from his body, grabbed his shirt, and kissed him.
Andy froze. His whole body tensed, and she had the phone in her hand before he could take a breath in. It lasted another second before she leaned back and sent her phone-holding fist straight into his nose.
Tom, now sitting on the edge of the table, put his knuckle to his lips. Jealousy was the first thing he felt before she stood up and realized that he was there. She was gripping the phone with such strength, that her fingers were white. Her knuckles looked ready to split.
He leaned back slightly and opened his hand. She flared her nose and her head shook a 'no' as she took a step to the side. She clutched the phone to her chest just like she had when Andy had attacked her.
"I'm not going to fight you like Andrew." He extended his arm and raised his brows. Lilith was high. Her fight instincts were electric. All of her reflexes were ready for any sort of advance. She had never been this exhilarated in her life.
"No." She was in a stance that was ready to run, and she had the body for it.
Tom opened his mouth to say something, but she rushed past him. She nearly made it too, but Tom had placed his arm around her. She was nearly touching the floor when he grabbed her by the hair and yanked her up straight and whispered into her ear.
"We don't need to discuss your cat, do we?" The threat was clear. Tom wasn't impulsive like Andy. The thing that was threatening about Tom wasn't how hard he hit physically. It was that he knew the hardest hit for people was what they loved. He made sure he never had anything like that.
She shook her head and he let her go, brushing her hair with his fingers. Andy laid flat out on the ground, exhausted. Tom extended his arm again, palm up. She squeezed the phone and laid her closed fist in his hand. She refused to put her life above Nora's. As far as it concerned her, their worth was equal. She closed her eyes and let the phone go. She opened her eyes again and watched as he smiled softly and brushed something off her cheek.
"Good girl." He praised, before tucking it deep into his pocket. It's funny how your life could fit in a pocket. She sat down at the table and waited for Andy to kill her.
Andy picked his half burnt cigarette from the floor, and stuck it in his mouth, lighting it again. He closed his eyes and tried to fill his whole body with smoke. He used to smoke menthols, but it didn't mix well with drinking. He hated Regular. He thought they tasted like ass.
When Andy finally stood up, he threw the cigarette butt in the sink and told himself he'd get rid of it tomorrow. He opened the fridge and ran his finger over the assortment of drinks.
It was a kiss. He grabbed the bottle under his hand and shut the door. Classic whiskey. Andy had an unquenchable thirst for everything and nothing. He was obsessively addicted to everything that gave him a buzz. This was the fruit of an emotionally empty childhood.
He popped the cap and grabbed a cup from the cabinet. He sat it on the table and poured a good quarter of the bottle into it. Not looking at her face, he pushed it next to her hands. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, holding the bottle vertically. The ball in his throat bobbed as air gurgled through the neck of the bottle, bringing the line of booze down.
Andy couldn't have himself wanting more. And more was exactly what he wanted right now. More pain, more fighting, more booze, and more bodies against his. The empty glass bottle was left in the sink. That's when Tom walked past the doorway and yelled.
"I'm gone. See y'all when I get home in the morning!" The door opened and slammed shut before Lilith even had a thought of running for it.
Andy opened the fridge again and grabbed a beer. He popped the top and sat the bottle cap in the jar on the counter. It was almost full again, and it smelled like shit. Beer was just nasty, alcoholic water. But it was cheap and Tom thought it was better than drinking a fridge of scotch.
Lilith had drunk her cup after she watched Andy chug the other seventy-five percent. She played with the cup for a minute, but she was curious about how it was going to affect him.
He walked away to another door. He kicked it open with his boot and hooked something to the top of the doorframe. Andy sat the beer down on the floor and started pulling himself up.
His body wasn't burning as bright as his need to feed his addiction. He wanted a bag filled with pain pills right now, but he only had five and there wouldn't be anymore after those. He was coming down from his tenth when he heard Lilith push her chair back and sit the cup on the counter. He looked over his shoulder.
"What?" He groaned turning around to face her. She was a bit more than buzzed. It wasn't her fault. She had an itty bitty body and it didn't hold a lot of intoxication.
"I want to go to bed." She said, wrapping her arms around herself in a hug. The bruising on her face got darker from the slap earlier, and her body would probably have a few bad ones in the morning. Andy leaned into his room and frowned. It was just hitting ten thirty. He wasn't going to bed anytime soon.
"Fine." He grabbed his beer and her and walked her into the hallway. His hand took more of her shoulder into it. She was so warm. He slipped his hand into her hair and exposed her neck. The temptations of the flesh were too much. He brushed his lips-
"Are you going to open it?" Lilith was looking over her shoulder with a lukewarm expression. He was just holding her shoulder. There was a pause and he reached up over the frame and fumbled the key into the keyhole. The hips of his jeans tightened a bit.
Lilith walked into the room and heard a guttural sound of disapproval as her cat followed her. She turned on the fat antique lamp sitting on the nightstand. The lampshade was dark green and lit the simple square of a room fairly well. Andy walked in and held himself up with the support of the wall. His eyes followed her.
The room was small and stuffy. Most of it was filled with a full size bed sitting on a heavy wooden frame and a matching nine-drawer dresser. The walls were paneling and there wasn't a single window.
The bed felt overwhelmingly soft when she pushed down on it. . It had a heavy quilt that depicted a pumpkin patch, surrounded by frames of dots and flowers.
"I'm locking this. If you need anything you have to open this slot," He groaned, bored with having to explain. He wanted sex. Or pills. He opened the small sliding panel. Getting over pills was a literal pain. The only thing better than a physical rush was a mental one.
Like choking someone out until their eyes rolled back.
"Yell or something. No, you can't reach the lock. We tested that. If you need the bathroom," He made a face, "Uh, just yell louder. Goodnight."
"What? I don't get tucked in too?" She mocked, rolling her eyes. He internally shivered.
There was a pause, and he walked over to her. His heart thumped a little harder. Frightened, she stepped back and nearly fell on the bed. He towered over her placing his hands on either side of her hips. The bed dipped. What was he planning to do?
"I can do something that'll make you sleep better, but it's not tucking you in." He purred into her ear, pressing his body against hers. Her lips closed, opened, and shut again. His eyes gazed at her wistfully as he pulled the covers back watching her crawl in and avoid his eyes.
"That's what I fucking thought." He walked out and slammed the door, sliding the lock. His body was pulsing.
If Tom ever heard him say something like that he'd be in a real fight. Andy wasn't interested in Lilith physically. It was the way his brain worked. He wasn't good at keeping to rules.
Lilith looked around the small room and then at the white sheet set covered in little yellow flowers. Her heart was rolling around her ribcage like an apple. Antagonizing Andy like that was going to get her seriously hurt. They were men and she was defenseless. He had been playing with her. When he finally decided to use his real strength she wouldn't stand a chance.
Andy wanted to play. He knew the fight over the phone was nothing more than a moment to show off. She was trapped and he could've just as easily just grabbed her by the throat and ripped it away, but he didn't want to.
She slipped her jeans off and dropped them over the edge of the bed. She quickly slipped under the covers and moved back against the wall.
Nora purred softly not understanding why they were there. She curled up against Lilith’s legs. Andy had shut off the light. That night she could barely sleep. She listened to the sounds of Andy fumbling in the kitchen until her eyes finally closed.
ns 15.158.61.55da2
