“I’m not sure,” Kris admitted, stretching the wet towel over the downstairs radiator.“We’ll have to message her.”
“I’ll do that now.”Tina pulled her phone from her pocket.“Enjoy your shower.”
Images of hot pasta filled Kris’ head as she climbed the stairs with her backpack falling from her shoulder.Dumping her bag onto her bedroom carpet, she had all but forgotten the eerie and anger-inducing interaction that had thrown her out of favor with Pine.As it was, she’d managed to smooth things over by staying late and impressing him with the additional reading she’d been doing, but apparently, he was still on the fence about whether to help her thesis-wise.
It wasn’t until she was under the hot torrent of water cascading from the shower that the curious exchange sprang to mind once more, her emotions swinging from confused to angry and then perturbed.Wrapping a towel around her, she stepped out from the cubicle and cleared the condensated mirror to stare at her reflection.
“Okay, Kris.Time to decide.How do I deal with the crazy loon who’s been texting me?”
Staring at her blue eyes, she frowned.The whole sordid issue was largely her fault.She was the one who had been so triggered by the notice that she’d felt the need to send a snarky reply, and then, she’d had the idiotic judgment to respond when she was steaming drunk.She didn’t approve of the threatening reply she'd received, but if she’d just ignored the leaflet, none of it would have happened.
“I should have just left well alone…”
But she hadn’t.She’d taken the bait, and she needed to decide how to handle the consequences.Should she stand by her message and just ignore the latest reply, or respond, letting them know that there was more chance of her winning the lottery than her ever agreeing to meet them?
She didn’t meet strangers in bars or restaurants.She knew what happened to women who did…
“Ignore them,” she muttered as she left the bathroom, yet even as she padded to her bedroom and acknowledged Tina’s call that Melanie was stopping with her boyfriend, Dean, she knew that was rubbish.
She wasn’t going to disregard the response.In fact, entering the doorway, she was already searching for her phone, her heart rate accelerating when she found it at the top of her bag and unlocked the screen.
Flicking into the mysterious message, she re-read the final line:
I look forward to our first meeting.
What normal person sent that as a reply to an apology?
Blowing out a breath, her digits were already flying over the keyboard, penning a response.She wasn’t inebriated that time, yet somehow, it was as though her fingers had developed a life of their own, the words bleeding from them without Kris’ consent.
She stared down at the completed message, her fingertip hovering over the button that would push it out into the ether.
You don’t know me.Please, just leave me alone.
The seconds lengthened as she considered what to do.The reply sent the right tone, but a part of her still warned her not to bother responding at all.Replying would only add fuel to the fire, and the most sensible thing she could do was to let it burn out by itself.
Uncertain what to do for the best, she threw the phone on the bed just as her message tone reverberated through the air.
“If that’s that good-for-nothing Shaun, then I’ve got a few things to say to him.”Tucking the towel into place under her arm, she sighed as she perched on the edge of the bedding and reached again for the device.“How dare he ignore me for so long, and then—”
Her words evaporated when her attention fell on the owner of the latest message.
Not Shaun, but the same weirdo who’d said he looked forward to meeting her.
“Oh, God.”Tension knotted in her belly as she recognized the number.“This is getting serious.”
She should have ignored the new message, deleted the entire exchange, yet somehow, she found herself flicking into the trail, her throat drying the moment she acknowledged the incoming words.
No need to send that message, Kristina.
I know you better than you realize.
And I will know you even better in the days to come.
Muchbetter.
“Shit.”Dropping the phone to her towel-covered lap, tears brimmed in her eyes as her pulse accelerated.
The messages had morphed from strange and disconcerting to genuinely scary.At the rate things were going, she’d need to contact the university’s security and let them know she might have a stalker.The institution took the safety of its students seriously.If they advised her to get the police involved, then she would, even if she was at least partially to blame.
