Disclaimer: I don't own The Covenant. Titles taken from the Flyleaf song "All Around Me".
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2. Thickening the Air I'm Breathing
The steam from the shower was almost suffocating as Sarah rinsed off. She'd cranked it way too high and could practically feel her heart slowing in the heat. Breathing was getting difficult. But she'd stumbled in here desperate to get warm. Wearing such a skimpy shirt to the party out at the Dells hadn't been the brightest thing she'd ever done, and she was still reconsidering her decision not to wear jeans.
Still, she'd dressed that way to get attention, and that she'd gotten plenty of. Not one but two very cute boys had been checking her out, or so Kate had said. A smile spread across her lips as she thought back to meeting the so-called Sons of Ipswich. The party hadn't come alive—not really—until the four of them had come down out of the fog. Cocky, "bad boy" Reid who claimed she reminded him of her grandmother. And then there was Caleb Danvers with those big, brown eyes. A good guy too, according to Kate. Thinking about those eyes on her made her shiver, in spite of the heat.
Something made her pause, drawing her attention back to the bathroom. A shattering noise made her jump, and suddenly the room seemed darker. There was a breath of air across the small of her back, and it felt—inexplicably—like there was someone else in the room. Had someone come in while she was lost in thought?
Her cheeks flushed warm as she wrapped her towel around herself. Serve her right if someone caught her thinking pervy thoughts about Caleb Danvers. Though how they would know just by looking at her…
There was another stir of air, and a noise that wasn't really a noise but made her skin prickle nonetheless. It reminded her of the way her old hound dog, Bastion, had acted when a storm was rolling in back in Boston. "Getting his hackles up" was how her dad used to describe it.
No one at the sink, no one in the toilet stalls, no one in the bathroom at all. Just her and broken light bulb in the middle of the cold tile floor. Her shower hadn't been hot enough to fill the bathroom with steam, and Sarah felt herself rapidly cooling again. That's why her hand was shaking, she told herself as she picked up a piece of the bulb. It had nothing to do with the way her skin was crawling.