They’ve come to kill me. Right now. In the middle of my living room. A hit man with a gun waits for me to open the door and end it all, while my body refuses to budge, trapped by the certainty that I’m about to die.

Then logic kicks in. What kind of hit man knocks first?

I shake life into my limbs and inhale the courage back into my spine. Halfway to the door, a searing pain shoots into the ball of my foot. It burns like hell, but I keep hobbling toward the door, unable to feel anything until I know who it is.

A muffled silhouette waits on the other side of the sheer curtains.

“Lia?” The voice is familiar. “Are you okay?”

Ryan. I halt. Knowing who it is should relieve the tension, but it doesn’t. And I don’t know why. Because I can’t figure him out? Because I don’t trust him?

The neighbor’s dog won’t shut up. It grates against my already frayed nerves. Someone needs to give that animal a sedative before a reporter from the front finds a guy from the Swarm on my back porch.

Ryan bangs on the door again, making me jump. “Lia!”

I unlock the door and open it a few inches. Ryan wears a brown crew neck sweater and fitted jeans. His hair is styled. His massive frame, capable of rendering me helpless yesterday, looks slender, athletic.

I partially close the door, narrowing his view of me—my rickety T-shirt, my pajama pants.

He peers inside like I’m hiding something—or someone.

I cross my arms over my chest, hoping to conceal the gaping hole in the armpit of my shirt. At least I put on a bra this morning.

“I heard a crash.” The concern on his face and in his voice throws me. Yesterday, through everything that happened, he remained serious and calculating.

I don’t know how to respond. Ryan looks like a guy I’d go to school with or have a crush on, not a killer or a stalker or whatever he is.

Then, like flipping a switch, his expression turns hard. He puts one hand on the door. “You’re bleeding.”

I look down at my foot. Blood smears the floor beneath it.

“I’m fine.” I lift it to find a shard of glass jammed into the ball of my foot, surrounded by a line of dark red. “I threw something at the TV.” Seeing the wound makes me realize how badly it stings. “It hit a glass cabinet.”

Ryan pushes the door open and glances at the TV as if to assess the damage. He makes a noise—either a grunt or an attempt at laughing, I’m not sure. Then he stalks into my house—uninvited.