I didn't sleep that night.
I left the Glass House Hotel just after midnight, heart hammering, blood colder than the city air outside. I didn't say a word to Lucas. I didn't wait for answers. Not after that woman's voice cut through the air like a blade.
Your brother knows about her.
Whoever she was, whatever she meant, I didn't care. I only knew one thing.
I needed to get out.
Eleanor was curled up on the couch when I got home, a half-empty tub of ice cream balanced on her lap and reruns playing on the TV. She looked up as I slammed the door behind me.
"You okay?" she asked, eyes narrowing.
"Peachy," I muttered, kicking off my boots.
"You've got that look again."
"What look?"
"The one that says you saw the devil and kissed him anyway."
I flinched. Not visibly—I hoped. But something in her expression shifted.
"You don't have to say anything," she added quietly. "Just... be careful. Not everything dangerous looks like a villain."
I didn't reply.
Because the truth was, Lucas didn't look like a villain. He looked like sin and silence. Like thunder in a glass cage.
And worst of all—he looked at me like I belonged to him.
I tossed in bed for hours, the sheets tangled around my legs, my mind louder than the city outside.
When I finally drifted off, my sleep was shallow and twisted.
It started with shadows.
I was walking down a long hallway—walls lined with mirrors, each one cracked, reflecting slivers of my face. My footsteps echoed, sharp and hollow, like they didn't belong to me.
I stopped when I saw him.
Lucas stood at the end of the hall, blood dripping from his fingertips, a smile carved onto his face. He lifted his hand, and instead of calling me forward, he pointed behind me.
I turned.
And saw my mother.
Not the way I remembered her—soft-spoken and kind—but broken. Crying. Her face bruised, her mouth open in a silent scream.
I reached for her, but the hallway kept stretching.
She was just out of reach.
And then the mirrors shattered.
Glass rained down. My arms bled.
Lucas stepped forward, wrapped his hands around my throat—
I gasped awake, sitting bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat.
3:07 a.m.
My chest heaved. I wiped my face with shaky hands, eyes scanning the room like I expected him to be standing in the corner.
But I was alone.
Except I didn't feel alone.
Over the next few days, the dreams kept coming.
Some nights, I'd wake up to the sound of Lucas's voice in my ear. Others, I'd feel his touch—light as smoke, dragging across my skin. Always watching. Always waiting.
Worse, I started seeing him when I was awake.
A flash of black leather in the crowd. A reflection in a store window. The unmistakable scent of spice and heat when no one was there.
I told myself I was spiraling.
That I'd let him crawl into my mind like a parasite.
But the feeling wouldn't go away.
Eyes. Always on me.
I skipped class the third day.
I couldn't focus, couldn't sit through lectures about justice and law when I was walking around with secrets dripping down my spine. When my dreams were colored in blood and lust and lies.
Instead, I sat in the student library, back to the wall, eyes on every person who walked by.
Eleanor texted around noon.
"Haven't seen you today. You good?"
I didn't reply.
My phone buzzed again, but the number was unfamiliar.
"Do you always look over your shoulder like that?"
I stared at the message, heart plummeting.
No name. No signature. Just a reminder.
He was watching.
I looked up. Scanned the room. Every head bent over books or screens. No one was looking at me.
But I felt it. That crawling sensation under my skin.
I typed back.
Who is this?
No response.
I waited five minutes. Ten.
Finally, another message.
"You're thinking about me. Just like I knew you would."
I turned off my phone.
That night, Jessy came home.
She slammed the front door, tossed her badge on the kitchen counter, and stared at me like she was about to deliver a sentence.
"I spoke to Dad," she said.
I didn't look up from my tea.
"He said you've been off. Skipping class. Leaving late. Coming home at weird hours."
I shrugged. "So now you're both tracking my movements?"
"Don't be a brat, Nia. Something's going on."
"No," I said, finally meeting her eyes. "Something's always going on."
Her jaw tensed. "Cut the crap. You're jumpy. Paranoid. Sleeping with your light on."
I flinched.
She noticed.
"Talk to me," she said, stepping closer. "Tell me what's happening."
"I can't," I whispered.
Jessy stared at me for a long moment. Then turned away.
Her voice was colder when she spoke again. "If you're tangled up with someone dangerous, I can't protect you unless I know what I'm dealing with."
I didn't answer.
Because the truth was, I wasn't sure anymore if I wanted protection.
At 2 a.m., I opened the window.
The city air was sharp, laced with the scent of rain and exhaust. Lights flickered far below—tiny fires in the dark.
I stood there, watching.
Waiting.
And then… I saw it.
A figure on the rooftop across the street. Black coat. Still as stone. Watching my building.
My breath caught.
I leaned forward.
He raised a hand. A slow, deliberate wave.
Then turned—and disappeared into the night.
The dreams changed after that.
Lucas no longer stood in the hallway.
He was in my bed.
In my blood.
On my skin.
Sometimes he kissed me.
Sometimes he killed me.
Sometimes… It was both.
I couldn't tell where he ended and I began.
By Friday, I'd stopped trying to pretend.
He was in my head.
He was under my skin.
And I couldn't get him out.
But the scariest part wasn't that he haunted my dreams.
It was that I didn't want him to stop.
The knock came just before midnight.
I sat up in bed, heart already racing. The sound was sharp. Precise. Not Eleanor. She was at her boyfriend's for the night.
I grabbed the pepper spray from my drawer and padded toward the door.
Another knock. This time softer.
I looked through the peephole.
No one.
I opened it anyway.
And there it was.
A box.
Black velvet, no label.
I bent down, picked it up, heart pounding.
Inside… was a necklace.
A single silver chain. Hangi
ng from it—a bullet.
Attached to the bullet, a note.
"For every dream you've had of me—here's a piece of my reality."