Stalkers: A Dark Romance Anthology

by Ally Vance

  I hugged her back and didn’t say anything. There was still time for us to come out of this okay. Maybe if she saw him with someone else she’d realize she didn’t love him anymore. Maybe then it wouldn’t bother her when Damen and I were together. Or maybe I could set her up with someone else.

  If she fell for someone else, then she couldn’t say anything if we got together. In fact, it could be perfect if that happened. We could even double date. Bridesmaids at each other’s weddings, Godmothers to each other’s kids. It would be perfect.

  “Can we go out tonight? Just me and you?” I asked, looking up at her. “Let’s dress up and get drunk. We can dance and party and be like we used to be.”

  Louise chewed on the inside of her cheek, her gaze skipping over my face. She had plans. She had plans with Damen and didn’t know how I would react if she told me.

  “Please, Louise. Let’s have a girls’ night and remember what it was like to be best friends again. I miss you. You spend all your time with him now and I never get to see you on your own,” I begged.

  A small smile tugged the corner of her mouth and she nodded. “Okay, I need to call him and let him know I won’t be coming back tonight though.”

  We hugged each other for what felt like hours and I breathed a sigh of relief that this would all be over soon.

  “Have another shot,” I yelled against the reverberating music of the night club.

  We’d been dancing and drinking for hours. Our bodies slick with sweat and our dresses clinging to our curves. I rocked my hips back and forth as I held the shot out to her, but she shook her head no.

  “I don’t think I can.” She dragged her hands through her sweaty blond hair, her drug addled eyes wild. “I don’t feel so good, Anna. Can we go?”

  I threw her shot to the back of my throat, the first one I’d had tonight and nodded okay. I’d been dancing with a young hipster guy for the better part of the night thanks to Louise’s attempt at matchmaking for me, and I turned to him now.

  “We’re going home if you want to come.” I trailed a hand down his chest and to his jeans, cupping his length in the dark and he nodded eagerly.

  “Will your flatmate not mind? She looks wasted,” he asked and I shook my head, squeezing him harder until he winced.

  “Not at all. It was her idea.” I winked and then grinned when he realized what I was saying. “Unless you’re not down for that sort of thing?”

  “No, no, that’s fine by me. Totally fine.” He nodded eagerly, reminding me of one of those nodding dogs in the back of a car.

  “Come on then.” I gestured for him to follow me and I grabbed Louise by the waist, pulling her along. “Let’s get you home, bestie.” I said, kissing the side of her face.

  “I’m so glad we did this,” she slurred. “I didn’t think I’d drunk that much though. I’m sorry if I’ve ruined the night for you.” She looked around for the guy she’d set me up with and I laughed and pointed behind us to where he was following.

  “Nothing is ruined, Louise. He’s coming back with us so it’s all perfect.”

  She squealed and jumped up and down, turning to wave at him. He waved back before shoving his hands into his pockets and smiling sheepishly.

  “Oh my God, he’s so cute!” she said. “What’s his name?”

  I shrugged. “Adam, I think,” I laughed, and she joined in, her pupils growing and shrinking with the flashing lights.

  Chapter Five

  The fresh air hit us all hard, and I let Adam hold Louise upright as I hailed a cab for us all. The ride back was quick, and we all stumbled into the apartment less than twenty minutes later and turned on some mood lights and music. We sat Louise down on the sofa and I headed to the kitchen to fix more drinks for us all.

  Adam’s hands came around my waist as I poured shots of tequila and I tried not to squirm out of his grip as he kissed my neck, his hands reaching for the hem of my dress.

  “Drinks first,” I said, turning in his arms and handing him the small shot glass.

  He drank and then I poured him another and he drank that. Adam’s gaze stayed on mine and I was beginning to get uncomfortable and worry I might not be able to get out of this when I heard the low snores of Louise.

  “Shit! She’s fallen asleep.” I pushed out from his grip and ran to the living room, tequila bottle and another shot glass still in hand.

