Chapter One
Jada found herself unexpectedly wide awake. Something had made all of her hair stand on end, and even though she wasn’t sure what it was, she knew it had nothing to do with her dreams. The room was pitch black. Nothing was visible around her for a moment as her eyes began to adjust.
There was a scuffling noise from somewhere else in the house, and she sat bolt upright in bed. Jada lived alone. There wasn’t supposed to be any noise, anywhere, if it wasn’t being made by her.
Her mind was racing even though she had been asleep mere seconds ago. She flashed back to the news reports she had been reading on her phone all week: Vicious attacks, all right here in her neighborhood. All of them were single women living alone, just like her. Most of them black, young, and beautiful, just like her.
Their homes had been broken into by an unknown intruder, who overpowered each of them by grabbing them while they were sleeping. Then, he had his way with them, all in the dark, so they never saw their attacker’s face. There had been a handful of attacks over the past few weeks. One girl had even died, stabbed with her own kitchen knife when she tried to fight back. A few more and the attacker would be on his way to getting a serial nickname.
She tried to think fast, mentally scanning her bedroom for something she could fight with. There was one thing she knew the attacker hated, one thing he had been able to avoid so far. She reached over and fumbled with the switch of her bedside lamp for a few moments before turning it on. The bright light hurt her eyes, but the room was empty.
For a moment, everything in the house was quiet and still. It was as if everything was holding its breath. She wondered if the intruder had seen the light and was having second thoughts.
Then she heard another banging noise and shot out of bed. Maybe it wasn’t smart, but Jada had never been one to go down without a fight. Maybe if she went for him first, she could scare him off. As far as she’d read, none of the other girls had put up enough of a challenge for him to have to deal with, except for the girl who had panicked, and she had been too slow, reacting to his attack instead of acting first. This would be something new for him.
She hoped it would be enough.
She stumbled into the kitchen. Her feet were still a little clumsy from being asleep even while her mind was wide awake. The kitchen was dark, although a faint light managed to penetrate the blinds from outside. It gave a white dusting over the surfaces and lines of things that barely helped at all.
She went to the counter first and grabbed a large knife out of the block. The banging had sounded like it was coming from the living room, which was only separated from the kitchen by a row of counters coming out from the wall. She spun around quickly with the knife in her hand, all too aware that the intruder might know where she was already.
Over the sound of her own pounding heart and rapid breathing, she strained to hear something. Her eyes moved restlessly back and forth, although for the moment she could only just make out the faint outline of the counters in front of her. She tried to stay as still as possible, striving to see any flash of movement. The knife was already raised in her right hand.
Her eyes began to adjust to the gloom, and she could see a little clearer: the shapes of pans on the sideboard, the silver metal of the sink picking out the light, and the looming black shape of the television on the far side of the room. All familiar things, nothing out of place.
Then, she saw it. There was a flash of white out to the left in her peripheral vision. She turned and lashed out immediately with the knife, hoping to hit something before it hit her. She caught the impression of an arm, pale in the dim moonlight, and then it was gone.
She waited, and waited, and waited, still frozen in shock and fear, unsure of what to do next. She couldn’t hear or see anything else, and though she had sliced the knife through the air, she couldn’t be sure of whether it had hit anything.
After another ten minutes, she began to relax slowly. There was no sound and nothing moving. She worked up the courage to move and switched on the lights in the whole apartment, one by one.
Nothing.
Jada sighed with relief and put the knife down on the counter. She must have imagined everything. It was probably a neighbor’s cat banging into the window as it walked along the windowsills.
She got back into bed, shaking her head at her own paranoia. Maybe she had better stop reading the news so often. It was obviously putting dark images into her head.
Jada fell asleep, tired already and more tired from the adrenaline she had expended. She had no idea that her ordeal was only just beginning.