A Selfie to Die For

7)Intruder

Emily's stomach dropped as her heartrate sped up. Her parents weren't home. Her mother had a late shift at the hospital, and her father was going to sleep in the conference room until she finished her shift at four to drive her home. He had to - the family only had two cars at the moment with Madison's car being fixed. If he didn't drive her home before taking his car to work, Emily wouldn't have a car for school when she had to leave at seven.
Staying with Madison and then providing her a way home benefited everyone. But that unfortunately meant that Emily was home alone inside of a very large house.




With a shaky hand, Emily started taking in deep breaths as fear overtook her. She thought for sure the kitten was playing with his new toys - maybe she was wrong. Could there have been someone else had been inside her room accidently stepping on them?



_____________________________________________



Emily had grabbed her landline and hid in the kitchen with the sharp knives as she called both her dad and Jake. It was either that, or she thought to lock herself in the bathroom.
 Jake reassured he'd be right over, and offered to call the cops. Her dad told her not to panic. He calmly asked if she made sure to  lock the doors before bed along with the windows. This was his military background kicking  in. Thomas Daz didn't panic. Ever. He calmly thought things through - her older brother Ben was the same way. In his case, he was training to become a detective for the NYPD, so being calm was a necessity when placed in stressful job situations.
 Emily unfortunately inherited her mother's ability to start panicking before anything else. Madison Daz was calm on the job being a labor and delivery nurse, but she panicked through many other things in life. She and Emily often joked about how they reacted in stressful situations. Panic first, ask questions later.




 Emily fearfully checked all doors and windows to see if they were locked - they were. She also turned on all the lights in the house so she could see if there was someone lurking in the shadows. There wasn't.
 Part of Emily was scolding herself by feeling she was overreacting, but the other part of her felt dialing 911 would've been better calling her dad and best friend.





The doorbell rang a near ten minutes after she called her dad, causing Emily to become fearful. The fear quickly vanished for obvious reasons - she was afraid of whoever might be lurking upstairs in her bedroom, not of the person on the front  porch. Emily quickly made her way to the front door, seeing Jake outside armed with a metal baseball bat. She quickly threw open the door and hurried to stand behind him.
Jake only looked somewhat tired. His messy blonde hair was even more outrageously messy than usual, while he had a sudden determined look in his eye as he held the bat close.

"What happened??" He questioned gruffly.



"IHeardMyKittenPlayingWithToysButHe'sBeenAsleepDownstairsTheEntireTime." Emily quickly sang out in a whisper, causing Jake to watch her with widened eyes.




"Slow it down, M&M. You think someone's upstairs??"





Emily nodded. "I heard the cat's toys being stepped on..." she whispered. " I came downstairs for some water and found the cat was sleeping on a nearby chair. He was there for awhile. No one else is home, and I don't own any other animal besides the birds and the crabs. I guarantee it's not one of them..." Emily trailed off, frowning. "How did you get here so fast?"





Jake now lived well over a half hour away. It's rather strange he was able to get to Emily's farmhouse in the countryside as fast as he did.
"I'm a quick driver" Jake shrugged, using a large hand to grasp one of Emily's smaller ones. He led her into the house, carefully shutting the door behind him. "Did you call your parents?"




Emily nodded, silently freaking out. What if there was actually someone prancing around upstairs stepping on cat toys? That would mean they were inside her bedroom!
Emily felt herself gently shaking out of fear, causing Jake to frown. He glanced up the stairs before taking a step towards her. "Hey.....I'm here, kay'? Never fear, Jake is here..." he grinned, using his thumb to rub atop of her knuckle he was still holding.
Emily wached him soundlessly before nodding. Jake cocked his spikey blonde head to stare up the staircase.




"Hey asshole - come out, come out, wherever you are, or I'm beating the shit out of you" he called airily.





"Really..." Emily murmured, causing Jake to chuckle as he made his way up the stairs.





"Heyy....If the Declan wants to play breaking and entering, I'm not against hitting him."