Husband With Benefits-Chapter 52: An Intruder

Nora woke up with a start, the quiet of her room shattered by an unexpected sound. A faint gasp escaped her lips as she instinctively touched her face. Pain flared through her bruised cheek, and she winced, fingers tracing over the tender, swollen skin. The memory of the brutal attack from yesterday flooded back, and her heart raced.

Rubbing her eyes to clear away the grogginess, she tried to focus on the source of the disturbance. Moonlight filtered through the curtains, casting eerie shadows on the walls. She looked around at the quiet and wondered what it was that had woken her up.

After coming from the police station, she’d had no power to even apply medicine and simply lay down on the bed, surrendering to her overwhelming emotions and tiredness. As she stared up at the ceiling of the room, she breathed slowly, hoping the dull ache in her heart to go away. Her mother had been stalking her to the point that she’d started to worry for her sanity. And now that her mother had been warned, she held onto the hope that Lara Anderson would not appear in front of her again.

Turning her head, she looked at the clock which showed the time 3:59 a.m. Despite the exhaustion that clung to her like a heavy shroud, Nora knew that she needed to investigate the disturbance. As she tried to listen for sounds, all she felt was darkness.

Shaking her head at her own paranoia, she realized she’d woken herself up with a scare and now would be a good time to apply some medicine to her wounds. She could barely feel her side of the face. Slowly, she calmed her breathing and decided to get out of bed. However, she’d barely managed to calm herself down when she heard the sound of something falling from outside the room.

Panic gripped her. The noise that had woken her up was not a figment of her fearful imagination! There was someone really in the house. How could her mother have found her here?

Could it be possible that her mother had somehow followed her here when she left the police station? The idea sent shivers down her spine.

Nora’s breath quickened, and she had to suppress the urge to scream. She knew she couldn’t hide here, feeling like "a lamb to the slaughter," waiting for her mother to come inside and hurt her. Dam* it! How was she supposed to make the woman leave her alone? As tears came to her eyes, she took careful breaths. She could not afford to have a breakdown at this moment.

Her best chance was to gather her wits and confront and protect herself. She already had a contingency plan in place for a situation like this. Her mind raced as she tried to recall every detail of the plan she had formulated for this very scenario.

Slowly, she reached under her bed and retrieved the baseball bat she’d hidden there after Demetri went away. It was a comforting weight in her hands, a symbol of her determination to take control of her life. Gathering her courage, she slid out of bed, the cold floor sending a shiver up her spine.

As she stood up, the pain in her cheek was a stark reminder of the vulnerability she felt. She had to be cautious, every movement deliberate and calculated. Nora tiptoed toward the bedroom door, her ears straining to catch any sound. The house was filled with an eerie silence, broken only by the occasional creaking of the old wooden floors.

With each step she took, anger replaced some of the fear. Her mother had crossed all boundaries time and again but invading her sanctuary and tainting it with her presence was not something that she was going to let slide.

Gently, she pushed open her bedroom door and peered into the dimly lit hallway. Every nerve in her body screamed for her to retreat, but she refused to give in to fear. Swallowing hard, Nora stepped into the hallway, her grip on the baseball bat tightening even as it threatened to slip from her hand due to the cold sweat she had broken into.

A tall figure stood by the kitchen shelves; his silhouette illuminated by the soft glow of the moonlight filtering through the window. Panic surged through Nora as her mind raced to make sense of the situation. It was not her mother. Then, had a robber broke into the house?

Nora’s eyes darted around the room, searching for any object she could use as a makeshift weapon to distract the man. She’d been confident that she could overpower her mother by using the bat in her hand but to handle a large man like the one standing there, she would need to have something to attack from further away before she dared to approach him. She shuddered to think about the consequences if the man succeeded in snatching the bat from her.

Her gaze settled on a small vase sitting on the ledge nearby. It was not much, but it was the best she could find and use in her state of panic without alerting the thief.

With trembling hands, she picked up the vase, took a deep breath and shouted, "Hey you!" before aiming the vase straight at the man’s head.

The intruder, still engrossed in whatever he was doing on the kitchen shelves, froze for a moment. Then, with lightning-fast reflexes, he spun around to face Nora and effortlessly caught the vase mid-air, his movements graceful and fluid. Her voice trembled with a mixture of fear and determination as she launched the makeshift projectile, hoping it would give her the precious seconds she needed to assess the situation. Maybe she could also grab the knives on the other end of the island.

"You..."

The tension in the room reached its peak as the vase hung suspended in the air, a testament to the man’s uncanny ability.