Beth was watching him.
She didn't try to hide it either — not like before.
Her eyes lingered too long during class. Her footsteps always followed just a few paces too close in the hallways. The small, sharp turn of her head when he entered the room? Like a wolf catching scent of something foul.
Brandon wasn't surprised.
He was annoyed.
He leaned back in the library chair, sketchbook open, eyes half-lidded behind round black frames he didn't need. The table lamp cast warm gold across the table, and his pencil danced lazily across the page, dragging shapes out of silence.
He could feel her.
Two tables down. Pretending to read. Fingers tight on her phone. Her boot tapping the tile in perfect sync with the flick of her eyes toward him every twenty seconds.
She was onto him.
Finally.
But not because she'd figured anything out — no, she hadn't gotten close. She felt him the same way he felt her that night she stalked her prey. An instinctual hum in the back of the skull.
She couldn't prove anything yet.
But she knew.
And still… she didn't strike.
Neither did he.
Which pissed him off.
Brandon turned another page in his sketchbook and forced his hand to stay steady. The lines became more violent — jagged shading around the outline of a body. Her body.
A rough sketch of Beth, surrounded by sharp black shapes — shadows shaped like knives.
It would've been so easy.
Slit her throat that night in the alley. Or corner her after class, push her down a stairwell. Set her up like he had done with that dealer in Tulsa — overdose staged with just the right amount of poetic flair.
But Brandon hadn't.
Because he needed to see it.
He needed confirmation.
He wasn't some cop, walking around looking for circumstantial suspicion. He was executioner, judge, and jury — but his rules were tight. Rigid.
Beth was a monster. That much he knew.
But he hadn't seen her kill.
Not directly.
And that mattered to him.
She hadn't slipped up yet, not enough for him to catch her red-handed. No screaming victim. No bloodied blade. Just her eyes — dead and hungry — and her tension when alone in the dark.
He could smell it on her, like gasoline before the match.
Still… it was taking too long.
He stood, quietly packing up his sketchbook, headphones, pencil case. He didn't glance at her as he walked past, though he caught the barest flick of her gaze from the edge of his peripheral vision. Quick. Calculated.
She wouldn't follow.
Not tonight.
She wasn't ready yet.
But she was close.
Back in his dorm, Brandon kicked the door shut behind him and dropped the sketchbook onto the bed. The stray cat he'd adopted— a little gray thing he named Ashes — meowed from the windowsill.
Brandon knelt down and opened a can of food, scratching the cat's chin as it purred against his hand.
"You're lucky, y'know," he said to the animal softly. "You don't need a reason to trust or hate. You just know."
The cat blinked at him with dumb affection, as if it had no idea he'd gutted a man three nights ago with a bone saw and left him dangling in a condemned apartment complex like a grotesque ornament.
Brandon sighed and leaned back against the edge of the bed.
He didn't want to admit it — not even to himself — but part of him liked watching Beth.
She was chaos without apology. She moved like a shark in dirty water. She didn't fake smiles like the rest of the Deadfast Club. She didn't flinch when people cried.
She was real.
But she was also dangerous.
Not the kind of dangerous that scared him.
The kind that complicated things.
She made killing look fun. He hated that.
He wasn't like her.
She killed because she liked it.
He killed because he had to.
Right?
Right.
He stood, grabbed his burner phone from the drawer. The one he'd taken off Jamal. It was still encrypted, but he'd broken through most of it. Messages between Beth and Jamal had slowed in the final weeks. But the tone never changed.
Playful. Flirty. Cruel.
Beth wasn't just an accomplice.
She was a partner.
That was all the proof he should've needed.
So why was he still hesitating?
That night, he followed her again.
Beth had a pattern — a rhythm she didn't know she kept. Left her dorm at 9:15 PM sharp. Took the back paths toward the east parking lot.
Always carried a bag too small for books, too big for just keys and a wallet.
Brandon moved through the shadows like vapor.
If she heard anything behind her, she didn't show it.
He watched her spot her victim — some freshman kid who always walked late from night class. Beth's stride shifted — from casual to intentional. Like a panther.
She gained on him, slowly.
Brandon tensed.
Now. Do it.
Beth reached into her bag.
But then she stopped.
Froze. Again.
Didn't turn, didn't glance around. But something in her stiffened. Like she felt him again. Like the air had changed.
She turned sharply down another path, vanished into the west exit stairwell.
Brandon didn't follow.
Not this time.
He let out a slow breath, heart drumming — not from fear.
From frustration.
She wasn't going to kill anyone tonight. Again.
She was still being careful.
Still calculating.
Brandon pulled out his pocketknife and flicked it open and closed as he walked back toward the dorms. The blade whispered with each click.
He'd give her one more chance.
Just one.
He needed to see her cross the line.
Then?
He wouldn't hesitate.
Not again.