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Hawk and I immediately focus on Emilia, and I feel like there should be some sort of drumroll before she tells us. It’s like all this hype and suspense, all for this one dramatic moment where we find out who the illusive stalker is. I still have my bets on the Steven dude from the band or one of the other guys from the tour she went on that summer. Although perhaps that’s just my own jealousy talking.
Drawing out the moment, Emilia looks at me then at Hawk before meeting Kai’s eyes. "Mel."
Her words are met with a stunned silence, and all I can think is,Who the fuck is Mel?
Talk about a letdown. It’s about as disappointing as the final season of Game of Thrones.
“Your roommate from college?” Hawk questions, sounding about as confused as I feel.
Emilia nods, and I faintly remember her name being mentioned in passing at one point or another. “Isn’t she a girl?” I question, drawing everyone’s attention.
“Yes,” Emilia states again.
“Your stalker is a woman?” I try to clarify, struggling to wrap my mind around the concept.
“Women can be stalkers, too,” Hawk snaps, before turning his glower on Kai. “Didn’t you check her out?”
“Of course I did,” he argues. “No red flags showed up, and admittedly, because she was a girl and a friend, I dismissed her as a potential threat."
“Are you sure it wasn’t Steven?”
This time, everyone turns to scowl at me, butcome on, I was wholly convinced it was Steven.
“Pretty sure,” Emilia deadpans.
“It’s rare,” Kai explains, “though not unheard of for a woman to be the stalker. Mostly, it’s a woman stalking a man, but there have been several unprecedented cases where a woman has stalked another woman."
“Why?” I question.
“Why does anyone stalk? They want a relationship with the person, jealousy, envy. It isn’t always logical,” Kai explains.
“She said she’s wanted to ask me out since the first day we met,” Emilia confesses in a quiet voice. “Except that it wasn’t the right time, so she waited. And when she found out Richard planned to propose, she was done waiting.”
“So, what, she played at being your roommate and friend for four years until she got sick of Richard and offed him?” I question, only realizing the callous way I phrased that when Emilia blanches.
With her gaze fixed on the floor, she shrugs, not having a better answer. I guess, as Kai says, their motives and actions aren’t always logical.
"We should get out of here," Hawk says when Emilia shivers. I'm not sure whether it’s from the cold or the events of today. Both, probably.
Each of us takes a wall, carefully removing the photos and bundling them into piles. When we’re done, we exit the bunker into the ongoing hurricane without a backward glance, battling the wind and rain as we hastily cross campus toward the parking lot.
“You two take Emilia,” Kai shouts over the gale before running toward his abandoned car. Emilia watches him go until Hawk tugs on her hand, and the three of us jog over to where he parked his car when he arrived on campus this morning.
I feel like someone has put earmuffs over my ears as I slam the car door shut behind me, blocking out the raging storm. With our combined body heat and heaving breaths, the windows quickly steam up until Hawk starts the engine and blasts hot air at the windshield.
A moment later, we’re reversing out of the space and heading away from campus. Now that I’ve finally stopped and the adrenaline has worn off, my exhaustion is making itself known, and several times, my eyes droop, threatening to close.
“Where the hell have you been?” Hawk barks, jolting me from my near-sleep state.
“Nowhere,” I grumble, wiping my hand down my face. “Just letting off some steam.”
I can feel Hawk’s eyes on me in the rearview mirror, but I deliberately don’t meet his penetrating stare, instead focusing on the stack of photographs I’m still holding in my hand. In an effort to keep myself awake, I begin to flick through them, not spotting any of those so-calledcluesKai was talking about.
That is, until I reach a photo about halfway through the stack, taken the night I found Emilia in my bathroom. In the picture, she’s on her knees on the floor, with her head hanging and her shoulders slumped. She looks so small and defeated, and for a second, it’s that dejection which grips me. I’d already walked away by that point, so I never saw the aftermath. I stroke my finger over her small frame.Now, that is a beautiful sight,I think to myself.
However, it’s not the photo itself that caught my attention—although, when Kai’s done with it, I’m definitely keeping it for myself. It’s the fact that it exists at all. I tilt my head to one side, then the other, trying to figure out the angle, before shoving my hand through the gap between the front two seats.
“Hey, where was this photo taken?”
