Chapter 288: Friend or Foe?
Easter~
The hotel room smelled like cheap lemon spray trying to mask years of stale carpet and old cigarette smoke. Sunlight slipped through the thick curtains, laying golden stripes across the scratched wooden table where I sat with Rose. She was busy making a mess of her oatmeal, her tiny hands clumsy as she smeared it across her cheeks. She giggled, her bright eyes shining with that early-morning joy only a four-year-old could have. As for Donut, he lounged on the windowsill, flicking his tail lazily as he soaked up the warmth.
I’d brought us here—to this rundown place on the edge of town—just to breathe. To think. To find a sliver of clarity in the fog that had settled over my mind and heart since those unexplainable memories started haunting me. "Just a few days," I’d told myself. Time to figure out what to do next. But as I sat there that morning, nothing about my thoughts felt clear.
I was cutting an apple for Rose, the knife’s blunt edge squeaking across the skin, when a sudden pain stabbed deep into my head. I sucked in a sharp breath and dropped the knife, its clatter echoing off the walls. The room tilted around me, and I clutched the table, my knuckles ached with strain. Rose froze mid-bite, oatmeal dripping from her spoon onto her unicorn pajamas. "Mommy?" she said softly, her little eyebrows drawing together.
"I’m okay, baby," I whispered, forcing a smile that felt brittle on my lips. But I wasn’t okay. The pain throbbed behind my eyes, blinding me, and then the memories hit again—harder this time. They didn’t feel like mine, couldn’t be mine, but they flooded in with such brutal clarity I could almost taste the blood in the air.
I saw Jacob. His warm brown eyes were cold and wild, his hands—those same hands that had handed me a stuffed teddy bear just yesterday at the mall—were dripping red. Bodies lay all around him, twisted and torn like broken dolls, their empty eyes staring up at a sky I couldn’t see. My stomach lurched, bile rising in my throat as the memory sharpened. Jacob turned towards me, and there was no hint of kindness in his eyes, no softness—just a predator’s hunger.
I saw myself running, Rose’s small hand tight in mine, her screams tearing through the darkness as we fled. How had we escaped? The memory blurred at the edges, leaving only the terror behind and the weird certainty that he was coming for us.
I pressed my palms to my temples, fighting to block out the images. They couldn’t be real. Jacob wasn’t like that. He was the quiet man who’d moved in across the street, the one who’d rubbed my aching feet when I was too tired to walk another step, who made Rose laugh with silly faces while driving her to school. He was kind—so effortlessly kind—with his messy black curls and that gentle strength that made my chest ache every time he looked at me. I’d tried to push those feelings down, telling myself that someone like him could never want someone like me, someone cracked and bruised by life.
But these memories... they felt like fragments of a nightmare I’d actually lived through. Was it real? Was he hunting us all along?
"Mommy, you’re shaking," Rose said, climbing into my lap. Her sticky fingers brushed my cheek, and I realized tears were streaming down my face. I hugged her tightly, her warmth grounding me, but my heart wouldn’t stop racing. Donut leapt onto the table, his blue eyes narrowing as he nudged my hand, purring like he could sense my panic.