  Just like I’d thought, she’d fallen asleep, slumped over sideways on the sofa, a little dribble coming out of the corner of her mouth. I put the bottle down and pushed her upright again as I heard Adam coming closer.

  “Bummer,” he mumbled. “At least we’re still awake, right?”

  I turned to scowl at him. “That’s not the point. It was supposed to be all three of us. She wanted this! She deserved this!” I yelled.

  Adam looked taken aback by my yelling, his eyebrows pulling down deep, but my yelling at least made Louise stir.

  “Anna? You okay? You fuck him yet?” she laughed drunkenly, stupidly and it was hard not to laugh back with her.

  “Not yet,” Adam grumbled.

  “Come on, let’s get you undressed,” I said, slipping her shoes off.

  Louise had fallen back to sleep, and I took the time to undress her, pulling off her dress and unclipping her bra until she was passed out naked on the sofa. It wasn’t ideal, but it could still work, I thought as I stood up and stepped back to admire her body.

  “She’s beautiful, but she’s fucked up,” Adam said, and I snorted on a laugh. “What’s so funny?”

  I turned to face him. “She’s fucking with you,” I whispered, and he raised an eyebrow in question. “She has this thing about being fucked while she’s asleep. I have this strap on she likes too. You get started and I’ll go grab it.”

  I started to step away when Adam grabbed me, pulling me close and slamming me to his chest. I stared up into his eyes in defiance at the same time that Louise laughed in her sleep. I pursed my lips in an aha gesture and he released me from his grip.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, kicking off my shoes as I headed down the hallway to my room.

  I stripped as I went until I was safely in my room and then I took Louise’s phone from my purse and texted Damen to come over quickly.

  I watched the little dots appear at my message.

  D: ‘It’s late and I’m tired.’

  L: ‘I’m horny and drunk.’

  D: ‘Tomorrow babe.’

  L: ‘No, now. I want you now. I’ll let you in my ass if you come right now!’

  D: ‘Don’t make promises you can’t keep.’

  L: ‘I’m serious. Get here in the next ten minutes and you can fuck me in my ass.’

  D: ‘What about Anna?’

  I frowned at the screen, taking a moment to consider what I wanted to ask versus what Louise would say.

  L: ‘Why are we talking about her when I just told you that you could fuck me in the ass?’

  D: ‘Fine. I’m on my way.’

  I smiled at the screen and put on my pajamas, quickly wiping off my makeup and chewing on a mint from the bottom of my purse. It didn’t take long before I could hear the tell-tale sounds of Louise’s giggles coming from the living room to know that she had fallen for it, and I beamed with pride that it had worked.

  A knocking came on the front door, but Adam and Louise were clearing too involved in what they were doing to hear it and I stifled a laugh as the knocking became more and more frantic until I heard the sound of Damen kicking at the front door.

  I winced, thinking of the cost, but knew it would be worth it in the end. I mussed up my hair and left my room just in time to see Damen kick our front door in and storm into the room.

  “Oh my God, what are you doing?” I yelled at him, storming forwards as Louise screamed and Damen lunged for a naked Adam.

  Louise was drunkenly stumbling around the room trying to find some clothes to put on when her gaze fell on me.

  “What did you do?” she cried.
r />   Adam pushed past me and ran out of the apartment, still naked, and I headed to the CD player and switched it off.

  The room fell into a deathly silence as Louise grabbed the blanket from the back of the sofa and wrapped it around herself. Damen stared between the two of us, rage and pain etched on his face.

  “How could you?” he said quietly to Louise.

  “I was drunk,” she sobbed, her gaze moving between me and him. “I just didn’t think. Oh God, I think I’m going to be sick.” She bent over and threw up all over the carpet as Damen turned and stormed away.

  I chased after him, finding him in the hallway. He punched a fist through the wall, barely reacting when blood sprouted from his knuckles.

  “Damen,” I said hesitantly, and he turned and glared at me. I held my hands up in defense. “It’s just me.”

  He shook his head. “Why didn’t you stop her?” he asked. “Why did you let her get so drunk?”

