Who's There?

Chapter 1:

Work has been an absolute drag tonight. Working as a bar tender has its ups but it certainly has its down.
"Sofia! You forgot your phone, someone is calling you."
Thats is my co-worker and friend Jennie. I'm honestly not sure what I would do without her. I run to grab my phone, "Thanks girl! See you tomorrow."

I pick up and see that its my friend from school, Jamie. She is my roommate at NYU (New York University). I am a Pre-Med student and so is Jamie.
"Hello?" I say, I can barely hear her. "You are cutting in and out Jamie. Are you ok?"
"Sofia, I...I need you to hurry home. Someone broke into our apartment."
I froze, I didn't know what to say to her. "I'll be right there." As soon as I got into my car I called my mom.
"Mom, don't freak out but someone broke into the apartment. The cops are there and I wanted to let you know before they did."
As normal, my mom is freaking out, screaming on the other end of the phone, "I'm on my way. I am calling a hotel, you girls are not staying in that apartment tonight. You hear me?" she says with that voice that all moms get. It's demanding yet she's trying to be polite by kind of asking.
"Yes mom. Thank you. Are you coming to the apartment or are we meeting you at the hotel?" I ask her sweetly. "No no, I am coming to the apartment to help get yours and Jamie's stuff out of there. Did she call her mom?" she asked. "I don't know, I am two minutes from the apartment. stay on the phone and I will ask her."
My mom and dad divorced when i was 11. I am 22 now and it's nice that they are so close now that they aren't married. Even though at the time, I was upset that my parents weren't going to be together. It was the best possible outcome.
I get to the apartment and Jamie's mom is nowhere in site. I just out and call out for Jamie, "Jamie!!" she runs towards me and gives me a tight, very tight hug. "This isn't a normal burglary Sof. They wrote a message on the wall."
Confused by what she just told me, I kind of ignored it and asked, "Did you call your mom? My mom wants to know."
Jamie looked down and replied in a sulky voice, "I did, she told me to figure it out on my own. She had a date with her 100th guy this week."
I also felt bad for Jamie. Her mom and her were not close like my mom and I. Her mom only really cared about her boyfriends and kicked Jamie out at the age of 16 to live with her grandparents. Unfortunately, her grandparents passed away a year ago.

We Walk into the apartment and the not on the wall, painted in red said, "You two were lucky this time. Next time there will be blood..."

I froze to my core, my mom still being on the phone, "Mom you need to get here now."
I've only been this scared once...and that was when I had a stalker at the bar. He or she were sending me flowers and describing this sick outings with him. Saying they wanted to rip to pieces and drink my blood.
Could this be him? Did he follow me home?
"Sofia! Sofia! Answer me damn it!" my mom yelled. I must of spaced out. "Im sorry mom. I spaced out. please hurry. Jamie's mom is being Jamie's mom and not coming. So she is definitely coming with us." terrified. My mom could tell something was really wrong. "Typical Lucy. I am turning the corner as we speak. I can see the cop lights." I start packing my bags as does Jamie. We are both scared to death and really don't speak much to one another.

Mom comes up and see's the message on the wall, "Sofia, Jamie!! Where are you two?" We both run out of our rooms and hug my mom at the same time. "It's going to be okay girls, I will take care of this and help the police." My mom was the DA for New York and I couldn't be happier, to be completely honest.

We put our bags into my car and head to the hotel. Two cop cars follow us into the hotel and make sure no one is following us. We go to the Marlton Hotel. It was close to school and my mom never got anything but the best. As we get to the counter, my mom asks for a suit that had a master room and two beds. Clearly, my mom has money and I really don't need to work, but I wanted to earn my own money like she did. i wanted to be independent and now its biting me in the ass. Someone wants to kill us.

The man behind the desk is searching through the computer and explains what is going on and that the cops will also need a room and one will be outside of our room for protection. The hotel was very nice and did everything they could to accommodate our needs. We finally get our room keys and head up to the 5th floor. We enter our room and it is absolutely gorgeous. The whole place was stunning.

