Stopping Time Read Free

opened the closets, peered under the bed, and pushed the shower curtain aside. It was obvious that no one would fit under the bed: there was no room. It was impossible to hide behind the shower curtain: it was gathered. Still, if she didn’t check, she’d be unable to rest. Once she was confident that she was alone, she turned the bolt.
    Her pepper spray stayed in reach though. Always . Her phone was in reach too. The therapist, the girls in group, they talked about the difference between being cautious and being unwell. They claimed that she was being rational, that caution wasn’t bad, but she didn’t feel very rational.
    “I’m afraid,” she whispered. “But it’s okay to be afraid. It’s normal. I’m normal.”
    Silently she fixed a salad and took it into the living room. She slipped a DVD into the machine, so the silence wasn’tas weighty. The opening of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show that she’d found on DVD and loved, made her smile. It was a strange security blanket, but it never failed to remind her that she could be strong. That I am strong.
    The phone rang. She picked it up. No one was there. She laid it down. It rang again.
    “Hello?”
    Again, no one was there.
    Twice more it rang. Unknown Caller her readout showed. Every time, the caller didn’t speak. It wasn’t the first time she’d had weird calls. It had happened a few times the past month. Logic said it was nothing, but caution meant she was feeling twitchy.
    Resolutely, she ignored the next few calls. Her door buzzer went off twice. She paced as the calls continued for almost thirty more minutes.
    So when the phone rang again after ten minutes of silence, she was frazzled. “What? Who do you think you are?”
    “Leslie? Are you okay?” Niall was on the other end of the line. “I don’t…are you all right?”
    “I’m sorry.” She put her hand over her mouth, trying not to let her hysterical burst of laughter out, and walked to the door again. It was secure. She was safe in her apartment.
    “What’s going on?”
    For a moment, she didn’t want to tell him. Whoever was harassing her wasn’t a faery. Very few of them even used phones, and none of them would have her number. Or reason to call. This was a human problem.
    Not a faery issue. Not Niall’s issue.
    “Talk to me?” he asked. “Please?”
    So she did.
    When she was done, Niall was silent for so long that she wondered if they’d been disconnected. Her heart beat too loudly as she clutched her phone. “Niall?”
    “Let me come stay there or send someone. Just until we—”
    “I can’t. We’ve talked about this.” Leslie sank down onto her sofa. “If there were a faery threat, it would be different.”
    “ Any threat is unacceptable, Leslie,” he interrupted, with a new darkness in his voice. It was the unflinching power of the Dark King, and she liked it. “You don’t need to deal with this. Let me—”
    “No.” She closed her eyes. “I’ll change the number. It’s probably just some drunk misdialing.”
    “And if it’s not?”
    “I’ll go to the police.” She pulled a blanket over her as if it would stop the shivering that had started. “It’s not a Dark Court concern.”
    “ You are a Dark Court concern, and that’s not going to change,” Niall reminded her gently. “Your safety and your happiness will always be our concern. Irial and I both—”
    “If doing so negates my happiness, will you still interfere, Niall?”
    Niall was silent for several moments. Only his measured breathing made clear that he was still listening. Finally he said, “You are a difficult person to reason with sometimes.”
    “I know.” Her grip on the phone loosened a little. For allof the passions that drove him, Niall would do his best to let her have her distance. On that, he and Irial seemed to agree. Of course, if she so much as hinted that she wanted them to intervene, people could die at a word. The reality of that power wasn’t something she liked to