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Brett didn’t say anything to that, so I went on, “But the messages have been getting more frequent. And knowing he was in my room, while I was sleeping, long enough to draw me, and I didn’t wake up once…”
It was scary. Scary in a new way for me, in a way I wasn’t used to. You’d think, after all I’d done, having a stalker wouldn’t be my breaking point, but it was. It pushed me to do this—this crazy as hell idea, pitting a killer against a stalker. I didn’t know how it’d turn out, or if I’d even see the ending to this story, but it didn’t matter.
“No ex-boyfriends who you broke up with on a bad note?” Brett asked. He got a granola bar and tore into it, munching on it as he waited for me to reply.
“One ex-boyfriend, but the breakup was mutual.” I didn’t know if I’d call it that, realistically, but I didn’t want to get into the nitty gritty details of my life and why it sucked so much with him. “I mean it when I say I don’t know who it could be.”
But even that was a lie, because I did have one idea—I just couldn’t tell Brett, because then I’d have to explain everything, and I wasn’t strong enough to do that.
“Once you’re good to go, I want you watching my window at night. You can stay in the woods, where he won’t see,” I said, pausing to watch him tear into a second granola bar. The guy was hungry.
“You want me to grab him if I see him?”
“I want you to text me a picture of him.” Even though his mouth was full, he still opened it, about to tell me something I already knew, so I quickly added, “I’ll buy you a burner phone at the store later today. I’ll swing by tomorrow with it.”
I’d blow all of the money I’d saved up over the years, working odd summer jobs here and there, but it’d be worth it. As someone who knew they didn’t have a future, I’d gladly spend all of my money on this endeavor.
Brett finished up the second bar, leaving the wrapper next to him. “You haven’t heard from your stalker today? If he left you a picture, he knew you’d find it.”
I shook my head.
“Then he wants you to be afraid. He’ll wait a while, and then probably reach out, ask you about it, because he’ll want to know what kind of reaction that picture brought out of you.”
“Why do you think he’ll do that?”
Brett looked at me, his mouth a hard line, no fake smiles to see. “It’s what I would do, if I was a stalker. You said you’ve been getting messages for a while, and then suddenly he came into your room—which means he knows where you live, but also that he likes to take his time. He wants to make this last, and I’d bet anything that his end goal is to have you right where he wants you… maybe even forever.”
I was pretty sure Brett meant my stalker might try to kidnap me, take me somewhere where he could have me whenever he wanted, however he wanted, uninterrupted by any responsibilities in the real world.
Now that, that sound sounded like a fate worse than death to me.
My breath caught, a pressure in my chest much like there’d been when Brett’s hands were around my neck, only a little different. This pressure I felt squeeze down my spine. It made my stomach churn. “Don’t let that happen.”
I stared at my lap, but when I looked at Brett, I found his gaze was on me, and it had probably been on me the entire time. I couldn’t read his expression. It was like he wore a mask, and to get to the bottom of him, I’d have to peel it off. I had the feeling he didn’t like people trying to peel off his mask, so even though a small part of me might be curious about him, I’d have to resist.
We were locked in a staring contest for a while, and it was only when he spoke that I was able to breathe a sigh of relief: “It won’t.”
I tried to smile at that, because it was nice to hear, but the smile didn’t really land on my face, and its remnants disappeared within seconds. Even though he sounded like he meant it, I didn’t know if I believed him.
Chapter Five – Brett
She got me cheap, old clothes from a secondhand store. They fit alright, but they made me look terrible. The first night, she’d gotten me some hair dye, but since I couldn’t bend over yet without causing a jolt of searing pain to travel up and down my body from the stab wound, we couldn’t use it yet. I was going to be a number fifty-three: a medium golden brown.
I hated the idea of dying my hair, but if dying it and styling it differently helped me avoid suspicion when I did show my face in public, well, I’d have to be a man and suck it up.
Charlie set me up as best she could. Besides the clothes and food, she got me a cheap razor so I could shave, and her sister came through with some pills, so I stopped taking the old ones from her dad and popped the newer ones instead.
She got me a burner phone as well, the only number put into it hers. It could connect to the internet, though I assumed the speed was slow.
I was bored out of my mind in that motel room. Fucking bored. There wasn’t anything to do besides watch whatever old show I could get on the TV and roam the internet—when it wanted to work on my cheap phone.
I couldn’t believe I’d agreed to help her. I could fucking walk out that door and leave this room right now, and probably be better off. I could lay low somehow, even if I didn’t have any cash. So, don’t ask me why I stayed.
But I did, and as the days passed, and I grew increasingly bored, I started to look her up. I didn’t know her last name, just that her full name was Charlotte. An old-timey name if there was one.
Let’s just say I spent way too long looking for her, but I managed to find her. She was on Facebook and Instagram, but she hadn’t posted anything in a long time, since high school, which, based on pictures where she’d been tagged in graduation gowns, would be two years this May. Her birthday was in the summer, so she’d graduated when she was seventeen, so that put her at nineteen now.
So young, but old enough to know getting involved with someone like me, in one way or another, was one of the worst possible things she could do.
