Lovecraft

Chapter 2: Stranger in the Dark

"Nine," the voice counted. "Eight."

Mila opened her eyes. The foyer was dark, but her eyes were adjusting. She could make out the shape of him now. Tall. Broad shoulders blocking the foot of the staircase. He wasn't moving. He was a statue waiting to come to life.

"There's a man," she whispered. Her voice was a broken thing, barely audible. "He's been following me. For weeks. He's out there."

"Seven."

"He wants to kill me." The words tumbled out, raw and desperate. "He just… he just killed my friend. I saw him. Please. I didn't know where else to go. The light was on."

Silence. The count had stopped. She heard the soft, slick sound of a gun being lowered. Not holstered. Just… pointed at the floor.

"What's his name?" The voice was different now. Less amused, more… interested.

"I don't know. He never told me."

A soft, humorless laugh. "Lucky you."

A click, and a dim lamp on a side table flared to life. Mila blinked in the sudden light. And then she saw him.

He was younger than his voice suggested. Maybe thirty-five. Dark hair, damp at the temples, as if he'd just stepped in from the rain himself. He had a face that was all sharp angles and hard lines—a jaw that could cut glass, a nose that looked like it had been broken once. But it was his eyes that stole her breath. They were the color of a frozen lake, a pale, piercing blue, and they were studying her with an intensity that made her feel naked and dissected.

He was wearing a simple black t-shirt that clung to the muscles of his chest and arms. His left forearm was wrapped in a bandage, a small bloom of red seeping through the white gauze. In his right hand, held loosely at his side, was a gun. A sleek, black, silent thing.

He looked at her: a drenched, shivering woman in a ruined silk dress, mascara running down her cheeks like dark tears, barefoot—she'd lost her heels somewhere in the alley.

"Pretty," he murmured, but it wasn't a compliment. It was an observation. Like noting the caliber of a bullet. "And stupid. Running into a stranger's house."

"I'd rather take my chances with one stranger than the monster I know is out there."

Something flickered in those frozen eyes. A crack in the ice. He gestured with the gun towards a doorway leading further into the house. "Go. Sit. Don't touch anything."

He walked past her to the front door, his body brushing hers. She flinched. He didn't seem to notice. He peered through the small window beside the door, his gaze sweeping the darkened street.

"He's gone," he said after a long moment. "For now."

He turned back to her. The gun was still in his hand. He looked at her, wet and trembling, and for the first time, his expression softened. Just a fraction. Just enough to be terrifying in a whole new way.

"I'm Kael," he said. "And you just made a very big mistake, running in here."