Six
1046 Words
Emma’s POV
I knew something was wrong before I even opened my eyes.
You don’t forget the way cold air smells when it doesn’t belong. Like metal and smoke and something older than fear. The hallway outside my dorm had always smelled like burnt coffee and chlorine, not this.
Not blood.
I sat up slowly, blinked the sleep from my eyes, and pulled open the curtain.
That’s when I saw it.
Five words, written across the stone steps in something too dark to be paint:
Back off the Kingstons. Or we’ll finish what we started.
It was smeared. Jagged. The letters ran like someone had tried to scrub them off halfway through, or like the writer bled through it. My stomach twisted. The note in my locker had been cruel. This was something else. Something alive.
I didn’t scream.
I didn’t move.
I just stared.
Because for the first time since I met Jace Kingston, I wasn’t just scared of him.
I was scared for him.
Campus security arrived thirty minutes later.
They asked if I was playing a prank. Said it was probably paint. Probably a dare. Probably drunk freshmen who didn’t know better.
I asked if they’d run the DNA on it.
They laughed.
“It’s not a crime until someone gets hurt,” the officer said.
I wanted to say, What if this is the warning before they do?
But I didn’t. Because even I knew how that would sound.
Instead, I cleaned the mess myself. My hands didn’t stop shaking. The water turned pink before it turned clear. And I told myself it wasn’t blood. It couldn’t be. Because if it was, that meant someone had bled to make a point.
And I was the one meant to read it.
Jace didn’t answer his phone the entire day.
I wasn’t surprised. But I was angry.
When I saw him at the edge of the quad that afternoon, his back against a tree and headphones in like the world didn’t want to gut him alive, I walked straight over and ripped the earbuds out.
He didn’t flinch.
“What happened to boundaries?” he said flatly.
“What happened to not leaving blood outside my dorm?”
His brows lifted just slightly. “Excuse me?”
I shoved the photo into his chest. I’d taken it before cleaning. Just in case.
He glanced at it once.
Then again.
Slower.
“I didn’t do this,” he said.
“I didn’t say you did.”
“But you think I know who did.”
“Don’t you?”
He didn’t answer.
I stared him down. “Campus security thinks it’s a prank.”
“It’s not.”
“Then tell me what it is.”
He didn’t blink. “A message.”
“From who?”
Jace stepped closer. “The kind of people who use fear instead of names.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I can give you.”
I looked him dead in the eye. “I don’t scare that easily.”
He tilted his head. “You should.”
And then he walked away.
That night, I locked my windows. Closed the blinds. Wedged a chair under the doorknob the way my mom used to do when she worked late and didn’t want me to be alone.
Tessa was out of town for a choir trip. I was alone.
I studied.
Tried to, anyway.
My eyes kept flicking to the door. Every creak became a footstep. Every gust of wind became a whisper I didn’t want to hear.
I told myself I was being paranoid.
Until I heard the click.
The sound of my door unlocking from the outside.
The chair jumped with the pressure. The knob twisted once. Twice.
Then silence.
I didn’t breathe. Didn’t move.
I grabbed the metal ruler from my desk, the only weapon I had, and held it like it meant something.
Then I heard it again.
This time not from the door.
From inside the room.
Behind me.
I spun around.
And found him.
Jace.
Standing in the dark.
Gun in one hand.
My heart didn’t skip a beat.
It stopped.
“What the hell?!”
“Shh.”
He stepped forward, fast, one hand out. I backed up until the wall hit my spine.
He reached past me. Switched on the lamp.
And now I could see it.
The red mark on his temple. The blood on his shirt. Not fresh, but not dried either.
He didn’t look at me.
He looked at the door.
“You locked it,” he said.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“But they still had a key.”
My voice cracked. “Who gave it to them?”
His eyes met mine.
“No one gives these people anything. They take it.”
I swallowed. “What did they want?”
He looked at me like he hated the answer.
“You.”
My stomach dropped.
“Why?”
“Because you’re leverage.”
“You said you burned bridges.”
“I did.”
“And this is what’s left?”
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he walked to the door. Checked the handle. Reinforced it with the chair again. Then he turned, sighed, and looked at the bed.
“I’m staying.”
“What?”
“You think I’m letting you sleep alone after this?”
“Jace—”
“No,” he said. “Not this time.”
“I don’t need your protection.”
“No,” he said again, stepping close, “but I need to give it. So I don’t go out there and kill someone.”
His voice cracked at the end.
I saw it.
The panic hiding under all that rage.
I didn’t argue again.
He sat on the floor beside the bed, back to the wall, gun still in his hand.
I lay down. Pretended to sleep. But my eyes kept finding him in the dark.
His silhouette. His breath. His presence.
That night, I didn’t dream.
Because the nightmare was already real.
In the morning, he was gone. But on my pillow, where his head had rested, was a bullet. And underneath it, one word written in his handwriting: RUN.
- Writer