Even though we were now safe and in this stunning hotel, we were all still super nervous. My mom was on her laptop, asking the apartment complex for security tapes. We were all starving so we ordered room service.
"Hello, I would like to order room service for room 540."
The lady on the other end was extremely sweet, "Absolutely miss, what can I get you?" She asks.
"Can we get three orders of the Chicken Strips and fries dinners? Also, we need 1 Strawberry smoothie, 1 Coke, and 1 Water. Do you have any cake?"
"Okay, and actually we do! We have this amazing Chocolate cake its a 3 layer with fudge in between." she replies.
"Great we will take three of those as well and three vanilla ice cream." I say.
"No problem miss. It will take about 30-40 minutes." she states.
"Okay thank you!"
I look over at Jamie, and she is just staring at her phone. I am sure she wants to text her mom, but just doesn't know what to say to her at this point,
"Jamie, it's going to be okay. You have us and your grandparents are looking over you. My mom will make sure nothing bad happens to us." I say in a sympathetic tone.
She starts to cry. "Why can't my mom care like your mom does. Your mom is more like a mother than my mom ever was." She lays her head on my lap. I feel terrible. I really do. I wish we could help her. I mean don't get me wrong, I've contemplated asking my mom to adopt Jamie and Jamie is legally an adult. I'm not sure if she would have to get emancipated from her mom, since technically she's 22.
Jamie gets up and grabs her pajamas, "I am going to take a shower and hopefully clear my head. Thank you Ms. Jones for everything that you do for me. It means the world." She smiled and walked into the bathroom. I look at my mom and say kind of abruptly, "Would Jamie have to get emancipated from her mom if she is 22 years old?" She looked at me puzzled. "No, she does not. After she turned 18 she is legally an adult. Why honey?" She asked with a confused tone.
I sat there for a second and blurted it out, "Would you adopt her? You always said you wanted more kids."
My mom sat there and I could see her wheels turning. "Would Jamie want that?" Holy shit, my mom is actually considering it.
"Actually yeah, she's said before she wishes you were her mom." I said with confidence.
My mom looked back down at the computer and says, "Let me look into it. I would love to adopt her and her be your sister. Her mom is a train wreck and I can prove that. I've documented everything that disgrace of a mother has done. The best part we don't need Lucy's permission. After the age of 18 all we would have to do is have Jamie sign and I would have to sign." Wow, I never realized my mom really looked into this.
Suddenly there is a knock at the door, *KNOCK KNOCK. Room Service." Wow that scared the shit out of me.
As soon as I got up, my phone vibrated.
I open the door and the cop looks at me and says, "Everything looks okay Miss. Jones."
"Thank you Officer Smith. Please bring that into our room, Thank you." I smile at both Officer Smith and the employee.
He walks into the room and sets the food, dessert and drinks down on the kitchen table.
"Do you need anything else?" he asked.
"Yes do you have ketchup?" I totally forgot to ask earlier.
"I do! I brought it with me just in case." He smiled and put packets of ketchup on the table, "I brought salt and mustard as well, do you need those?" I nodded and he put those on the table as well, as well as silverware.
He walked out of the room and I looked at my text on my phone.

UKNOWN:
"Sleep tight little bitch. I may not know where you are for now, but I will find you and that pathetic roommate of yours." I screenshot the text and send it to my moms laptop. She looked up and says, "Shut off your locator. Actually shut off your entire phone. Go in and tell Jamie to shut hers off too." So I shut my phone off and as soon as I get up to go towards the bathroom, Jamie walks out white as a ghost. "The...the person who broke in texted me..."

UNKNOWN:
"You are so pathetic. Not even your own mom wants to be around you. For heaven sake, I could have killed you tonight and she still would've went out with her new boyfriend. Sweet dreams bitch. See you soon." I read it and they knew exactly what her mom said to her. So, she sends the text to my mom and then shuts her phone off.

We all sit on our beds and eat. It was quiet there for a minute or so, and then I started talking, "So are we allowed to go to school?" I looked over at my mom.
She hesitates and then replies saying, "Yes you both can go to school, but you will both have cops with you in every class." I huffed and puffed but I knew it was necessary.
"Okay that's fine. Jamie are you okay with that?" I looked over at her and she was shaking her head yes like a bobble head.
"Yeah, I am definitely okay with that. How are we going to communicate with one another though if we can't use our phones?"
My mom started reaching in her suit case and grabbed out two burner phones. "You will be using these. Turn them on and text myself, and each other." We powered on these old school cell phones and texted each one of us. "Okay, now save those numbers but you are going to put different names. Jamie you're now Lana, Sofia you are now Emma, and I am going to be Hannah." My mom states to us. We nodded and did exactly what she said. She handed us phone chargers for the phones and we all sat there watching tv.

One by one we fell asleep. Except for my mom, she was keeping an eye on us and making sure no one was getting in. She said she would sleep once we went to school.

My mom signed into both of are apple iTunes and iMessenger accounts to see if this jackass was texting us. She sent the text messages to one of her colleague to see if they could find out where the messages were coming from..

About an hour later, my moms colleague called her, "Natalia, those text messages are coming from the girls apartment. They were still in there." My mom signed out of our accounts so that this person couldn't find our location. "Did you find out how they sent the messages as unknown?" my mom asked.
"They probably used iPhones setting to make their phone private, but I will crack it. I am also getting a warrant for the girls' phone records if thats okay?"
"Absolutely. Do whatever it takes, thanks Mark."
My mom put her phone down and started to cry. This person was in there the entire time we were packing and we had no clue.

Why are they doing this to us? Who is doing this to us?