Maya stared at the rose in disbelief as she turned it around in her hand.

She’d picked it up from her doorstep.

It had been a while since he’d sent her a rose.

He.

Who was this mysterious person sending her roses? She wished she knew.

Maya brought the rose closer to her face and cautiously sniffed it. The same earthy, sandalwood scent lingered around the light natural scent of the rose. The only sign of the sender being a male.

A small piece of paper flitted to the floor. It landed face-down on the gravel. Bending down, she nervously picked it up. Only one word was printed across it.

Soon.

The bloody knife etched onto the paper was only too clear what the message meant.

Maya shuddered. She looked around for any sign of being watched, perhaps a sudden movement. None. The street looked deserted.

Unlocking her front door, she let herself in, hurriedly shutting the door behind her. Leaning against the door frame, she heaved out a sigh.

More than a sigh of relief, it was a sigh of fear.  

She walked across to her dining table and placed the rose in the same vase as eleven others.

Eleven other roses.

Each with a death threat.

Her eyes teared as she swallowed a lump in her throat. She glanced across at the photo on her fridge door, held in place with a small lamp-shaped magnet.

A smiling picture of her and Ella.

Her best friend.

The one person who’d been there to hold her hand through all her chemo sessions. The one who had been there for Maya when the bank seized her home. The one who had also received the roses.

Maya closed her eyes as the memory came floating back. She’d teased Ella when the roses began arriving. “A secret admirer” she would say with a nudge and a wink. Ella had not liked it. Maya had assumed the reason was the color of the roses. Ella had aways had a certain distaste for the color red.

A tear slid down Maya’s cheek as she recalled the explanation Ella had given her. “This isn’t romantic, Maya” she had explained with a petrified face, “It’s scary. Someone’s after my life!”

“It’s just a silly prank, Ella,” Maya had told her, trying to calm her shivering friend, “And if it isn’t, then this person will have to murder me first to get to you. I’ll never leave your side.”

The next morning, Maya had woken up to numerous missed calls from Ella and a text message that had been written in panic. By the time Maya had reached Ella’s residence, it had been too late.

The living room window had been broken with glass all around. Ella was lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood with a steak knife impaled into her abdomen. Her eyes were wide open and her face a distorted mixture of fear, confusion and recognition.

Ella had been murdered after receiving thirteen roses – twelve red and one white.

Maya had lost hold of herself seeing Ella’s lifeless body. All she could recall from then onward was the buzz of the police and the snaps of their cameras. The lights of the police cars and the roar of the ambulance. Ella’s body being placed on a stretcher and carried away.

The final memory she had was of Ella’s funeral. All her teary eyes allowed her to see on that day was splotches of black. The next thing Maya remembered were the therapy sessions.  

A sudden bang jolted her back to the present.

“My back door!” Maya shrieked as she turned around.

An earthy, sandalwood scent filled the air.

Maya felt something hot trickle down her arm. Blood. She’d cut her hand without realizing. She glanced down at the table to see the object that had cut her.

A steak knife.

Her steak knife.

Out of its usual place.  

An icy finger ran down Maya’s spine.

Was the knife on the table when she entered? She couldn’t recall.

Maya blinked back her tears of pain as something white caught her eye.

On the table, right in front of her.

Maya held the edge of the table to stabilize herself. Someone had silently entered her house in her presence and placed the rose on her table, all while she stood there.

The thirteenth rose.

A white rose.