Chapter 2

I called the police immediately.

Two patrol officers rang the doorbell twenty minutes later, impatience written all over their faces.

"Let me get this straight, ma'am." The older officer sighed, clicking his ballpoint pen in sheer boredom. "You want to file a sexual assault report, and your reasoning is... your husband denies touching you last night, and there's milk missing from your fridge?"

With a trembling finger, I pointed at the half-open trash can.

"There's also a used condom in there, and it is definitely not my husband's size!"

The younger cop exchanged a knowing, mocking glance with his partner.

"Mrs. Miller, maybe you should have an open conversation with your husband about his... late-night habits."

"Or your own," the older officer muttered under his breath.

"You think I'm making this up to cover up an affair?!" My voice shot up, anger momentarily overriding my fear.

"We think this is just a petty domestic dispute, not a break-in or an assault." The older officer flipped his notepad shut, his tone turning stern.

"There are no signs of forced entry on the doors or windows, and no valuables are missing from the house. We're not going to dust a milk jug for prints just because you had a wet dream. Please stop wasting police resources on this ridiculous marital crisis."

They didn't even take a formal statement before turning and walking out of the apartment.

As the front door slammed shut, I was plunged right back into that suffocating, dead silence.

A profound sense of despair and helplessness washed over me completely. Since the cops were treating me like some neurotic slut trying to cover up a scandal, I’d just have to handle it myself.

I am a woman of action.

After work, I went straight to the electronics store and bought the highest-definition night-vision pinhole camera on the market.

When I got home, Gideon still wasn't back.

Dragging over a chair, I carefully hid the camera inside the louvers of the AC vent directly facing the bed. The angle was perfect. The lens had a clear view of the entire bed and the bedroom door.

By the time I finished, I was drenched in cold sweat.

At eight o'clock, Gideon called.

"Nadia, I'm sorry. Caldwell just ordered me to fly to Portland to meet a client at the last minute. I'm already at the airport; I won't be back until tomorrow night."

His voice sounded utterly exhausted and brimming with irritation.

"Okay. Be safe."

I hung up the phone and stared intensely at the empty apartment.

Tonight, I was completely alone.

If that thing was real, it would definitely show up again tonight.

I purposefully left the bedroom door unlocked, even leaving it cracked open—something I never normally did. After showering, I changed into my pajamas and lay stiffly in bed.

I turned off the lamp.

A thick, viscous darkness instantly swallowed the room.

I kept my eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. In the silence, the sound of my own heartbeat was deafening.

Every second crawled by.

1:00 AM.

2:00 AM.

Nothing happened.

Just as I started to think I was only scaring myself and drowsiness began to creep in...

Creaaak—

An incredibly faint scraping sound pierced my ears.

It was the sound of the bedroom door being pushed open!

Every hair on my body instantly stood on end. My breath hitched in my throat. I immediately clamped my eyes shut, pretending to be fast asleep, while my hands gripped the bedsheets beneath the covers in a death grasp.

There were no footsteps.

Not a single sound of anything walking or brushing against the floor.

But a few seconds later, I felt it with terrifying clarity.

The mattress right next to me sank heavily.

Something had climbed into my bed.

A profoundly bizarre odor forced its way into my nostrils. It was absolutely nothing like Gideon's usual cologne.

It was a pungent, aggressively masculine musk, mixed with the faint metallic tang of blood and the smell of damp earth.

Then, a heavy hand rested on my waist.

The temperature of that hand was absurdly high. It felt like it had been roasting in a fire, scorching me so badly I practically had to bite back a scream.

It slipped under the hem of my pajamas, inching its way up along the curve of my waist.

I bit down hard on my lower lip, not stopping until the thick taste of copper flooded my mouth. Only then did I barely manage to suppress the primal urge to jump up and run.

I couldn't alert it. The camera was recording.

If I could just survive this night, I would finally know exactly what kind of monster was pinning me down!

The thing seemed to notice the unnatural stiffness in my muscles.

It suddenly froze, then slowly leaned in right next to my ear.

I could vividly feel its heavy, scorching breath blowing greedily across the artery in my neck.

That night dragged on like a century of torment in hell. It wasn't until the sky outside the window began to turn a pale gray that the suffocating, oppressive weight finally vanished.

The mattress next to me leveled out again.

My eyes snapped open, and I bolted upright in bed, gasping for air.

The room was completely empty.

There was only Corvis, curled up on the windowsill, staring dead at me.