"Don't you know me Nora," the strange man leered. Even though my heart was pounding uncontrollably, I refused to show fear. "If you come near me, I will call the police. I have 911 on speed dial," I threatened. He just laughed and took another step...
Shout out to hstrymmry for this gorgeous cover! Thank you!!! You have some serious skills!
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The orange-yellow hue cast through the sheer blue curtains of my bedroom window signaled the onset of dawn. My eyes fluttered with exhaustion but sleep still did not come. I think I had woken up about two hours ago. I turned over in my bed.
Next to me Lindy breathed softly, nestling under the covers to get warmer. I smiled and tucked the cover up under her chin. Lindy and I were chatting in my room last night and she had knocked out on my bed. I knew she was still exhausted from the sleepless night in the hospital so I let her sleep.
Quietly I slipped out of bed and grabbed my phone from the nightstand. It was almost 6 am, I had gotten about three hours of sleep. My stomach grumbled, it felt like I had food weeks ago even though I knew I just ate dinner last night. Now was a good time for tea.
I walked into the kitchen and set the tea kettle on the stove. As soon as the water began boiling I put in the tea and began searching the refrigerator for lemons. I was in luck, there was one more left. Maybe I had dozed off, but the next thing I saw when I opened my eyes was read everywhere on the lemon and cutting board.
My stinging finger was gushing blood. Shit! I had just wasted a perfectly good lemon. I rushed to the sink and ran my finger under cold water but my finger was still bleeding. Keeping my bleeding finger in the sink, I used my other arm to search the kitchen drawers for any napkins or bandages. Nothing. I opened another drawer and found a handkerchief. I looked at it, and the handkerchief appeared clean enough. At this point I just wanted the bleeding to stop.
I wrapped the handkerchief around my finger and watched as red marks stained the once pearly white cloth. Slowly I removed the cloth to see if the bleeding had stopped and stopped short. My finger wasn't bleeding anymore. In fact, I could not see the cut, my finger was completely healed. I shook my head in disbelief. I saw the cut and the blood--in fact there was still blood all over my lemon. There was no way I could have imagined that.
I remembered the time I was on the bus with my head wound suddenly healing and the time Kevin had healed his wound with a handkerchief. I looked back at the handkerchief in my hand. This had to be the handkerchief Mr. Milligan had given me. So either Mr. Milligan had given me a magical handkerchief or I had grown mutant healing powers, judging by the chaos in my life I was going with the former. Why did Mr. Milligan give me a magical handkerchief and why did he give Kevin one too? There had to be a reason.
Turning off the stove I went to my room and found that Lindy was no longer sleeping. Instead I found her curled up in a corner of my bed reading.
"Lindy? You're up already?"
"Couldn't sleep. And looks like you couldn't either. Let me guess, you made tea?"
I ignored Lindy's question. "What are you reading?"
