Run Away With Me : A fast-paced psychological thriller by Daniel Hurst (free e novels TXT) 📗

But I don’t hear his footsteps in the hallway, and I can tell that he is still waiting for me on the other side of this door.

I listen out for a moment but he doesn’t make another sound, and I wonder what he is waiting for, but it doesn’t matter because I’m suddenly distracted by the flash of light across the window.

I walk over towards it, but I can’t see out because the glass is frosted like it is in most bathrooms. The light seems to have gone for now, but I definitely spotted it, and I’m not dreaming anymore.

Somebody is out there.

Was it a car headlight? Maybe, but who the hell would be driving around out here at this time of night? I wish I could see outside but I can’t. I’ll have to go to another window if I want to do that, but that means leaving the bathroom, and I don’t want to because Adam is out there.

I realise then that I am terrified of my own husband. I don’t know why, but I know that I don’t want to see him until I have calmed down. Then I hear the creak of the floorboard on the other side of the door.

He’s still out there.

He’s still waiting for me.

‘Adam?’ I say, but this time there is no response.

I step away from the window and go towards the door, and while I know that it is locked, I suddenly feel paranoid that he has a key and can get in here from the other side. But that’s ridiculous. There is no key. I’m safe in here. But I have to open this door sometime. I can’t stay in here forever.

I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be hiding from.

‘Laura. Open this door. I’m worried.’

Adam’s voice is quiet and soft, and I suddenly feel stupid. I’ve got nothing to be afraid of. He just wants to know that I’m okay after I woke up screaming. I can’t blame him. I must have given him a real fright when I went running from the bedroom.

I put my hand on the lock and slide it across. Then I turn the handle and open the door.

Adam is waiting for me on the other side. Of course he is. I want to give him a hug.

But then I hear the noise downstairs.

It sounds like somebody is coming through the front door so I freeze and hold my breath. Somehow this is even scarier than the nightmare I just had about drowning beside my dead baby while Adam laughed at me.

That’s because I know this is real.

I reach out for Adam’s hand and grip it tightly. Somebody is definitely downstairs. But who? And what are they going to do when they find us up here?

I look at my husband’s face to make sure that he is hearing the noises too, and I see that he is because he’s just as still and silent as I am. But why isn’t he doing anything? Shouldn’t he be trying to scare them away?

Then I hear the sound of a chair being scraped across the tiles in the kitchen, and I wonder why the intruder is not making more of an effort to be quiet. Do they want us to know that they are here?

The sound of the front door slamming confirms it.

They are inside now, and they don’t care that we know it.

So what the hell does that mean for us?

I continue to squeeze Adam’s hand as I listen to the sounds below. That light I saw outside the bathroom window must have been made by whoever it is that is here now. I feel scared that we could have been lying helplessly in bed when they entered the cottage, although it doesn’t make much difference that we are awake and standing in the hallway. We are still as defenceless and unprepared as we would have been if we had been sleeping.

The noises suddenly stop, and while the silence is disconcerting, I’m at least grateful that there aren’t any footsteps on the staircase. As long as they stay down there, then we are okay up here. But we are still by no means safe.

Unless...

‘Is it your sister?’ I whisper to Adam, suddenly realising that maybe it is her who has come to this cottage in the dead of night. That would explain why she has made no effort to be quiet. She is simply entering her own property. But if it is her then surely she would have seen the car parked out front when she arrived here. So why hasn’t she called out to us?

Adam suddenly lets go of my hand, and it falls limply alongside me.

‘It’s not my sister,’ he whispers to me, and I notice a smile curling at the corners of his mouth. Then it continues to develop until it is a wide grin.

Five seconds later and he is laughing at me like he laughed at me in my nightmare.

I step back away from him, putting my hands to my mouth to stifle any sound that might escape it. I realise now that all my fears were not unfounded. There is something wrong and it goes far beyond simply being on the run from the police. Everything that has happened since we got to this cottage. The broken TV. The missing sim card. Adam forgetting his phone when we went to the village. And the increasing casual behaviour being demonstrated by the man I married. All of it is culminating in this moment right here.

This moment where Adam is laughing at me and I don’t know why.

I go to close the bathroom door on him but his hand shoots out to stop me from doing so, and then it is quickly around my wrist and pulling me towards him.

‘What are you doing?’ I scream, and now I don’t even care if the person