I didn't want to jump to conclusions, not when my mind was already a battlefield of fear and suspicion, so I forced myself to ask Ryan again, even though the words burned on the way out.
"When did you start messaging me… pretending to be my stalker?"
The question seemed to rattle him in a way I hadn't expected. His eyebrows pulled together slowly, like his brain was scrambling to rearrange the pieces of something he didn't understand. There was a flicker of hesitation in his eyes, brief, but sharp enough to send a thin shiver down my spine. I felt my control slipping.
No matter how hard I tried to keep my face calm, my panic must've bled through, because I saw the exact moment he registered it. My hands had started to tremble without permission, and it felt as though someone had pressed cold fingers against the back of my neck. I kept telling myself to breathe, to not let him see how badly his silence was scaring me, but fear has a way of crawling through your skin even when you pretend it isn't there.
Ryan stepped closer, searching my face with a confusion that didn't look staged. "What's wrong? Everything's okay?" he asked, but something in his voice wasn't steady. His tone held concern, yes, but also something guarded, like he was afraid of the answer I might give. Before I could step back or assemble a coherent response, his hands came up and gently cupped my face.
His palms were warm against my cold cheeks, and the contrast made my stomach twist. The pressure behind my eyes intensified, and tears began to gather no matter how quickly I tried to swallow them down. I blinked hard, forcing them back, refusing to fall apart in front of him, at least not yet.
"Just tell me," I whispered, the words cracking under the weight of everything I'd been keeping in. "When did you start messaging me from that unknown number? Please, Ryan. Tell me everything you did to scare me."
His expression darkened with worry, but not the kind that comes with guilt, at least, not obviously. He looked… unsettled. As if he was trying to decipher a language he'd never heard spoken aloud. For a moment, the silence between us felt alive, thick, pressing against my ribs like something waiting to be revealed.
Finally, he exhaled and answered.
"Yesterday," he said, voice low but steady. "James told me you were in his clinic, so I… I took advantage of it and went to your place since I already have a key. I made scrambled eggs in your kitchen. I turned on the TV and the AC to scare you a little. After that, I messaged you to ask if you liked the eggs."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone with shaky fingers, unlocking it before handing it to me as if that proved everything. The screen glowed in my trembling hands, and for a moment, the room felt colder than it should have.
And yet, something in me twisted with unease.
Because his explanation didn't cover everything.
Not even close.
"Then this morning," Ryan continued, "I asked you to reply to me because I thought you wouldn't have noticed those little things. The moment you replied 'wait till I find you,' I knew you were going to report it, so I sent my picture to stop you from going to the police. Then we brought you to my house to celebrate your birthday."
He said it all so casually, like it was nothing more than a harmless prank among friends. And the worst part? He wasn't lying. There were only three texts, four, if I counted the picture, that came from him. He even showed me the timestamps. The messages were still there, clear and harmless on the surface:
Did you like the scrambled eggs?
Why are you not replying to me?
Your boyfriend is safe with me. As long as you listen to me.
Good girl, now come back home. I'm waiting for you.
Those were the texts Ryan sent. Out of everything that had happened, these were the least terrifying. They didn't freeze my blood or make my heart climb into my throat the way the other messages did, the ones from the real stalker. The ones Ryan knew nothing about.
My heart stuttered. For a split second, it stopped.
"What's wrong, Venisa?" Ryan asked, noticing the way I'd gone still. His voice was gentle, confused. Concern tightened the edges of his expression, and it made everything worse. I forced a smile through the panic clawing at my chest. My pulse thrashed like a trapped bird beneath my skin. Should I tell him? Should I hand him the truth and risk dragging him into something I didn't understand?
Would it put him in danger?
No. I couldn't. Not before I understood who, or what, I was dealing with. That thing behind the messages, the presence I'd felt watching me, breathing down my neck from places I couldn't see, it wasn't a prank. It wasn't Ryan.
I could still feel the cold sweat sliding down the back of my neck when I remembered that picture… the one of me sleeping, taken from inside my own house. His explanation covered only a fraction of my fear. What Ryan did was foolish, hurtful, reckless, but it wasn't malicious. He didn't know about the messages I'd deleted. The ones that never showed his number. The ones that made my blood turn to ice.
