Too Late: Day 10

 Word Count: 60,052

Summary of Events:

Once the rain let up Amarina headed for home, only to see that the monster was still lurking outside the house; too afraid to even try sneaking in the back door, she returned and took up the offer of the young man. She discovered he had a handsome watercolour of Callan Reid and the two of them talked about their mutual fandom of Arsenal before she tried to sleep on his couch, but struggled for awhile before finally settling down. Callan was surprised to discover his guest was gone when he woke up at 07:00, and he was distressed when he found signs that she'd cut herself, convincing him that he had, in fact, given the little ant a place to sleep for the night. While waiting until it was time to get ready for work, Amarina was researching the idea of moving to Ireland, but was interrupted by the monster enquiring where she'd been the night before, asking her if she'd killed herself — yet still expecting an answer . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

If she could convince him she was dead without actually dying — or even leaving London — would probably be the best and easiest, but since he didn’t merely know relatives, but was, himself a relative, he would surely know that she hadn’t died because there’d been no funeral.

About the only way she could make it work was to convince her entire family that she was dead, but she didn’t know how she was going to do that, as she didn’t think she’d be able to afford to live on her own, even if she’d happened to have £100 in her purse to pay for her night’s stay in that handsomer-than-he-deserved young man’s flat.

She hated how much she’d thought back to him over the course of this morning already and she’d only been away from his flat for a couple hours.

If she was honest, he had an uncanny resemblance to Callan Reid, but there was no way that the two of them were the same man. Callan Reid couldn’t possibly live within sight of her house. It was impossible.

He probably lived somewhere fancier, more elite; not that her host last night hadn’t certainly shown himself to be reasonably wealthy with some of the decorations, amenities, accoutrements, and even the clothes that he possessed.

But Callan Reid was a millionaire, there was no way he lived at Highbury, it just couldn’t be possible, and she wasn’t going to let herself think they were the same, after all, Callan Reid had darker, wavier hair, no stubble, and an unquestionably Scottish accent.

Besides, even though auburn-haired people weren’t necessarily dominant or common, they certainly weren’t nonexistent, it was completely reasonable to believe that there might be at least two auburn-haired men living in the city of London, and there was nothing that said that one couldn’t or mightn’t be a fan of the other for his skills on the football pitch.

Amarina sighed and checked as her mobile alerted her to the arrival of another message: I just want to now were u were last nite.

She decided to push him. You’ve never questioned where I’ve spent my nights before. Why do you think I was anywhere different?

There was no answer for a long time, so she went back to her researching, only to be startled after a few moments by the alarm she’d set so that she’d be able to get to work on time for her shift. She shut off the alarm and closed everything up on her laptop before starting to get ready for work, curious what she was going to get for a reply.

It finally arrived when she was in the bathroom putting her hair back so it wouldn’t get in customers’ food: No reason.

No reason her foot. She’d seen him lurking outside, ready to attack her, take her away, do something horrible to her, and kill her. But she wasn’t going to tell him she knew.