I pull out my phone, my fingers trembling despite my calm. The screen illuminates my face in harsh contrast as I type in the message to the only account he has online.
Victoria: Professor, we are gonna have so much fun together.
CHAPTER 4
AZRAEL
Routine is the only thing that keeps me from going off the rails and ending up in jail, or in a mental institution—which would be slightly unfit, since I’m a psychology professor. Well, at least this is the public title that doesn’t make people run the other way.
I go to the same café every day at exactly the same time. They could probably fix that broken watch on the wall based on my arrival, which is always after the end of the workday, when everything is quiet. But not today.
Today, the café buzzes with noise, filled with fools jabbering about God-knows-what.There are too many people in this rathole. I shouldn’t have come.
It was supposed to be a quiet day, uneventful at its finest. It would have stayed that way if some messed-up student hadn’t decided to pass out mid-lecture, forcing me to cut it short. And I…well, I ended up here. Slightly off-schedule and very much irritated.
I take my usual seat. Same table, same chair, same awful coffee that I cannot seem to skip. I can recite what happens inthis place in my sleep, which is why the shift in pattern feels like a system glitch.
I try to fill the time by checking the stupid forum, when the familiar hum fades away into the background as a prickling unease crawls up my spine. My fingers pause mid-tap on the table as I’m trying to detect what piqued my interest.
I feel it before I see it. The heat of eyes in my direction. There. In the far corner, sitting too still for it to be just a coincidence. And not just the casual glance of a passerby or the stupid glare of a horny girl. It’s the pure, haughty stare of someone way too interested.
The server approaches, forcing a terrifyingly thin smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. She leans in to hiss, “More coffee?”
I catch the change in posture in the stranger behind her and, for a mere second, a tension in her shoulders as she tightens like a wire about to snap. The way her muscles tighten just as the server speaks? I have seen it a hundred times before in a hundred different subjects. That tiny, telltale sign of possessiveness. I don’t even fucking know that person, yet she feels possessive. Cute. But does she even know what she’s doing?
I’ve studied this concept for years. Most people don’t even realize they are turning psychotic over something or someone. And if they do, it’s usually too late for redemption. Call it reverse Stockholm syndrome. It’s done in steps, each one pushing deeper into the fascination. And her? She just performed the perfect first step.
It’s true that it’s almost unnoticeable. And I could be wrong. But who am I kidding? I’m never wrong.
I keep my voice even. “I’m done.”
Now it’s about time we test this new little fucker. Is she really worthy of my attention, or just horny?The perfect name for a TV show.
I leave the café, pretending I notice nothing, and follow my same everyday path. If she is really special and does her stalker job well, she would know if I’ve changed anything.
I have like twelve stalkers on the roster at all times, and I know the system. But that’s a different story.
I keep a steady pace as I weave through the crowds. With each step, I can feel her presence from a few yards behind. Her moves are almost unnoticeable, the pacing is clean, and the distance consistent. She is not my first stalker, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the first person she secretly follows either.
I intentionally stop just so I can inspect her reflection in a window. She mirrors my pause with a slight shift in her body, a subtle adjustment to maintain the distance. She matches me like she’d rehearsed it. Either she’s a natural, or someone trained her. Regardless, she’s reacting to me and might actually be worthy.
My lips curl slightly in a barely-there smile, and a familiar thrill courses through my veins. It feels like coming home—a place where I can study deranged minds as I please, needing only to grant them the slightest attention.
She is perfect for my experiment.
If I were just a nobody, she would have been invisible. But I spent my life searching for a subject like her, a creature so calculated yet susceptible to me.
She stops at the entrance of my building.Good. So this is just the beginning of the game.
I unlock the door to my apartment, but before I step inside fully, I pause, all my senses alert. The air is still, and there is no shift in scent. My eyes move over the room—furniture, curtains, floor. Nothing is out of place, not a single hint that someone stepped in besides me. Almost disappointing, like thereshould have beena sign.
Instead, I find only silence and the strange sensation of nothing when something should obviously be here.Don’t get ahead of yourself, Azrael.But it’s hard to be patient when you are about to fuck up someone’s life. She just became my new experiment, and she—unknowingly—voluntarily walked into it.
The rest of the evening is uneventful. I move through the motions without even having to think about what I’m doing: light a cigarette, pour two fingers of whiskey that burns just right, and settle into my chair by the desk with the pile of papers waiting to be torn apart. Students’ incompetence is astonishing and begs the question of whether I made a mistake years ago by taking this insignificant job.
I chose this life because it offers a different kind of access. I could have continued with government experimentation. As much as they like to disagree with my methods, they know I’m the best. I’m able to manipulate human minds in ways they have never seen before, and my techniques, while unorthodox, always yield results.
Here, on the other hand, I have access to young, untrained minds—a fresh set of variables to test my hypotheses on without them ever noticing what I was doing.