Page 91 of Stalkers Anonymous

And Hailey has no idea how far he’s actually gone.

The hospital security footage I’ve accessed shows Shitbag Lars hanging around the emergency department entrance during shift changes, watching staff come and go. Learning faces and schedules. He’s gathering intelligence on her just like I taught military analysts to do before raids.

My phone vibrates with an alert indicating the scumbag’s location has changed.

He’s moving.

I track him on the map, my pulse quickening as I realize where he’s headed. Not toward the hospital, but toward Hailey’s neighborhood. At eleven thirty p.m., while she’s working and her apartment sits empty.

I’m driving before I fully process the decision, but I have to make sure he doesn’t go inside.

Hailey’s street is quiet when I arrive, the kind of eerie silence that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Most of the windows are dark. I park down the road and approach on foot, sticking to the shadows.

His shitty little Toyota is parked across from Hailey’s building.

And he’s not in it.

My heart hammers against my ribs as I scan the area, looking for movement, for any sign of where he might have gone. The fire escape outside Hailey’s building draws my attention—the same fire escape I was fucking worried about.

There. A shadow moving on the second floor, a man crouched outside Hailey’s bedroom window.

The rage that floods through me is unimaginable. This piece of shit is trying to break into her apartment. He’s testing the window locks, probably planning to wait inside for her to come home from work.

I’m going to fucking kill him.

I pull out my phone to call 911, then hesitate. How do I explain this? I can’t really say how I knew he was here or even why I’m here. My surveillance techniques aren’t exactly legal, and revealing them would expose everything I’ve been doing.

But I can’t let him get inside her apartment.

I move closer, staying hidden behind parked cars, getting within thirty feet of the fire escape. Close enough to see that he’s managed to pop the lock on her bedroom window.

I step into the open, phone in hand, letting my voice carry clearly in the quiet night air. “Police are on their way. I’d suggest you leave now unless you want to explain to officers what you’re doing outside that window.”

Shitbag Lars freezes, then turns toward my voice. Even in the dim streetlight, I can see his face clearly—thin, predatory features contorted with surprise and anger.

“Who the fuck are you?” he calls down, though he’s already moving away from the window.

“Someone who doesn’t appreciate people being where they don’t belong,” I reply, keeping my voice calm despite the adrenaline coursing through me. “This is the only warning I’ll give you. Stay the fuck away from her.”

He climbs down the fire escape with surprising agility for someone who supposedly lives in chronic pain, but instead of retreating to his car, he starts walking toward me. Aggressive posture, hands clenched, confrontational body language that implies he’s not used to being challenged. But I already know he’s all bark and no bite. With me, at least.

“You think you’re protecting her?” he sneers, stopping about ten feet away. “You don’t know shit.”

“I know you’ve been stalking her and she doesn’t want anything to do with you.”

“She’ll come around when she learns what’s good for her,” he says, the cold certainty in his voice escalating my rage to murderous new heights. It takes every ounce of discipline I possess not to put him on the ground right here and now.

“Last warning,” I say instead, my voice dropping to a sterner tone. “Stay away from her apartment, stay away from her workplace, stay the fuck away from her entirely. This is not a negotiation. If I catch you anywhere near her again, I’m going to fucking kill you.”

Something in my demeanor must penetrate his bravado because he takes a step back, reassessing the situation. After a moment that feels like hours, he turns and walks back to his car.

“This isn’t over,” he dares to call out as he drives away.

Yes, it is. Because I’m going to make sure it is.

I wait until his taillights disappear before approaching Hailey’s building. The window he was working on is still slightly open, the lock clearly broken.

I can fix this. But fixing it will require going inside—crossing a literal boundary on top of a figurative one. Hesitation stills my hand over the window sash. I could call the police—tell them I was in the neighborhood and saw a suspicious figure, ask them to investigate. But surely they’ll have questions about what I’m doing this close to midnight. Even if I told the truth, that my girlfriend is being stalked and I was walking the neighborhood while she’s at work, their involvement would still trigger more anxiety for Hailey herself.