Three
1639 Words
I stared at the note in my hand for so long that the edges crumpled beneath my fingers.
"You should’ve stayed quiet."
The words were etched in clean, deliberate strokes—each letter carved with purpose, like whoever wrote them didn’t doubt a single thing. No threat. No scream. No signature. Just a quiet promise that my life wasn’t mine anymore.
My legs moved before my brain did. I grabbed my phone, backed into the kitchen, dropped the note on the counter like it might bite me, and opened my camera.
But when I tried to take a picture, my hands were shaking too badly. The image blurred. My fingers fumbled to try again—and that’s when I stopped.
What am I doing?
Who was I going to send it to?
The police?
They’d ask questions I couldn’t answer.
I didn’t know who the man in the alley was. I didn’t know the victim. I didn’t know how the note got in. I didn’t even know his name.
Just his eyes.
That was the worst part—how often I saw them now. When I blinked. When I looked into shadows. When I dreamed.
I couldn’t go to the police. I couldn’t even tell my sister.
So I deleted the photo. Tore the note in half. Then into quarters. Then again until the words were unreadable.
I flushed the pieces one by one, like the toilet could drown the danger.
But the fear stayed.
That night, I didn’t sleep again.
---
The next morning, I called in sick.
It wasn’t a lie. My stomach was in knots. My head was spinning. My skin felt too tight.
I stayed in my apartment, pacing from room to room like that would somehow fix the feeling that someone was watching me.
I didn’t open the curtains. I didn’t answer the door when someone buzzed.
I just waited.
But for what, I didn’t know.
By the afternoon, I cracked. I needed to breathe.
I threw on a hoodie, pulled the hood low, and headed to the corner store to grab something. Anything. An excuse to move, to act normal.
The streets looked the same. Trash on the sidewalks. Horns blaring. A woman yelling into her phone. But I didn’t feel the same.
Everyone looked like a suspect. Every man in a black coat. Every car that slowed down. Every pair of eyes that lingered a second too long.
The corner store’s bell chimed as I entered.
“Hey, Isla,” the clerk said. He was a teenager who always flirted with me. Today, he barely glanced up from his phone.
I nodded, grabbing a water and a bag of pretzels. When I reached the counter, his eyes flicked toward me, then past me—toward the door.
“You got someone waitin’ on you?” he asked casually.
I froze.
“What?”
He gestured toward the front. “Guy’s been out there for a while. Not lookin’ for snacks.”
I turned slowly.
A black SUV was parked across the street.
Sleek. Tinted windows. Same shape as the one I saw outside the café.
My breath caught in my throat.
It didn’t move.
Didn’t drive off.
It just sat there—waiting.
I paid fast and left. I didn’t go straight home. I looped around the block. Took side streets. Stopped twice pretending to check my phone.
When I finally looked again—the SUV was gone.
But I didn’t feel safe.
I felt marked.
---
By evening, I couldn’t take it anymore.
I needed a distraction.
I needed my sister, Maddie.
I called her. “Hey, are you free tonight?”
She sounded surprised. “You okay? You never call first.”
“I’m just… having a weird week.”
“Come over,” she said instantly. “We’ll order pizza and watch trash TV. You can tell me everything—or nothing.”
I almost told her then. But the words stuck to my throat like glue.
“I’ll be there in an hour.”
---
Maddie lived across the river in Queens, in a tiny apartment with string lights around the windows and a fridge covered in colorful magnets and passive-aggressive to-do lists.
She pulled me into a hug the second I walked in. “God, you look like hell.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean it with love.”
Her roommate Carla waved from the couch. “Pizza’s en route. Wine’s on the table. World’s ending. Cheers.”
We watched two episodes of a ridiculous dating show where everyone was too hot and too dumb. Maddie handed me a glass of wine, then eyed me sideways.
“You gonna talk, or should I just start guessing?”
“There’s nothing to—” I paused.
She raised a brow.