  I frowned in confusion. “Because I was sleeping and this is what she does, Damen. She goes out drinking and brings random guys back to the apartment. Hello, that’s what she did with you remember?”

  It was his turn to look confused now. “You were with her though, Anna. You were both out together. And look, I get that you have this little crush on me, but I love her and now it’s ruined, and you could have stopped this.”

  I winced at his words. Not only did he think I only had a crush on him, but he also said he loved her. What was wrong with him? Couldn’t he see the monster that she was? Couldn’t he see that he loved me too? That we were perfect for each other.

  “Damen,” I said, taking a step towards him ready to deliver my final blow, “I wasn’t with Louise tonight. We’ve not spoken in over a week thanks to you. She came home, got changed and said she was going out dancing.”

  “She went out alone?” he asked, and it took everything in me not to go to him and wrap my arms around him.

  Instead, I pointed to my pajamas and makeup free face. “Well, she certainly didn’t go out with me.”

  Damen dragged his hands through his hair. “I need to go. I can’t deal with this.” And then he turned and left.

  I headed back into the apartment, making a vain attempt at closing the door and securing it with one of the bookshelves. I’d have to call someone tomorrow to fix that and no doubt it would be expensive, but I still couldn’t help but smile.

  Chapter Six

  I turned back to the coffee mugs as I waited for the old percolator to do its thing. It had been a great investment when Louise and I had first moved in, but just like her relationship with Damen, it needed to be replaced.

  Louise had always been the party girl. The one that got the boyfriends. The one that got invited to parties and weekends away. Big promotions. Big opportunities. Big everything. I think that’s what Damen liked about her so much; that she was wild and reckless. But wild and reckless wasn’t something you wanted to marry and settle down with.

  I picked up the carafe of steaming black coffee and began pouring it into two mugs. My mug was white with a little sunshine near the handle. Simple. Cute. Easy to clean. Louise’s, just like her, was handmade with a complicated array of colors and patterns, and the inside was stained from years of coffee abuse. I’d offered to scrub it spotless several times, but she always said no. It had been a gift from her dad when she was little and after he’d died, she’d stopped cleaning it properly. I think she felt like she’d be scrubbing him away, or something, but that was stupid because he was already dead. Long dead. And his ashes sat on our shelf above the fireplace like a constant reminder.

  I liked my coffee with pumpkin creamer and a single sugar. Damen liked it the same way, but Louise preferred it black with no sugar, proving how cold and dark she really was, despite her sunny personality.

  The way you made your coffee spoke volumes about the sort of person you were.

  Take her dad for instance, he was a strong masculine man, supposedly, so you can imagine my surprise at finding out that he liked pumpkin spice lattes with three sugars, and young virginial girls who came to his daughter’s sleepovers.

  I walked to Louise’s bedroom and knocked on her door. When she didn’t answer I pushed down on the handle and walked inside. The curtains were still closed, and I could see the outline of her in the bed.

  “Are you awake?” I asked, quietly, because if she was asleep, then I’d leave her that way. She obviously needed the rest after the wild night she’d had. I wondered with a cruel smirk if she’d even got to come with Adam.

  “Hey? Louise?” I put the coffees down on the drawers and headed over to the bed, before perching myself on the edge of it. “I’m just checking if you’re okay. I know last night was crazy, but I really do think it was for the best.”

  Silence.

  I rolled my eyes and sighed in the darkness.

  “Look, if you want to talk, you know where I am.” I stood up and headed back across the room.

  “I hate you,” she said from the bed and I turned back.

  “So you are awake,” I replied, ignoring the comment. She didn’t hate me. She couldn’t ever hate me—I was her best friend!

  “I wish I’d never met you, Anna.”

  I pouted into the darkness, tears springing to my eyes. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do. I hate you and I wish you were dead,” she said and then began to cry.

  “You say that now—,”

  ‘You’re fucking mad, do you even realize how mad you are?” she said, her voice piercing the darkness like a floodlight.

  “Mad!” I gasped.

