Chapter 672
The silence of the night amplified the feeling tenfold. A cold shiver crawled up my neck, and before I knew it, I was running. I didn’t stop until I reached the car waiting at the curb. The driver glanced at me, out of breath and wide-eyed, and chuckled. “You didn’t need to run—I’m not in a hurry.”
Neither was I. I was just scared out of my mind. I turned back to look at the alley I had just sprinted from. It was empty. Nothing there. But those footsteps—clear as day—had followed me. Someone had been there. Now, sitting in the safety of the car, I regretted not turning around earlier, not confronting whatever it was.
The first thing I did was call Lena. After hearing me out, she laughed. “Sounds like you ran into a ghost in the middle of the night.”
A ghost? Yeah, right. I was about to tell her how ridiculous that sounded when she added, “Or maybe it was a perverted ghost.”
Okay, fine. Dim alleys and late nights were a setup for creeps, not ghosts. But if it was some stalker, wouldn’t they have done more than just follow me?
“Stop overthinking and go to bed. Also, you’ve been hitting the bottle way too hard. Seriously, Rea, chill with the drinking,” Lena sounded like a concerned mom.
“Got it,” I mumbled, brushing her off. She wasn’t wrong, though. Lately, alcohol was the only thing helping me sleep.
As the driver pulled away, I glanced back one last time—and froze. A figure stepped out of the alley. Tall. Upright. For a split second, it looked exactly like Hayden.
Heat surged through me, adrenaline firing straight to my head. I slapped the back of the driver’s seat so hard, he nearly jumped. “Stop the car! Right now!”
The driver slammed on the brakes, and I lunged for the door—only to find it locked. “Open the door! Now!” I yelled. The driver unlocked it, and the second I heard the click, I shoved it open and jumped out, not even thinking about my footing.
Bad idea. My foot twisted, and I went down hard, slamming onto my knees. Pain shot up my legs like a lightning bolt, and for a second, my vision blurred with white-hot stars. By the time the driver scrambled over to help, the figure I’d seen was gone. Just… gone.
All that was left was the ache in my scraped knees, the sting spreading sharp and raw, and the overwhelming weight in my chest. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. The tears came fast and ugly, pouring out as I sat there on the ground. It felt like the pain had finally cracked something open—the strength I’d been clinging to wasn’t there anymore.
The driver, visibly shaken, called Mr. Seth, who showed up and insisted I go to the hospital. Lena was the one who cleaned and dressed the wounds on my knees. When she heard why I had fallen, she raised an eyebrow. “You really think you saw Hayden? Are you sure it wasn’t just the alcohol talking?”
The pain had already sobered me up. I tried to think back to the figure I’d seen. Truthfully? I wasn’t sure anymore. Maybe it was the booze messing with me, making me see what I wanted to see. Because how could it really be him? If it was, why didn’t he come to me?
But then I remembered the flickering lights at the amusement park. That gut feeling I couldn’t shake—that Hayden wasn’t gone. That somehow, someway, he was still out there.
“Lena,” I murmured, “If he’s still alive, why won’t he come see me?”
The antiseptic burned as she dabbed it onto my scraped knees, but I didn’t flinch. It was nothing compared to the storm raging inside me.
“He probably has his reasons,” she said softly, blowing gently to ease the sting of the iodine. “But… if Hayden really is alive and he comes back, would you throw yourself into his arms without hesitation, or…”
She let the question hang, unfinished. But I knew what she meant. She was asking if I’d forgive him—or if I’d blame him.