Forced Proximity (Bluebell House Duet Book 1)
Forced Proximity: Chapter 14

My breathing was too loud. Way too loud. He was going to hear me, replace me, kill me. I needed to hold my breath, but it was so hard, with panic throttling my chest. Sprinting through the halls had left me winded and gasping, so all I could do was cover my mouth and attempt to breath as quietly as I could through flaring nostrils.

“Evelyn Cromwell…I know you’re in here somewhere…” The man’s voice echoed through the class that I hid in. Had he seen me dash in here? Or was it just a guess? Shit. Shit.

“Come on, Evelyn, no one else has to die. I didn’t come here for them; I came for you.” His voice wasn’t familiar in the least. He was no one I knew, at least not well enough to recognize. Why the fuck was he trying to kill me, though?

Cold sweat dripped down my brow, stinging my eyes, but I didn’t move. Couldn’t move. He’d already shot at least a dozen people as I ran for my life, and now that he’d informed me he was here to kill me, those deaths were on me. But why? I was no one. Basically an orphan. What had I done to make someone want me dead?

“Evelyn Cromwell…come out, come out, wherever you are…” He sang it in an unhinged kind of way that made me question whether the shooter was sane at all. Surely not? You didn’t just open fire in the middle of a university if you were perfectly balanced in the head.

Footsteps drew closer and my whole body trembled where I crouched inside a short cabinet. If I were taller, I’d never have fit, but for once luck had been on my side.

He was going to pass by, he was going to decide the class was empty and then I’d make a run for it. I’d run as fast as humanly possible and then⁠—

“I’ve got you, Evelyn,” he announced, yanking the door open and grabbing my hair. He dragged me out of the cabinet, and I screamed with all my pent-up terror.

This wasn’t how it went. This never happened. He didn’t replace me in the cabinet, he heard me running and shot me in the back as I fled. That was how it happened, not this.

“Be quiet, Evelyn,” he growled. “I’ve got you now.”

Be quiet? Was he insane? I screamed even louder, fighting for my life. Fists flew and legs kicked and my attacker let go.

He. Let. Go.

What the fuck?

From my periphery, I saw a flash of red and gasped when a big man jumped between us—all I could see clearly was his red baseball cap. A cap that shadowed his face as he kept the gunman from touching me again. When strong hands wrapped around my biceps, I wanted to sink into the comfort…until I was shaken.

“Evelyn. You’re dreaming. Wake up.” He snapped the words at me from arm’s length, and his voice seemed…different. Familiar.

I blinked once. Then twice.

“Andrew?” I croaked his name, my throat tight and raw from screaming. Oh shit.

“Yeah, it’s me. Are you awake now? You were having a nightmare and—” I cut off his explanation by launching myself at him. Not to punch him again, like apparently I’d just done, but to hug him.

I wasn’t fully in control of my actions, and I sure as fuck wasn’t thinking things through. I was just so fucking scared and at the same time so fucking relieved that it was only a dream. Except it wasn’t just a dream—part of it was a memory. Most of that had happened…except it’d ended in me being shot and left for dead.

“Uh, there, there,” Andrew said, awkwardly patting my back as I sobbed into his shirt. All the adrenaline my body had created in response to my dream imploded, and I couldn’t hold back my tears. I couldn’t even get words out as my throat seized up, making the most pathetic whine as I cried.

Andrew was awful at comforting, but I’d take it. He was physical and here, and I was alive. That was what mattered. I was alive, and I was safe, and I really needed a tissue because my nose was streaming just as badly as my eyes.

I sniffed hard, to try and rein it in, but Andrew shifted away at the same time and somehow I ended up wiping my snotty nose all down the front of his T-shirt. Whoops.

“Is that—?” he started to ask, withdrawing even farther until the point where he fell backward off the couch. He tumbled to the ground, then sat there staring in abject horror at the mess I’d made of his shirt.

Sniffing and wiping my eyes with my blanket, I tried to get a grip on myself. “S-sorry,” I said in a shaking voice. “I d-didn’t mean to… I j-just…”

His gaze jerked up from his shirt to my face, and his disgust quickly shifted to cool concern. “It’s fine, Evelyn. Really. I just wasn’t anticipating…this. Uh, I might just go and change, if you’re alright now?”

His discomfort was so extreme, I imagined he was physically shrinking away from the wet fabric of his T-shirt. “Yes, sorry, I’m fine. It was just a nightmare. Sorry I screamed.” Then I realized his left eye was a little puffy and red. “And sorry for hitting you.”

He stood up carefully, brushing a shaking hand over his pants, then adjusting his somewhat disheveled hair. “No apology necessary, Evelyn. If you’re sure you’re okay…”

I mustered up a smile and nodded, since he was already backing away from the couch. The moment he saw me nod, he all but ran from the room and a moment later I heard the downstairs shower turn on.

Holy shit. It was just a little snot on his shirt. I didn’t vomit in his lap or anything. Talk about an overreaction.

