Avery Knox
The silence between Mila and me had become a physical thing, a third person sitting with us at the lunch table. It was a dense, heavy quiet, punctuated only by the too-loud scrape of her fork and the frantic drumming of my own heart. She was a fortress, walls up, drawbridge raised. Her smiles were quick, brittle things that shattered before they reached her eyes.
Something had broken in her. I just didn't know if it was fear for me, or because of me.
My phone buzzed, a violent shudder against the cafeteria table. A number I didn't know. My blood ran cold even before I opened the message.
A photo. Me. From behind, right here in the library, taken not five minutes ago.
My head snapped up, my gaze sweeping the rows of bookshelves. Nothing. No one. Just the ghost of a presence that had already vanished.
The caption beneath the image was a violation all its own:
That red hoodie looks cute today, Avery.
Sent: 1:42 PM
I was wearing it. Right now. He wasn't just watching from a distance. He was here, in my space, matching my reality in real-time. My fingers trembled as I deleted the message, a futile attempt to erase the proof that I was no longer alone in my own skin.
"You okay?' My voice was a rasp, directed at Mila.
"Fine," she chirped, the word too high, too fast. "Just tired."
We were both lying through our teeth. But only one of us knew the shape of the monster we were lying about.
That night, a sound tore me from a fitful sleep. A soft, grating scritch-scritch-scritch against my windowpane. Like a branch. Or fingernails.
I sat bolt upright, my breath caught in my throat. The digital clock cast a sickly green glow: 3:17 AM.
The sound stopped.
Heart hammering against my ribs, I fumbled for my phone, my thumb slipping on the screen as I activated the flashlight. The beam cut through the darkness, jittering as my hand shook. I swept it across the room the closet door was shut, the space beneath my bed empty.
Slowly, against every screaming instinct, I aimed the light at my window.
There, on the inside of the glass, clear as a signature, was a single, smudged fingerprint.
Leo Maddox pov:
They move through this world like cattle, these people. Their conversations are static, their lives a dull hum in the background of mine. I play my part. I am the statue on the pedestal, and they are the pigeons, cooing and strutting at my feet. It's tedious, but necessary. The facade must be maintained.
For him.
Avery. In that red hoodie today, a splash of color in this monochrome world. There's a loose thread near the pocket. I have its twin, safe at home. I watched it bob with his every breath, a tiny metronome keeping time with his heart. I wanted to reach out and still it. To feel the pulse of his life through that single, fragile connection.
But I didn't. The composition isn't yet perfect. The final act must be… pristine.
Mila, however, is a flaw in the composition. A smudge on the lens. Her curiosity is a guttering candle, and she's getting too close to the gasoline. I sent her a message. A gentle reminder of her place. I watched the color drain from her face in the hallway, watched her try to mask her fear with bravado. It was almost endearing.
Almost.
Back in the sanctuary of my room, I stand before the wall. My gallery. My testament. Hundreds of moments of Avery, frozen in time. Laughing, a sound I've captured on audio and play on lonely nights. Frowning over a sketchbook, the delicate line between his brows. My favorite is the one in the rain, droplets caught in his lashes like diamonds, his expression so beautifully, profoundly sad it made my chest ache.
My thumb traces the contour of his jaw in that photograph. "Soon," I breathe into the silence.
My eyes drift to the newest addition, positioned carefully in the corner. Not a photo, but a relic. A single, crimson thread, laid out on a square of black velvet.
Trophies are important. They are the physical proof of a love that others are too blind to see.
Mila Voss pov:
Coincidence is a story we tell ourselves to feel safe. There are no coincidences with Leo Maddox. His name is a ghost in the machine, appearing in campus logs, security footage timestamps, the background of a coffee shop receipt Avery was certain he'd gone to alone. Leo was there. Same day. Same time.
Stalkers don't wear black hats and twirl mustaches. They wear varsity jackets and winning smiles. They are captains. They are kings.
I couldn't tell Avery. Not until I was sure. Sure for him. Sure for me.
So I followed him. I became a ghost in his world, trailing the golden boy as he moved through his adoring public. He cut behind the gym, a shortcut I knew well. I took the long way, my heart a frantic bird against my ribs, and came up on the back of the dormitories.
His window was cracked open. The curtain shifted in the breeze.
And I saw it, the wall.
A mosaic of obsession. Dozens, hundreds of photos. All of Avery. In class. In the courtyard. Asleep. And there, in the center, connected by a web of red string, were photos of me. Of Harper. Of Isaac. Lines connecting us to him, a spider's web with Avery trapped at the very center.
My hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold my phone. I raised it, snapped a single, blurred picture.
And then the shadow moved inside the room.
Not by the door. Not near the window.
He was standing further back, in the darkness of the room. Still. Watching the window. As if he'd been waiting. As if he knew.
I didn't think. I ran.
That night, my phone lit up the darkness of my bedroom.
Stop following what you can't outrun.
Sent: 11:13 PM
Avery Knox pov:
The air around my locker grew thick, charged. I felt him before I saw him a shift in the atmosphere, a cooling of the space beside me. My spine went rigid.
"Red really is your color."
Leo Maddox's voice was a low vibration that went straight through me. I kept my eyes locked on the combination dial, my vision blurring.
"Th-thanks," I stammer, the word tasting like ash.
A soft, humorless chuckle. "I didn't mean to scare you." A deliberate pause, heavy with meaning. "You scare so easily, though, don't you, Avery?"
That forced my gaze up. My eyes met his, and what I saw there wasn't the blank coolness of the school's idol. It was a deep, still, and terrifying intensity. A predator's patience.
"I don't know what you mean," I whispered.
He leaned in, just an inch, and the clean, sharp scent of his cologne filled my senses. It was the smell of control. Of order. "People talk about you,' he murmured, his eyes tracing my features one by one. "They say you're… unbelievably pretty."
My heart stopped. This wasn't a compliment. It was a claim.
He straightened up, that flawless, empty smile back in place. A mask perfectly fitted.
"Be careful, Avery," he said, as if offering friendly advice.
Then he was gone, leaving me clutching my locker for support, my world tilting on its axis.
Later, I texted Mila. Are you sure you're okay?
Her reply was instant. Yes. Just go to sleep.
But I'd seen her hands shaking. And I knew, with a certainty that froze the blood in my veins, that she was lying.
Mila Voss pov:
I found him in the art room after school, alone, trying to lose himself in a sketch. The air smelled of desperation and charcoal.
"Avery. We need to talk."
He looked up, his eyes wide and weary. 'Talk about what?"
"Leo." I said the name and watched him flinch. "I saw your face. In his room. On his wall. There were… so many, Avery. Dozens. All of you."
He stared at me, his mind visibly struggling to process the words. "No. That's… he doesn't even know I exist."
"That's the point!" I hissed, lowering my voice. "He doesn't talk to you because he's too busy collecting you."
I showed him the blurred photo on my phone. The wall of pictures. The web of red string. His face went ashen.
"I think… I think he hurt those people. Harper. Isaac. I think he made them disappear." My voice was trembling now. "I know it."
I showed him the final text message. Stop following what you can't outrun.
We sat in the ensuing silence, the weight of it crushing. We had just torn down the safe, normal world we thought we lived in.
And he still didn't know the worst of it. He didn't know about the photo I couldn't bring myself to show him, the one in the ornate frame on Leo's nightstand.
The one of Avery, fast asleep in his own bed, the covers pulled to his chin.
A photo taken from the corner of his room.
From the inside.