My eyes snapped open.
Moonlight spilled across the room, catching the edge of the dresser and the mess of clothes on the floor. Ophelia was curled against me, her face tucked into my shoulder, her breaths puffing softly against my skin.
For half a second, I thought I’d imagined it—until I saw him.
A figure stood in the doorway. Black hoodie. Gloves.
The Sphinx mask glinting in the dark.
My pulse skyrocketed.
He didn’t move at first…just stared at me. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he tossed something onto the bed—a crimson envelope that slid across the sheet and stopped against my thigh.
“Who needs porn,” he murmured, voice muffled and mocking behind the mask, “when I’m assigned to Matthew Adler?”
I was on my feet before I could think, muscles tight and ready to break something.
But he was already gone. The door hung open, the hallway empty.
For a long moment, the only sound was the faint hum of the air vent and Ophelia’s quiet breathing.
I looked down at the envelope. Same crimson wax. Same seal. Same sick feeling in my gut.
It had to be the same bastard who’d been in my closet the other night. Asshole. He was just lucky Ophelia had been covered up, or he would have been dead.
My jaw clenched.
We needed a security system. Cameras. Motion sensors. Something. Because clearly, door locks didn’t mean shit around here.
I picked up the envelope, the paper thick and smooth under my fingers. I didn’t have to open it to know what it was.
My next Sphinx trial.
I tore it open carefully, the seal snapping with acrack. A single sheet slid out, crisp white, the message printed in clean block letters that made my stomach tighten.
VOL NAVY DOCKS. ONE HOUR. COME ALONE.
Of course.
The docks on the Tennessee River weren’t just some random meeting spot. Everyone on campus knew them. The Vol Navy had been a Tennessee tradition since the sixties—hundreds of boats docking near Neyland Stadium on game days, the river choked with orange and white, beer, and noise.
But right now, it was the middle of the night. The boats would be gone. The docks empty. Quiet.
The perfect place for the Sphinx.
I exhaled slowly, glancing toward the bed. Ophelia hadn’t moved, still tangled in the sheets, the faint rise and fall of her chest catching in the moonlight.
She made a small sound, half sigh, half whimper, and her face scrunched like she was fighting something in her sleep. A second later, her hand reached out, searching blindly across the empty space where I’d been.
My chest tightened.
Even asleep, she noticed when I wasn’t there.
She might not have said the words yet, but she didn’t need to.
She totally loved me.
And I’d get the words out of her someday.
