***
Maggie returned home roughly three hours after leaving for the supermarket.
Had she closed the blinds last night? She hadn’t done it before leaving this morning. Shrugging, she redoubled her efforts to get the door open.
She heard the door close behind her as she lowered the bag to the couch but thought nothing of it. Just the breeze pulling it shut.
Then she saw it. The front of the house faced east, and the sun had not yet reached its zenith. Even with the blinds closed, muted light coming in around their edges cast a pale shadow onto the wall above the couch. She could see another shadow beside hers coming up from behind.
Spinning on the ball of her foot, she had no time to react to the huge man striding toward her. He fashioned his hand into a long, hard chopping tool. Fingers straight out but held together, he swept his hand in a large, controlled arc and hit her in the throat.
It felt like all the air had been sucked from her lungs. She couldn’t scream; she couldn’t speak; she couldn’t breathe. Collapsing onto the couch, Maggie struggled to draw a breath of relief. She couldn’t. Panic sprouted within her.
Then fingers clinched around her neck. The man picked her up by the throat and slammed her into the wall beside the couch. Her face was an inch above his so that he was looking slightly up at her, but he was a good deal taller than she, and her feet dangled above the floor.
The man’s grip tightened around her neck. Then, for no discernable reason, he froze, eyebrows narrowing.
“Is it you?” His voice was harsh, as though he couldn’t clear his throat.
He had chin-length, greasy brown hair and white, sallow skin. A spider’s web was tattooed over his left eye, which held no emotion at all. His eyes were so dead she couldn’t discern their color.
Still holding her against the wall, the man turned to glance at the windows, as though someone might be spying through the closed blinds. His hair was shaved short in the back—it was only long on the sides—and on the back of his neck just below the hairline was an angry, red puncture mark. In his right ear he wore an earring with an X on it and a dot in the space directly below the X. She’d seen that symbol before but wasn’t sure where.
Maggie still couldn’t breathe. Darkness was stealing in from the corners of her vision. So this was it. This man, who had somehow entered her home, was going to kill her. She didn’t even know why or who he was. He seemed content to keep the pressure on her throat until she passed out—or died out. Her limbs felt heavy. Her vision was going. Everything seemed dim.
As she succumbed to the claustrophobic darkness, another man entered the room. There was something familiar about him. He started screaming something, but she couldn’t hear him. Perhaps her hearing was going along with her vision. But she could see his mouth. He was saying her name.
Then it hit her. Vegas. Just before she and Jonah lost time, she had seen that man. She had rarely thought of him since, but it had been such a bizarre encounter that his face had remained clearly etched in her memory. It didn’t matter now, though. The dimness turned to opaqueness, and awareness went with it. Then there was only darkness.
A flash of purple light. A rock formation. Brown boots walking across a room at eye level. A hand with a black burn on it. A woman standing in front of a broken lighthouse. Blood on her hands—were they her hands? A whisper of a voice. She could never quite make out his words.
Vegas. The spider web tattoo. A man in her house. A man in her house!
Maggie’s eyes snapped open. Awareness crashed in, and she lunged into a sitting position, gulping air. She was on the floor beside the couch. Her groceries were still situated on it. The man—not Spider Web Tat but Creepy Vegas Guy—was leaning over her.
She stared at him, wild-eyed and chest heaving, gulping air through a spontaneously healed throat.
He sat back in a crouch, but his eyes never left her. It was definitely him. There was no mistaking those strange amber eyes or the oddly shaped scar.
Not knowing what else to do under his direct stare, she decided to test her voice. “I was sure he crushed my trachea.”
His voice was solid and calm. “He did.”
A chill ran down her spine. Then her eyes saw past him to the lifeless body of Spider Web Tat. Maggie’s eyes slid warily back to the man crouching next to her. Creepy Vegas Guy might have just saved her life but that didn’t make him safe to be around.
As though reading her thoughts, the man smiled then extended his hand. “I’m Marcus. How are you, Maggie?”