Page 6 of Hellebore

She won’t understand it yet, but soon she will feel me everywhere, in the walls, in the silence, in the sudden certainty that she is no longer alone.

I pull the door shut behind me, reset the lock, and disappear down the stairs the same way I came.

The rain is still falling when I reach the BMW. I open the laptop on the passenger seat. One by one, the screens flicker to life.

There it is. Twelve perfect angles of her empty apartment, waiting for her return.

I lean back in the leather seat, breathing hard, a slow, unhinged smile pulling at my mouth.

“Come home, Briar. I’m already inside.”

The waiting is killing me.

I spent hours inside her apartment earlier, moving through the quiet rooms with careful precision, hiding every camera, placing every microphone so I could catch the soft rhythm of her breathing even when she thinks she is alone. Every tracker is synced now to the laptop glowing on the passenger seat beside me. The rain has not stopped. It drums steadily against the roof of the car, matching the violent rhythm pounding inside my skull. I should feel calm. I should feel in control after setting everything in place. Instead the voice in my head screams the same demand over and over: Grab her. Take her now. Drag her back to Hellebore tonight.

I grip the steering wheel until the leather groans under my fingers. No. Not yet. I need to learn this new version of her first, every changed habit, every secret, every crack in the perfect girl I kept frozen in my mind. Only then will I bring her home.

I glance at the clock on the dashboard.

She is late.

She is never late.

My jaw aches from how tightly I clench it. The screens on the laptop flicker between the twelve feeds, showing nothing but empty rooms and silent walls, waiting.

Headlights cut through the rain. My spine snaps straight.

There she is. Black hoodie pulled up, hair in a tight bun, that cheap VW pulling into her usual spot. But she is not alone.

A man climbs out of the passenger side, that fucking asshole smile plastered across his face.

“Who the fuck is that?” The words rip out of me in a low growl. My entire body starts shaking, the tremor running through my arms and into the wheel.

He follows her to the building door. The fucker does not even hold it open for her. He just stands there laughing at something she said, hands shoved casually into his pockets.

I switch frantically to the camera aimed at her door. The black hellebore lies exactly where I left it on the threshold.

She stops and stares at it.

The man walks around her, bends down, and picks it up. “Have a secret admirer, bunny?”

Bunny.

The word slices through me like a blade dragged across bone. My vision tunnels red at the edges.

“No,” I hiss through gritted teeth. My hands shake so hard the laptop screen trembles on the seat. “No. No. No!”

She smiles—that small, soft smile that used to belong only to me in my memories—and takes the flower from his hand. “Aren’t these toxic?”

He makes a dramatic scowl. “Shit, I need to wash my hands. Someone’s trying to kill you.” He chuckles as if it is the funniest thing he has ever said.

Oh, you stupid, dead fucking meat.

I will kill you so slowly you will beg God to take you.

First I will carve that filthy tongue out of your mouth with a dull blade so you can never call her “bunny” again. I will keep you awake for every second of it, sawing through muscle and flesh until all that remains is a ragged, bleeding hole that can only gurgle and you choke on your own blood.

Then I will take my time with the rest of you.