Page 8 of The Stalker
Chapter Four
Run Run Run
Bianka
I can’t breathe.I can’t think.All I can do is run.
The second I slipped out from under Griffin’s arm, instinct took over.My body moved before my brain caught up, propelling me down the hallway, past the front door, and out into the cold October night.
The air slams into me, sharp and burning, and my lungs seize.I clutch at my chest, but I don’t stop.I can’t.My bare feet slap against the porch steps, down onto the cracked sidewalk, each strike reverberating through my bones.
I’m not fast enough and I know it.
Behind me, the house groans.The floorboards creak like someone heavy is moving through it, deliberate and slow.Not chasing.Not yet.
That’s worse.Because if he’s not chasing, it means he doesn’t need to.
I sprint down the street, past clusters of kids in costumes, their candy buckets clattering as they run from house to house.Parents wave from the sidewalks, beer bottles in their hands, laughing too loud to hear the frantic beat of my footsteps.
No one notices me.No one sees that I’m not playing a game.Halloween in Ashburne is like that.Screams, running, masks—it all blends into the carnival of chaos.People don’t look too closely.They don’t want to.
I cut down a side street, my lungs burning and my heart hammering.My sweater flapping around me like wings on the cool autumn breeze.The scar on my face throbs with heat, as if it knows he touched it, as if his fingerprints are still pressed into me.
Griffin Hayes.
The boy I once loved.The man who stood on my porch tonight with hunger burning in his eyes.And the worst part?A part of me wanted it.
The thought makes me stumble.My ankle twists, pain slicing up my leg, but I push through it.I can’t stop.If I stop, he’ll catch me.And if he catches me...I don’t even know what happens then and I’m too afraid to find out.
But the memory of his voice, low and rough, snakes through my mind.I’ve watched you.Every night.Since you came back.
My stomach flips.He’s a stalker.A monster.A fucking predator.So why did my body shiver like it wanted more when he touched me?
I shake my head hard, trying to rip the thought away.Fear, that’s all it was.Fear makes you confused, makes your body betray you.Right?I can’t possibly want whatever madness he offers?
The shadows stretch longer as I cut behind the old church, the one kids always whisper is haunted.My breath fogs in front of me, my chest seizing with each gasp.I glance over my shoulder but there’s nothing there.
The street is empty, the trick-or-treaters long gone.The silence is worse than noise.It means he’s there, somewhere, watching.Always watching.
“Stop it,” I whisper to myself.“You’re imagining things.”
But I’m not.Because I can feel him.Not just Griffin but something else.Something that presses at the edges of my thoughts, a chill crawling down my spine.I saw it on his face, in the way his voice seemed layered, like someone else was speaking through him.His eyes flickered, green and unnatural, and for a heartbeat it was like he wasn’t Griffin at all.
