Bitch, don’t look…
I absolutely should not.
But my hand was already moving, touching the mouse, bringing the screen to life.
Files and folders and spreadsheets for work filled the desktop, and then my gaze caught on a folder in the bottom left corner labeled "Lena." My stomach dropped as the click from the mouse echoed throughout the room and the folder expanded.
Photos.
Dozens of them.
My cabin from the outside, time-stamped weeks ago, some from before I'd even moved in. Me through the window sitting at my kitchen table. Me getting out of my car. Me walking to the gallery.
My hands started shaking as I clicked another folder and found videos and trail cam footage of me arriving the first day, carrying boxes inside. Another video of me in my cabin through the window, drawing at my table. Another of me sleeping in my fucking bed.
Oh God.
I stumbled back from the desk, my breath coming in short gasps, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. He'd been watching me for weeks, since the day I moved in, maybe longer.
That's when I saw the shelf and everything on it, my coffee mug with the chipped handle I thought I'd lost, my blue scarf I'd searched everywhere for. And tucked in the back was my missing sketchbook page, the woman with antlers. And beside that…
My dirty panties…
"No," I whispered, the word catching in my throat.
This wasn't coincidence, the car, the tree, the storm. He'd planned all of it, orchestrated everything to get me here, to keep me here.
How long had he been in my cabin? How many times? Had he been there while I was sleeping?
I needed to leave, needed to get out now, and I scrambled toward the front door only to find it locked from the outside. The back door was locked too, and when I tried the windows, every single one was secured.
Panic clawed at my chest as the realization hit me, I was trapped, actually trapped.
"Lena?"
I spun around to find Killian standing in the hallway with snow still dusting his shoulders, that chainsaw nowhere in sight. How long had he been inside? How much had he seen?
"Let me out," I said, my voice shaking. "Let me out right now."
He didn't move, just stood there watching me with those too-blue eyes that suddenly looked different,darker, more intense, predatory in a way that made my pulse race for all the wrong reasons.
"You've been watching me," I said, my voice breaking. "You've been in my cabin, you took my things, you…" I held up the battery cable box. "You sabotaged my fucking car."
He still didn't say anything, just looked at me with an expression I couldn't read, and then he smiled. That slow, dangerous smile I'd thought was charming now looked like something else entirely.
"I was wondering when you'd figure it out," he said quietly, and the words hit me like a physical blow.
"How long?" I demanded, backing up as he stepped toward me. "How long have you been doing this?"
"Since the day you moved in." He said it so calmly, like he was telling me about the weather.
"That's insane, you're insane."
"Maybe, but you already knew that, didn't you?" Another step closer. "Some part of you felt it and you stayed anyway."
"I didn't stay, you trapped me here!"
"Did I?" His head tilted slightly. "Or did you want an excuse?"
