Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 58987 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58987 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
"You're a fucking stalker!" She spins again, arms spread wide, addressing the entire downtown corridor like she's performing for an audience she can't see. "A murderer! A psychopath who gets off on—"
She stops herself.
She's not stupid enough to say what I get off on. Not out loud.
"—on controlling people!" She finishes instead, breathing hard. "On manipulating them into thinking they want things they don't actually want!"
A man in a business suit pauses near the corner, phone already out. Probably deciding whether this constitutes a 911-worthy public disturbance or just another downtown crazy.
I zoom the feed tighter on Scarletta's face.
Her cheeks are flushed. Eyes bright. Chest heaving with each ragged breath.
She's furious.
And she's alive.
For the first time in six months of surveillance footage, she looks genuinely, viscerally present in her own body instead of performing existence for invisible judges who've already convicted her.
"I destroyed your cameras!" Her voice goes shrill on that word. "I deleted everything! I left! I left, and you were supposed to—you were supposed to just—"
Let you go?
Is that what she thought?
That I'd orchestrate months of elaborate psychological seduction, spend literal millions of dollars creating experiences tailored specifically to her darkest fantasies, confess to multiple homicides, and then just... what?
Move on?
Find another broken girl who writes prettily about her own destruction?
The business suit guy is definitely calling someone now. Probably not 911—he doesn't look concerned enough—but security, maybe. Downtown has private patrols that deal with public disturbances.
I should feel something about that. Concern, maybe. Strategic recalibration.
Instead, I'm just watching her.
"You don't get to do this!" She's crying now, tears streaming, and she doesn't bother wiping them away. "You don't get to—to leave me alone for six months and then—"
She stops.
Realizes what she just said.
Her mouth opens. Closes.
Leave me alone.
As in: you abandoned me, and I hated it, and now you're back and I hate that too.
I see the exact moment she hears her own words the way I heard them.
Her expression shifts. Closes down. The fury drains out of her posture like someone pulled a plug, and suddenly she's just a girl standing on a sidewalk in downtown Idaho Falls, crying in public while strangers stare.
She looks smaller.
Defeated.
She wipes her face with the back of her hand, smearing mascara across her cheek. Straightens her shoulders. Takes one long, shaky breath that I can see even through the camera feed.
Then she looks directly at the camera positioned above the bookstore entrance.
She can't possibly know which one I'm using. There are seven feeds covering this block alone.
But she's looking right at it anyway.
"Fuck you," she says clearly. Quietly. Just loud enough for the microphone to catch. "Fuck you, Caleb."
The business suit guy definitely heard that. He's looking at her differently now—not crazy lady, but someone who knows a specific person's name. Someone with a story.
Scarletta turns and walks away.
Not running. Not fleeing.
Just... walking.
Back toward her apartment, finally. Toward safety. Toward the only space she thinks I can't reach anymore.
I watch until she turns the corner and disappears from the downtown camera coverage.
Then I sit back in the driver's seat, hands resting on the steering wheel, and smile.
Finally.
Six months of watching her pretend.
Six months of controlled routines and careful performance.
Six months of her trying to convince herself—and me—that she's moved on.
And it took one scripted date with a trust fund pottery boy to shatter the entire illusion.
She's thinking about me again.
Screaming about me again.
Saying my name like a curse she can't stop speaking.
The pretending is over—
A sharp knock on my window.
I turn my head and actually laugh.
She's here. She found me.
She knocks again, harder this time. "I know you're in there, you sick fuck!"
She found me.
She found me.
I lower the window.
And she explodes.
"You sick fuck—you absolute piece of shit—you think this is funny? You think watching me lose my mind on a public street is entertainment?"
The words pour out of her like water from a broken dam. No filter. No performance. Just raw, uncut fury.
"Stalker—predator—manipulative psychopath—you killed someone, you murdered someone and jerked off on their corpse and I saw you and you think—you actually think—"
She's not making complete sentences anymore. Just fragments. Shrapnel.
"—that I'd want anything to do with you after—after everything you—controlling freak—obsessive—insane—"
My cock is already hard.
Not just hard. Throbbing. Aching. Straining against my zipper while she calls me every name she can summon from whatever dark vocabulary she's been building during six months of pretending I don't exist.
"—pathetic excuse for a man who has to buy women because no one would ever willingly—"
I open the door.
She jumps back, mid-rant, eyes going wide.
I unfold myself from the driver's seat, standing to my full height. She has to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact, and I watch her throat work as she swallows.
But she doesn't stop talking.
"Don't you dare—don't you fucking dare come near me, I will scream, I will call the police, I will—"