But still, my face burned with embarrassment nonetheless. How mortifying. I bet he’d tell the rest of the house all about it in the morning, as well. Maybe I was better off trying to sleep in my chemical-fume-y room after all.

Though, there was very little chance of any actual sleep again tonight, so with that in mind, I grabbed the TV remote and lowered the volume all the way, putting the subtitles on so I could watch without disturbing anyone else. Not that I imagined they’d all slept through my screams.

After aimlessly flicking through dozens of channels, while letting my pulse and heart rate calm, I finally settled on a true crime docuseries. Maybe not the best idea after living my own true crime story, but hey, all the better to see if someone else’s misery could trump my own.

Snuggling under the blankets, I focused on the screen, hoping that my thoughts wouldn’t slip back to that day. My therapist had said that I kept going back there with such clarity not just because of the trauma but because I had unanswered questions. My mind wouldn’t rest or move past what happened when there was still so much unknown.

Who was the man who targeted me? Why was I targeted? What had I done to make that crazy asshole follow me for at least a week before the event? CCTV footage from around the school had picked him up tailing me between classes, amongst other creepy shit—he’d gone through my trash and been in my dorm room at least once before the day he tried to take me and half the college out.

The police and FBI had surmised that I must have unknowingly rejected him at some point through my two years at the school, giving him a hyper-fixation on me that escalated until that day—an event I had no recollection of but it was plausible. It wasn’t that I never went out and there’d been a few occasions I even drank enough that my night was a touch hazy. So, yes, it was possible I brushed him off unintentionally, and in his unbalanced mind, he’d obsessed over my supposed rejection.

I couldn’t believe they’d never found him; it had been a long and intense state-wide manhunt.

Until he was behind bars, I’d probably never sleep soundly again.

I’d missed a lot of the docuseries in my musing and was about to turn the TV off and just sit in the darkness when a shadowy figure entered the room. Haze moved with grace and stealth, and if I hadn’t been staring directly at the doorway as he walked through, I wouldn’t have heard or noticed him at all.

He didn’t say a word, taking a seat on the farthest end of the couch from where I was sprawled out, his gaze on the TV. The reporter was talking about how the two girls had been well-known in the neighborhood and their disappearances had stunned their area.

We sat in silence, and I expected it to feel uncomfortable, but it was actually the opposite.

Haze’s presence gave me a sense of peace and calm, shooing away the darker thoughts of my past, and I found myself getting right into the show, trying to guess what the ending was going to be. They had four suspects that they’d been tailing across multiple states, all of whom had contact with the sisters before they were abducted.

“Oh, it’s the postman for sure,” I murmured, not realizing I’d said it out loud until Haze made a disparaging sound.

Turning my gaze toward him, I saw he remained in the exact same position, though he was a little more relaxed.

“You think it was one of the others?” I asked.

His lips twitched, and when he turned to meet my gaze, I wondered why my chest tightened as I stared into his eyes. His expression remained neutral, but I always saw so much in the dark depths of his gaze. “It’s the cop.”

Swinging back to the show, I gave it all my attention as they started to wrap up the final days when they uncovered the girls buried in shallow graves at the back of the old log cabin in a national park an hour from where they had last been seen. Sure enough, by the time it was finished, it was revealed that the cop who’d been first on the scene to investigate was the serial rapist and killer they’d been searching for all along.

He’d never left his state but had accomplices in other states, making it seem as if the killer was a transient drifter.

“Holy shit. How’d you know?” I whispered to Haze, staring at the small smile tipping up the corner of his mouth. “Have you seen this before?”

He shook his head. “Nah. But it was enough to guess after those first interviews. He gave himself away more than once, showing more of an interest than just that of a cop passionate about his job—he was into it. He was getting off on it.”

The series had shown old recorded footage of interviews done by all manner of law enforcement as they hunted for the girls. Apparently if Haze had been partaking in the interviews back then, it wouldn’t have taken them six months to figure it all out.

“What did you say your family did?” I asked him suddenly, trying to figure out this enigmatic man. Was there any truth to what Nina had said about him being wanted for espionage in other countries?

His low chuckle took me by surprise; Haze wasn’t really the chuckling type. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” When his laughter died off, I couldn’t figure out if he was serious or not.

He turned back to the TV, where the next crime show had started, and I wondered if he was about to disappear into his room again. Despite how downright scary he was, it was comforting having him close, and to my relief, he didn’t move.

“I’m going to guess this one right,” I said, mostly to myself but also as a small challenge to the giant scary guy on the couch.

I could feel his gaze on me and wondered if he was smiling again. Even though I was too chicken to replace out, I’d pretend he was and that for tonight we were friends.

I felt like Haze Michaels could be a useful friend to have in more than one situation.

Even if I wasn’t sure trusting him was good for my overall health.

But hey, I should have died six months ago, so I was already on borrowed time.

Might as well enjoy whatever extra was gifted my way.