Page 8 of Beyond Protection
Outside, rain kept falling.
The car kept waiting.
And somewhere on I-5 between Portland and Seattle, a man I'd never met was driving toward me through the dark.
One more message appeared before I could put the phone down.
You're most beautiful when you think no one's watching. In the seconds between poses when your face forgets to smile. When you close your eyes at the plate before the pitch. When you stand at the window in the morning with coffee in both hands like you're praying to something you don't believe in anymore. That's when I see you clearly. That's the you I'm going to save.
An hour later, maybe two, I was still awake when headlights swept across my ceiling.
New car. Different engine sound.
I pulled back the curtain edge.
A man stood beside a dark sedan—not the gray one—studying the street. Tall, broad-shouldered under a rain-dampened jacket. He didn't move toward the door of Ma's house. Just stood there in the rain, absolutely still.
Scanning.
It was how someone scanned when they knew what they were looking for. The way someone stands when they've waited in worse places.
Professional, and something else too—the stillness of someone who'd seen darkness before and wasn't afraid to meet it again.
The streetlight caught him briefly. I couldn't see the details from this distance. Only the set of his shoulders. The deliberate economy of movement. Then his head turned.
Toward Ma's house.
Toward my window.
He wasn't looking at me. He was looking for me.
I stepped back. Heart hammering.
When I looked again, he was walking to the door—no wasted movement. No hesitation. Michael appeared, backlit. Brief conversation I couldn't hear. The man nodded once—sharp, decisive—and went inside.
The door closed.
I stayed at the window.
For eighteen months, someone had been watching me—examining every smile, every gesture, and every moment I thought was private. Watching until they knew me better than I knew myself. Until they could predict what I'd wear, how I'd move, and when I'd break.
Now, someone else was here to watch me. To track my movements, monitor my patterns, and keep me in sight every moment until the threat was gone.
More watching. More eyes. More performance.
Except—
The man in the rain hadn't looked at me the way people looked at Mac McCabe, MVP. Hadn't looked at me the way the stalker looked at me, like I was art needing preservation.
He'd looked at the street, the shadows, the gray sedan two houses down.
He was looking for the threat.
Not for me. Not at me.
For the thing trying to hurt me.
I realized I was crying only when I couldn't see the street anymore—just shapes and light bleeding together in the rain.
