Chapter 4 - Silhouettes In The Night

• I’d somehow ended up over the deeper part of Castaway Cove.
• “Erin!” Ashley was saying again.
• I gave her a numb look.
• “You sat up on your board, all weird, then I was calling you and calling you and you never answered.” She caught my arm to twist me to look at her.
• “Are you okay?”
• I blinked dully at her.
• Still feeling a bit nauseous from the swaying of the water.
• And that powerful touch.
• I shook my head in confusion. “I…I…”
• She frowned at me. Waiting patiently.
• “Couldn’t…” I finished.
• “Let’s get back.” She was nearly pulling me off her board, in her worry,
• I nodded dumbly.
• We averted the boards and swam back to the shallows. But I’d have sworn I could still see that shape hovering below me.
• Echoing my movements.
• ***
• That night I was haunted. I flung myself onto my side. Swiping the sweat from my forehead.
• “You’re mine…” That haunting voice. And the way he’d said it.
• It was more of a threat.
• I’d felt terrified and somehow so intrigued I was immobilized.
• It had been the scariest thing I’d ever known.
• You’ll know…Soon enough…
• He’d said it so slowly. Purposefully.
• I didn’t imagine him.
• For a while after I’d gotten home, I thought I had. Wandering my small cottage on the sandy beach, I considered it.
• Ashley had been sure I did. She figured I’d seen a shark and it had scared me so bad, I was addled out of my mind.
• But I wasn’t.
• And I don’t think she really believed that either.
• She’d sputtered, trying to come up with explanations.
• And we both knew that between us, I was always the calmer one.
• Cool and collected.
• Or a cold-hearted bitch.
• That’s what several ex-boyfriends had told me.
• Cold hearted or black hearted.
• But it didn’t faze me much. I knew I wasn’t.
• But I certainly wasn’t one to panic because I’d thought I’d seen a shark.
• I’d seen them before, alerted Ashley, and we’d paddled further to the shallows.
• Though the sharks didn’t generally bother us, we knew an attack was always possible.
• After Ashley had left, I’d gone and closed the curtains to all my long windows, locked them and my doors.
• But every time a light went out. I heard it playing in my mind again.
• You’re mine.
• I could nearly see his face silhouetted in the shadows. Shivering, I dismissed it. Walking on toward my room.
• Then I laid down.
• And every time I closed my eyes, it was the same. Visions of the man.
• His strange black hair, reddened from the sun in spots along the top. Broad shouldered and flat chested, with a lean form. His face was squared, with hard features.
• But undeniably attractive.
• Every time I closed my eyes, I envisioned a different part of him.
• The shape of his shoulders, the color of one of those unique eyes, surrounded by sooty black lashes. Staring at me as though looking through me.
• Cold and flat.
• Like a shark’s might be right before it opened its jaws to consume you.
• Pure predator.
• It was like a nightmare I couldn’t completely escape.
• When I peeled my eyes open, I could see his shadow before my window.
• “Who are you?” I found myself asking again. Staring at the unmoving shadow in terror.
• I wondered if he would crawl into my bed. Finding my legs already parting and my body dampening as I readied for him.
• I tried to move to close them, but they wouldn’t.
• I felt pressure over the bed and a hard, warm body sliding over mine. With gray skin like the smooth chill of a seal’s.
• This isn’t right.
• It’s a nightmare.
• But I couldn’t distinguish between nightmares and reality anymore.
• I told myself to relax. To try to get some sleep. But it was an impossibility.
• How could I possibly sleep after this?