“Surveillance,” Ford grunted. He lifted my hand off his arm as they knocked on the door again. “Take my laptop to keep watch and go into Stella’s room. Don’t come out until I get you.”
I couldn’t stop looking at his laptop as I tried to make sense of it. There were three other cameras, all pointing on the outside of the building, and then in the corner, there was a little box with four more frames, and when I looked closer, I saw it was inside the apartment. How did I not even know he had cameras in here?
“Belle.”
I blinked and shook my head. “Yeah?”
“Did you hear me? Go into Stella’s room and don’t come out until I come and get you.”
I swallowed and nodded, then stood on shaky legs. My body was taking a minute to realize what was going on. I halted in front of Stella’s door and knocked on it twice, then opened it up. She’d said Justin was staying at his place tonight, but I wasn’t sure if she’d be with him or not.
The darkness of her room had my heart racing, so I switched on the light and jumped out of my skin when Stella shot up in bed, her hair a matted mess around her face.
“What the fuck?” Stella rubbed at her eyes, but it took her a few seconds to open them, and in that time, I closed the door behind me and then started to hear voices coming from the living room. Half of me wanted to be out there with Ford, but the other half wanted to hide in a closet until Ford told me the monsters were all gone.
“I…I need to stay in here.”
“Huh?” Stella finally looked at me, her brows furrowed. “What’s going on?”
I clutched Ford’s laptop to my chest and tried to find the right words. I didn’t want to scare her, but I needed her to know that Ford being here was for something very real and not just in case something would happen. “Someone tried to break in through my bedroom window.”
“What the…” Stella slipped out of her bed and lunged at me. Her arms wrapped around me, but I just stood there, as still as a statue. “What happened?” She pulled back but kept her hands planted on my shoulders.
“I…I don’t know. I woke up and…” I huffed out a breath, and my body sagged against her. “Someone was trying to get in, so I got Ford, and now there’s police here and—” I tried to swallow back the lump building in my throat. “Ford told me to come in here until he comes and gets me.”
“Okay.” Stella maneuvered me toward her bed. “Come sit.”
I did as she said, then placed the laptop on my legs. The warmth of it hit my thighs, and it was then I realized all I was wearing was a tank top and my boy shorts.
“What’s that?” Stella asked, and I turned to look at her, but all her attention was on the screen.
“It’s the cameras Ford has set up.” I spotted him standing in the doorway of the apartment. I wondered why he wasn’t checking the outside, leaving it to the backup that had turned up really quickly, but I had a feeling it was because he didn’t want to leave the apartment with me inside.
“Jesus, Belle. This is some serious shit. I didn’t think anything would actually happen, but fuck.”
“I know,” I whispered. “I didn’t either.” And I didn’t. I’d lived my entire life knowing that there were threats out there because of what my dad did, but they’d never touched me. I’d never been close to anything like this, and now I was firmly in the middle, and all I wanted to do was escape.
Stella and I sat on the edge of her bed for twenty-seven minutes until I heard the front door close and then the beeping of the alarm. I watched on the screen as Ford came toward Stella’s room, and I stood, opening the door before he could lift his hand to knock.
His swirling hazel eyes met mine, but then they focused on Stella. “The alarm wasn’t on.”
Stella gasped, and I turned to see her eyes wide and hand covering her mouth. “Justin left just after midnight, and I forgot to turn it on.”
Ford made a noise in the back of his throat. “If the alarm would have been on, as soon as someone tried to get in, it would have gone off and sent a signal straight to the local station and to Belle’s dad. It’s important that it gets put on.”
“I…I didn’t realize.”
I expected Ford to say more than that, but when I turned to face him again, he just nodded and then took hold of my wrist. “Get some sleep,” he told Stella, pulling me out of the room. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
I followed Ford back into the living room, still holding on to his laptop. I didn’t know why I expected him to stop, but he didn’t. He led me back to my bedroom and then took the laptop off me. “You too, Baby Belle.” I wrapped my arms around myself as he stared down at me. “Get some sl
eep.”
“I…” I pulled in a breath and tried to be strong. I couldn’t show him any weakness, not when he was used to strong people around him at all times. I felt like a whiny girl next to everyone else he knew, so instead of telling him I was scared, I pushed my shoulders back and stepped into my room.
His face was a carefully placed mask as he closed the door, leaving me standing there in my room, terrified of turning around and looking at the window. Having his laptop with me had been the security I’d needed not to think about what had just happened, but now I was alone, back in my room, scared to death to be in here.
I turned around slowly, my gaze hitting everything but my window. My palms became clammy, my stomach bottomed out, and every bone in my body screamed at me to get out of this room.