SCARE TACTICS 7.2

Tuesday, I called in sick.

Wednesday, I had no lectures and stayed home.

When Thursday came, I didn't want to worry Lindsay or Theresa and raise unnecessary questions, so I put on a dress and decided to join them at the Omen.

The music was a welcome release, a distraction and a respite from my torment. I spent hours dancing away my anxiety that I almost forgot that I would have to be on alert as soon as I stepped outside.

At the bar, Karl served me, but it had become a habit to notice Cole, even if I hadn't spoken to him in ages. It bothered me a bit that I could barely remember how his voice sounded.

"See you tomorrow, babe," Theresa bid me goodbye and kissed my cheek as she packed a very drunk Lindsay into the back of a taxi. "I'll call you in the morning."

"Alright. See you tomorrow, T," I said and waved them off.

Still hot from dancing, and being that the night was relatively mild, I began my walk home with my jacket slung over my shoulder. I looked down the street to find that the blue hatchback was nowhere in sight. Taking a deep breath of smoky urban air, I sighed with a hopeful smile - hoping that the walk home would be uneventful and a nice change of pace, at least it was cheaper.

It wasn't long before the spell of peacefulness cast by the darkness was snuffed out.

I was only four hundred yards from the block of flats I called home when I heard a car engine revving angrily behind me. Instinctively I looked over my shoulder and was blinded by two glaring yellow headlights. As the orbs of the lights got closer, they got bigger. The time had come when I was alone. The street was dead. It was just me and the car.

The vehicle sped straight at me. Intending to run me down whether I was on the pavement or not!

At the last moment, it swerved from its collision course with me and drove off at speed, beeping its horn erratically.

Although I was traumatised, I noticed that the car was none other than the blue hatchback.

Somewhere amid the assault, I had screamed and stepped back only to lose my footing and found myself in a pile on the tarmac with a bloody knee and grazed palms, and my bum smarted from my awkward landing. There was no point remaining on the ground, so I quickly clambered to my feet and ran as fast as I could to safety to my flat.

The minute the front door was locked, I collapsed, consumed by a fit of hysterical crying. The panic attack that ensued was like no other I had ever had before. There was no calm to be had even after it passed, but somehow I muddled through. It would take days for me to get over it. The new scare tactic my stalker had used were successful in terrifying me.

Even though it wasn't all in my head, I was losing my mind; my esteem had never been so low. I was genuinely starting to fear for my life. It felt like my freedom had been taken from me. I now chose to travel alone very carefully. I was wary of who could be watching me from every blue car I saw.

Determined to keep up the pretence that my life wasn't falling to pieces and that my grades weren't taking a hit due to my non-existent sleep schedule, I arranged to meet Lindsay and Theresa outside my place and walk to the Omen together.

Before leaving, I checked out my outfit in the mirror. The strappy black dress looked good, but it was too plain and missing something. The addition of a baggy checked shirt over the top finished off my look. I rolled the sleeves lazily to my elbows and tied the sides together in a knot before my stomach; it looked more interesting but not too intentionally put together.

The make-up beneath my sleep-deprived eyes was so thick in daylight I was glad that inside the sparsely lit club, no one would notice. Beneath the flashing dancefloor lights, it didn't matter how shattered I looked, but I didn't have the stamina to dance long that night. At the bar, I downed a glass of water. If anyone asked, I would lie and say it was a vodka lemonade.

The few drinks I'd had, had made their course, so I made my way to the dimly light corridor where the club loos were. It was always a busy location and smelled like a piss-stained back alley, and was used for more-or-less the same thing. It was where clubbing couples went to eat face or have a sneaky shag.

Some of the neon sign lights' fluorescent tubes were broken, which meant that the corridor was darker than usual, but I knew exactly where the door to the ladies was, so that didn't phase me. I only made it halfway there when someone grabbed me from behind. My heart sped up so quickly I thought it might stop! I had no time to fight and felt an arm wrap the front of my stomach and around my waist; my feet were no longer touching the floor either. It was impossible to get my bearings in the dark. I had already imagined the worst-case scenario; I was being abducted from the club to meet my demise. As if my nerves weren't frayed enough! By that point, I admitted defeat.

A door clunked shut. Suddenly, the small cleaning supplies closet was lit up by a phone's torch, and I could finally see where I was. Cole's face lingered only a few inches from mine. For the first time, I could see that his eyes were a pale hazel shade, the flecks in his iris were grey and a mossy coloured green, making his eye colour rather hard to define - they were neither wholly green, brown or grey, but an ensemble of all three. Still, they were kind and warm and dazzling. Relief hit me hard, and I sighed to show it.

"What's going on with you lately? You've seemed off..."

"What?" I asked quietly at first. I was entirely distracted by his eyes, but then I realised that he had almost scared me to death. The dreamy look disappeared, and in its place, an aggressive scowl set my lips and brow into harsh lines that barely looked feisty on the baby soft edges of my face. "What the fuck are you doing, dragging me in here like that!?" Having come to my senses, I shoved my hands into his chest to show my frustration just in case my snappy tone didn't.

"I'm worried about you, Ana." Stood firm; he didn't budge when I pushed him. Instead, he stepped closer and placed his phone on the shelf behind my head. The touch light still illuminated us, but now his hands were free to grab my wrists and keep my palms on his chest. I swallowed the lump that rose in my throat, I was trying to stay annoyed at him, but it was hard to when I realised how nice it felt to have my hands on him. "Please, tell me what's going on?"

"Y'what? You've no reason to be worried about me." I whispered and crumpled my fingers into the fabric of the t-shirt he was wearing. My eyes flickered down to notice the details of his attire; a black band tee over another long-sleeved burgundy top that he had pushed to his elbows showed off the tattoos on his forearms. "I'm just grieving and feeling a little run down... if you must know. There, will you leave me alone now?"

"Do you want me to leave you alone? Honestly?"

"You're the one who told me to avoid you."

"I didn't say I'd find it easy." Cole moved his hands from my wrists and cupped my jaw with his palms. "Come home with me tonight. You said you didn't care how old I was. Who cares if I'm thirty-two?"

"You said you were thirty-four…" Until he mentioned his age again, I was inclined to take him up on his offer, but now he had just tripped himself up and revealed he had lied to me again. "Thirty-four or thirty-two, which is it?"

His head dropped, and he sighed. "It's just a number. Does it matter?"

"No, you're right, it doesn't." I yanked his hands from my face and meant to leave that room by any means necessary. "Because I am definitely not going anywhere with you." Cole didn't stop me when I pushed him away and made for the door. "Please stay away from me, especially until you're ready, to be honest."

"Oh My God, Ana! I've been looking everywhere from you. I thought you'd gone to… the… loo…" Lindsay shouted from behind me as I stepped out of the cleaning closet. I turned to see the shocked expression on her face. "What... were you doing in there?" She asked, but she already knew what people used that room and corridor for. As if the moment could have been any more awkward, Cole stuck his head out the door, he was either about to protest my leaving or was just exiting to head back to work, but Lindsay clocked him. "What were you doing in there with him?" Her face changed to a 'how dare you make a move on someone who fancies me' kind of look. Her reaction made me bristle, and, in that moment, I wanted to hurt her.

"Checking to see who he's been staring at, turns out it was me," I remarked so sweetly it was snide before I walked off down the corridor and back onto the dancefloor.

After everything that had gone on inside the club that night, I did not hesitate to call a taxi to get me home, and I didn't even entertain the idea of checking if the blue hatchback was following me.