Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
He was watching us somehow through the window of her bedroom. My hand tightens around her phone, and I force myself to drop it back to the nightstand.
It buzzes again with another incoming text that I read.
UNKNOWN: When I get my hands on you, I’m gonna fuck you till your hole bleeds.
I slam the phone back down. I want to delete every text so she never reads them, but they might be evidence.
Jesus Christ. How often throughout the day do these come in? She said her email was just as bad. And because she has a university email, it’s not like she can change that as easily as her phone number.
Not that changing her phone number helped last time. I frown. How is this bastard getting her new number?
Does it mean it’s someone close to her? Or, like she said, some little shit-head student who’s got some fucked-up crush on her?
That’s it. This shit ends now.
When she comes out of the shower, I start barking orders. “I want a list of all the little shits you suspect might be the stalker. Before class so I can watch them while you teach.”
She looks at the clock on the nightstand, one towel wrapped around her glistening body, another around her hair. “I don’t know if there’s time.”
“We’re gonna make time. That sadistic fuck has sure made time to text you all morning and night. How often do they come in like that?”
She sighs. “Usually once an hour, if not more. He has to have them on some sort of timer system because they come all night long. But they’re not regular, either. Like they don’t come at the same time every hour, so I can’t anticipate them, either. It’s just another way to fuck with me.”
“And your email?”
“Constantly spammed with the same sort of shit.”
“What do the cops say?”
“That they can’t do anything without any leads.”
“After class, we’ll call them to the scene at your house and fill out another report. This bastard is escalating.”
She rubs her eyes with her palms. “I know.” Her voice is quiet, and I don’t like it.
I take a step closer to her. “It’s going to be okay, Red. I’m here now. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She lets out a trembling little breath, her eyes lifting to mine. “You read the messages?”
Still holding her gaze, I nod.
“It’s always about control,” she says, then laughs a little hysterically. “It feels like everyone in my life gets to have control over my life except me. Carol. My father. My Ph.D. advisor. Now, even a stranger.”
“We’ll find them,” I say vehemently, “And stop them.”
“How?” she asks, sounding like she feels helpless. “The cops are next to useless. They won’t do anything.”
“They might find prints.”
“They didn’t last time. But maybe they’ll take it more seriously since it’s escalating?”
As much as I’d like to think the boys in blue will do anything, I’ve had enough run-ins with them in my life to know better.
“In the meantime, we stay with horror movie rules,” I say. “I stick to you like glue.”
I wince, remembering my nightmare right as I say it. This won’t end like that. I won’t let it.
SIX
KIRA
We have just enough time before class for me to scribble down a few names of the more intense students I’ve had in mind.
“Are any of them in this class?” Isaak asks right as students start to pile in for my nine-thirty lecture.
It’s bizarre. I’ve known Isaak for less than twenty-four hours, really, but already he feels like a confidant in this strange storm that’s overtaken my life. Even having someone to read the barrage of messages for me this morning so I didn’t have to… was a relief. Like maybe I don’t have to carry the burden alone. I didn’t feel that with the bodyguard Carol assigned me.
“Zachary usually sits in the front row. Phillip, center right, with kinda curly hair. Dae, in the back. Phillip and Dae are vocal, so you’ll notice them. Zach’s quiet, but he usually comes up to talk after class. The other two do sometimes, too, or during office hours.”
Isaak nods, his eyes already scanning the kids streaming in the doors and sitting down.
I know they’re only four years younger than me but they really do look like kids. It’s easier to have compassion on whoever’s doing this to me when I remember it could be one of them. That maybe they’re just some mixed-up freshman or sophomore with mommy issues experiencing transference in a screwed-up way because I’m the first woman with real intelligence and authority they’ve run into in their adult lives.
A lot of these kids were neglected in the way that a lot of Gen Z has been, abandoned by busy parents to be raised by screens. They’re better with pixelated zombies and NPCs than real-life human beings.