“There’s… something,” I admitted, voice small. “But I can’t talk about it. Not yet.”
Maddie didn’t push. She just looped her arm through mine and leaned her head on my shoulder.
“Whatever it is,” she said quietly, “you’re not alone.”
But I was.
Because this wasn’t something she could fix.
This wasn’t something anyone could fix.
Later, when I left and made my way home, I saw the black SUV again.
Just parked on the next block.
Engine off. Lights out.
Waiting.
Watching.
I didn’t know if it was him. I didn’t know if it was paranoia or proof.
But I walked faster. Didn’t look back.
And when I got home and locked the door behind me, I stood there for ten minutes, heart racing, back pressed against the wood.
He was getting closer.
And I was running out of places to hide.
---
I didn’t move from the door for a long time.
Every creak in the hallway made my breath hitch.
Every passing car made me flinch.
I used to think home was my safe place. My haven from the world.
Now it felt like a trap. A box with thin walls, easy to break into. One step ahead of me, he could be watching. He could be listening.
He could already be inside.
I forced myself to breathe, pushing off the door and walking toward the living room. I turned on every light, opened every closet, checked behind the curtains, under the bed.
Nothing.
No sign of forced entry. No more notes. No strange shadows waiting for me.
Just me and the silence—and a single persistent thought:
He doesn’t need to break in.
He’s already found a way.
---
I barely slept.
When I did, I dreamed of boots on concrete, blood on pavement, and eyes made of ice.
I woke up gasping, drenched in sweat, the back of my neck prickling with cold.
It was still dark out. The streetlights cast long, eerie shadows through the blinds.
I got up to get some water—but froze at the sight of something different on my kitchen counter.
A phone.
Not mine.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
It was sleek. Black. No case. It hadn’t been there before.
I stared at it for a solid minute before daring to pick it up.
No messages.
No calls.
Just one thing on the home screen—a contact named Unknown with a single red dot beside it.
My fingers hovered over the name.
Don’t do it, Isla.
But I tapped it anyway.
A video began to play.
And I stopped breathing.
It was me—last night. Leaving Maddie’s apartment. Walking home. Unlocking my door. Staring behind me.
The footage ended with a still frame of me standing in the doorway, backlit by my apartment light.
He’d filmed me.
He’d followed me.
He knew where I’d been, who I’d been with, when I got home.
I dropped the phone like it burned and staggered back.
This wasn’t just a threat anymore.
It was a message.
A warning.
And maybe something else.
---
I didn’t go to work that day.
Instead, I rode the subway for hours—back and forth, transferring lines, switching seats like it would help me shake this thing off.
Somewhere between Brooklyn and the Upper East Side, a man in a tailored suit stepped onto the train. He was too clean, too confident, too... sharp.
Not him. But maybe someone who worked for him.
I shifted away without making eye contact. My reflection in the dark window looked pale and paranoid. Haunted.
I needed a plan. I couldn’t stay in my apartment. I couldn’t stay in this city.
But I didn’t have anywhere else to go.
No money for flights. No car. No real family outside of Maddie, and I wouldn’t risk her.
And then it hit me.
There was one place I hadn’t gone. One person I hadn’t spoken to in years.
My father.
Not the kind of man you run to—but maybe the only one who knew how to deal with people like this.
The kind of man who taught me to trust no one. Who used to say things like, “Always know your exits” and “Silence is protection.”
He would hate that I was coming to him.
But maybe… maybe that’s exactly why I had to.
---
As I stepped off the subway, ready to head home and pack, my phone buzzed.
My phone.
My phone.
A message from an unknown number.
Don’t run, Isla. I’ll find you anyway.
My blood turned to ice.
I turned in a slow circle—people all around me, walking, talking, scrolling, living.
And somewhere among them… him.
Watching.
Always one step ahead.
I shoved the phone in my pocket, clenched my jaw, and forced myself to keep moving.
I wouldn’t run.
Not yet.
But I’d be damned if I let him win without a fight.
- Writer