Thankfully, his prank was just that, a prank. But the rest? The rest was not him. And if I told him everything, I could be signing his death warrant.
Not after what I felt, when I believed, even for a moment, that he was in danger because of me. The dread had wrapped around my ribs like barbed wire. I wouldn't let that happen again. Not to him. Not to anyone.
"Ryan, I need rest," I said quietly, my voice steadier than I felt. "My mind is a mess right now."
It was a lie, but it rolled off my tongue with ease. I stood before he could ask anything more and headed toward the door. He still looked confused, but he didn't try to push. Maybe he thought the guilt of what he'd done was enough to justify my mood.
"Okay… let me drop you--" he offered, rising from his seat and reaching for his car keys.
"No, it's fine." I shook my head quickly, almost too quickly. "I… I want to be alone for a while."
He looked at me then, really looked. His eyes searched my face for cracks, lies, anything he could cling to. But I held it together just long enough. My mask was smooth, practiced. I'd learned long ago how to bury the truth beneath a calm surface. I handed his phone back, and he pressed his lips into a thin line.
He sighed in defeat, nodding as a forced smile tugged at his mouth. "Okay. Call me whenever you need. I'll be there for you."
Before I could step away, he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. It should've been comforting, but instead a chill spread beneath my skin, as though someone was watching from the shadows, amused.
I picked up Jojo in my arms, her tiny body warm and oblivious to the storm inside me, and started heading toward the door. My footsteps felt too loud, too slow. Everyone was still gathered in the living room. Their faces were flushed with worry and guilt. Each apology they muttered made the tightness in my chest worse.
"I'm really sorry, Venisa… it was my idea to prank you," Justin said, voice low with shame. He wouldn't meet my eyes. The remorse etched across his face was genuine, and that made me feel even worse for fleeing the celebration they'd planned.
I gave him a nod, a small one, careful and practiced. But the truth was still thrumming beneath my skin, whispering its warning:
Ryan is not the one you're afraid of.
The real stalker is still out there.
And he knows you're alone now.
I wished I could tell them the truth, that their stupid prank wasn't the thing eating away at me. That the reason my hands wouldn't stop trembling had nothing to do with scrambled eggs, a TV left on, or a stupid running AC. I wanted to say, You didn't scare me. Someone else did. But the words stuck in my throat like shards of glass.
How could I tell them I wasn't just spooked, I was being hunted?
They thought they'd gone too far with a joke. They thought the fear in my eyes was because of them. But if they knew, if even one of them understood what was really hiding in the dark corners of my life, they would never sleep peacefully again.
No. I couldn't drag them into my nightmare.
Not yet.
Before I reveal anything, before I breathe a word of what's been lurking in the shadows, I need to end this. Whatever this is. I need to cut it off at the root before it spreads into their lives. Before it turns its eyes on them the way it turned them on me.
I need to end it for everyone's sake.
Before it ends me first.
_______
The moment I stepped inside my house, the silence greeted me like a held breath. I hadn't even closed the door completely when a sharp buzz vibrated through my bag. The sound cut straight through my spine. For a few seconds, I just stood there, frozen, my fingers curled tightly around the strap.
I didn't want to look.
I already knew who it would be.
Slowly, I slipped my hand into my bag and pulled out my phone. My thumb hovered over the screen before I finally unlocked it, my pulse thundering in my ears.
Message:
"You actually listened to me this time without making me repeat myself. Such a good girl."
The words were soft, almost affectionate, but they coiled around my nerves like barbed wire. My mouth went dry. I could feel the weight of the empty rooms around me, the eerie quiet pressing in, as if the walls themselves were listening.
My mind screamed at me to ignore him. To stay silent. To not give him anything.
Instead… I typed.
My fingers trembled so violently, I kept hitting the wrong letters. I don't know what possessed me, anger, exhaustion, the unbearable tension of pretending everything was normal, but the words came out before rationality could stop them.
"Why are you hiding behind a screen? If you really want to intrude into my life, do it properly."
The message sat there for a second, glowing back at me like a threat I'd written to myself. I almost dropped the phone when I hit send. My hands had gone numb, as though my body knew I'd made a mistake before my brain could admit it.
