The photo glowed on Alex's screen, a silent bomb in the dark dorm. It wasn't the grainy stalker-shot he'd imagined. It was crisp, artistic even-the moonlit path, the Gothic silhouette of the annex, and the unmistakable blur of him walking toward it. The timestamp was a brand.
His first emotion wasn't fear. It was a white-hot spike of fury.
He's watching. Fine. Let him watch.
With a tap, he screenshot the image, then saved it to a hidden folder labeled 'Evidence.' The act felt stupidly cinematic, but it shifted something inside him. He wasn't just a subject anymore. He was keeping score.
Sleep was impossible. At his 9 a.m. Introduction to Political Theory lecture, he slid into a seat near the back, his nerves scraped raw. The scent of old chalk and stale coffee did nothing to calm him.
A familiar, expensive cologne cut through the lecture hall smells a second before a body settled into the seat beside him.
Leo.
He didn't look at Alex, just opened a pristine notebook. "You look like hell, Alex," he said, his voice a low murmur beneath the professor's droning. "Late night?"
Alex kept his eyes forward. "Could say that."
"I heard the old annex is haunted. Victorian chemistry students, tragic love affairs, the usual." Leo's pen tapped a slow rhythm on the page. "Did you see any ghosts?"
The casual menace was a masterclass. Alex's jaw tightened. "Just shadows."
"Shadows can be tricky." Leo finally turned his head. His expression was one of mild, brotherly concern. "Look, I feel responsible. I throw you into the deep end, you get swept up by a riptide." He leaned closer, his voice dropping further. "Lilly is a force of nature. She doesn't mean to pull people under, but she does. It's her pattern. Intensity, then… implosion. I'd hate for you to be collateral damage."
It was so slick. Wrapping a threat in a warning, painting himself as the protector. The gaslight was so subtle Alex almost doubted his own memory of Lilly's desperate kiss in the stacks.
"I can handle myself," Alex said, the words sounding hollow.
Leo's smile was faint, pitying. "I'm sure you think you can." He nodded toward the front. "Pay attention. This bit's actually important. Power, after all, is never given. It's taken."
The rest of the lecture was a blur. The words "asymmetric power structures" and "coercive control" rang in Alex's ears like a personal indictment.
The café on Regent's Walk was all exposed brick and the hiss of an espresso machine. Lilly was already there, tucked into a corner booth, two steaming mugs in front of her. She wore a oversized grey sweater, her blonde hair piled messily, no makeup. She looked younger, more fragile. The sight of her sent a protective jolt through him, sharpening the anger from Leo's mind games.
He slid in opposite her. "He was in my lecture."
Her eyes, the color of a stormy sea, widened. "What did he say?"
"The usual. That you're a beautiful, destructive pattern. That I'm going to get hurt."
She flinched as if struck. Wrapping her hands around her mug, she stared into its depths. "He has a script. He's just… running lines."
"Lilly." He waited until she looked up. "What did he do?"
For a long moment, he thought she'd shut down. Then, with a glance around the café, she hooked her finger into the neckline of her sweater and pulled it down and to the side, just an inch.
There, along the delicate curve of her ribcage, barely visible against her skin, was a thin, silvery line about three inches long. A scar, old and expertly healed.
"Sailing accident," she whispered, letting the fabric fall back. "According to the hospital report. According to everyone." Her gaze locked onto his, naked and terrified. "It happened the weekend I told him it was over. We were on his father's boat. He was so calm. He said if I left, I'd never find stable footing again. I laughed. Called him melodramatic." She swallowed. "A gust of wind caught the boom. He said it was an accident. The doctors believed it. I… almost believed it."
The story was a cold knife in Alex's gut. The abstract threat had just grown teeth and drawn blood. His hand shot across the table, covering hers. "He'll never touch you again."
It was a vow, ripped from him. Naive. Necessary.
Her fingers turned, lacing with his, clinging tight. In that touch, he felt her fear, her gratitude, and a terrifying dependency. The chemistry from the night before was still there, but now it was fused with something darker, more potent: a shared secret, a shared enemy.
They talked in hushed, urgent tones for an hour. Not just about Leo, but about her art history thesis, his political theory readings, the terrible coffee. It was a desperate, beautiful attempt at a normal connection in a world tilting on its axis. When they left, the afternoon sun felt like a lie.
As they stepped onto the bustling street, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Then buzzed again. A new message from an unknown number.
Not Leo's.
His blood went to ice.
It was a sound file. No subject. Just a timestamp from 45 minutes ago.
With a dread that hollowed him out, he pressed play and lifted the phone to his ear.
The audio was crystal clear, free of café ambience, as if recorded from the table between them.
Lilly's voice, shaking slightly: "...It happened the weekend I told him it was over…"
His own voice, low and fierce: "He'll never touch you again."
The recording ended there. Cut off. Manufactured.
Beneath the file, a text appeared.
Unknown Number: Promises are so fragile, Alex. Let's test yours.
Unknown Number: The game doesn't start until someone makes the first real move. Was that yours?
Unknown Number: Or was it mine?
Alex stared at the screen, the sounds of the city-the laughter, the traffic, the life-muffled as if he were submerged. Leo had predicted this. He'd called it a pattern.
But this wasn't just watching. This was interactive.
He looked up, his eyes scanning the crowd, the windows, the rooftops. Anyone could be a camera. Any face could be a mask.
Lilly was watching him, her face pale. "What is it?"
He couldn't tell her. The promise he'd just made was already compromised, its echo weaponized. To tell her would be to confirm her worst fear: they were never alone.
He forced a smile, the lie ash in his mouth. "Nothing. Spam."
But as he took her hand and led her down the street, he knew the truth with a chilling certainty.
The photo was just the invitation.
The recording was Rule One.
And he had no idea what the game was, or how to win.