  Did she just call me mad? I wasn’t fucking mad.

  Mad as a hatter. Mad as the Queen…off with her head. I wasn’t mad at all. I was just tired of waiting for Damen to do the right thing so we could be together and forget this charade.

  “He asked me to move in with him,” she said, her gaze finding mine. “But I said no because you were my best friend and I couldn’t leave you.” She sobbed louder now, holding the duvet around her body as she cried into her hands.

  Moving in with him… I wanted to slap her. I wanted to spit in her face. Liar, liar pants on fire. He wouldn’t possibly have asked her to move in with him when he was about to leave her for me. Was she back taking those fancy pills she got addicted to after her daddy left? Because that was the only thing that made sense right now.

  My heart felt like it was racing in my chest, the world throbbing and pulsing around me. And in the centre of it all was Louise’s perfectly symmetrical face. Pretty as a fucking picture. Innocence in her eyes, her full pink lips turned up at the corners in a timid smile.

  They say that’s what makes someone beautiful, symmetry. The equalness of features. The lines and grooves on skin. And I hated that I felt so unsymmetrical. That every part of me felt like a jumble of mismatched shapes, crammed together in a tiny box.

  “You’re disgusting, Anna, and I don’t want you in my life anymore,” she said and lay back down in the bed.

  “You don’t mean that,” I said confidently. “We’re two peas in a pod. We’re bread and butter, salt and pepper. We’re—,”

  “Just get out!” she yelled, her voice breaking on a sob.

  I turned and left with a scowl.

  Chapter Seven

  A knock came at the door and I turned from my reflection in the mirror with a frown, wondering who it could be at this time of night. It had been two days since the drama with Louise and Damen. Louise had left while I’d been out at work the next day and I hadn’t seen anything from her since. Damen, on the other hand, had been texting Louise non-stop, his messages becoming more and more frantic with each hour. I still had her phone and as far as I was aware, she hadn’t tried to replace it yet, so I was guessing that right now she just didn’t care. And that was fine by me.

  A little space would probably do her the world of good. Give her time to reflect on what a mess she’s made of her life. I may have set up the night with Adam, bu
t it would have happened sooner or later on its own. I only hurried things along. Louise slept around; it was just what she did, and as the saying goes, a leopard can’t change its spots.

  Damen, on the other hand, flipped from concerned to angry and back again in his texts, and I felt a little guilty at putting him through all of this, but it really was in his best interest. He’d see soon enough how perfect we were for each other and then all of this would be behind us. Louise would come back, and she’d see how happy we were together, and it would all be fine. It would be. Fine, and perfect.

  The knocking at the door came again and I quickly dried my hands and headed out of the bathroom. I’d just finished coloring and straightening my brown curly hair and I was in awe of the length now that the wild curls had been tamed to a neat poker straight. It hung down my back in soft newly-blond waves, reaching almost to my ass.

  My shoulders and arms ached from the effort of standing in front of a mirror for hours straightening and teasing my hair into something more manageable, but it would be worth it. Barely dressed in pink silk shorts and a matching camisole, I padded through the apartment. It was nine at night and I’d already gotten through several glasses of wine this evening just to build up the courage to use the relaxer on my hair and strip it of its natural color.

  Pulling the door open, Damen automatically stumbled through it, slamming his drunk body into mine as he fell. I caught and righted him before helping him over to the small sofa and he fell sideways before shoving himself back upright with a drunken huff. I sat down next to him, a look of innocent concern on my face.

  He was a mess. His longish hair scruffier than usual and his normally healthy skin pallid. I pushed his jacket off his shoulders and threw it across the room to one of the chairs. It stank of beer and wine and it was stained with something I couldn’t quite describe.

  “Are you okay? What happened?” I asked, my tone full of worry.

  “I’m sorry, Anna. I didn’t know where else to go. I just need to see her,” he slurred, looking up into my eyes. His pupils dilated when he focused in on my face, his hand reaching up to stroke my long length of hair. “What…what is this?” he mumbled.