His reply came too fast.
Faster than normal.
As if he'd been watching the screen.
As if he'd been waiting.
As if he already knew I was home.
Message:
"Hahaha. Aww, my brave girl. I didn't know you were dying to see me, huh? How about you try and find me yourself? Want a hint? 'You know me.'"
A thin, shaky breath slipped from my lips before I even realized I'd been holding it. The message settled into my mind like poison, slow, seeping, deliberate. He was playing again. Teasing. Testing. And somehow, that confirmed what I'd already feared,
He was closer than I'd ever allowed myself to believe.
But there was one small, pathetic mercy buried beneath his words, he hadn't said he was coming here. Not tonight. Not yet. The relief that washed through me was sharp and humiliating, like exhaling while still standing on the edge of a cliff.
I wasn't ready to see him. Not face-to-face. Not until I figured out how to use his obsession against him. I needed time to make him trust me, enough to make him drop his guard.
Only then could I destroy him.
My fingers moved almost mechanically as I clicked on his number and saved it into my phone. I stared at the empty name field for a moment, then typed the only thing that made sense.
Stalker.
I locked the phone and tossed it onto the coffee table before my hands could start shaking again. Jojo brushed against my leg, oblivious to the storm clawing at my chest. I forced myself to move, to act normal, to pretend the world hadn't just shifted under my feet. I filled his bowl with food and watched her trot over and eat as if nothing in the universe was wrong.
If only I could do the same.
Leaving the lights off, I walked toward the bathroom. The quiet in the house didn't feel like peace, it felt like someone holding their breath with me. I closed the door behind me and turned on the tap. Cold water rushed over my hands and I splashed it over my face, hoping it would wash away the crawling sensation beneath my skin.
Then I looked up.
My reflection stared back at me from the mirror, same eyes, same face, but something inside me had shifted. The fear that had been gnawing at my spine since this began was no longer just fear. It was hardening into something else, hotter, darker, sharper.
Rage.
He wanted to play games? Fine. I could play too. If he thought I was just a frightened little girl, hiding in the dark and shaking at every shadow, then he'd already made his first mistake.
Because now I was done running.
Now, I was going to catch him.
And if he really was someone I knew… someone who walked freely through the same world as me… then he had no idea how close I already was to finding him.
Before today, all I could think about was my own safety, how to run, how to hide, how to survive him. But something shifted the moment I walked out of that bathroom. I wasn't afraid in the same way anymore. The panic was still there, but now it was buried beneath something colder. Stronger.
I wasn't just protecting myself now.
I was protecting Jojo.
Ryan.
Everyone close to me.
Everyone who could become a target in his sick, twisted game.
If he wanted to play with me, fine. But I wasn't going to let him touch anyone else.
I stepped out of the bathroom with that thought anchored in my mind. I reached for the face towel hanging near the door and pressed it to my skin, wiping the cold water from my cheeks, when the sharp ding of a notification sliced through the silence.
My blood ran cold.
I didn't need to check the screen to know who it was.
Stalker.
My fingers moved before my brain could catch up. I unlocked the phone.
Message:
"I was about to tell you to wash every part of your body where Ryan touched you today. I didn't like it, in fact I hate it. But today is your birthday, so I'll let it pass. So don't just wash your face. Go back to the bathroom and take a long bath to clean yourself."
For a heartbeat, everything inside me stopped. Then the fear crashed back twice as hard. My eyes widened so fast it hurt, the words blurring for a second as my mind tried to reject them.
How--
How did he know?
I'd only wash my face. It had not even dried. He saw that.
Was he here?
In the house?
Behind a wall?
Outside a window?
Or,---
The thought slithered into my skull so violently I nearly dropped the phone.
Cameras.
Hidden. Watching. Recording. Right now.
My gaze snapped to the ceiling, then to the corners of the room. Every shadow suddenly felt alive. Every reflection felt like an eye. The air around me thickened until breathing felt like swallowing needles.
He wasn't guessing.
He wasn't assuming.
He knew.
And I was standing in the middle of my own home…
completely exposed.
Knowing someone installed a hidden camera inside my house.
To be continued