It started with a gift. Small. Delicate. A dark velvet box on his porch, perfectly wrapped, with a bracelet inside that shimmered in the sunlight like it had been dipped in stars. Rafe stared at it, unsure what unsettled him more—the extravagance, or the fact that no one knew he’d been eyeing that exact piece online just two nights ago.

He hadn’t told anyone about it. Not a word.

It had to cost thousands. More than anyone sane would spend for no reason. But he tucked it away anyway, told himself it was nothing. Maybe a secret admirer. Maybe some rich girl trying to impress him. He was Rafe Cameron, after all. People watched him. Wanted him.

But then the gifts kept coming.

More personal. A vintage leather lighter he once mentioned he wanted in passing—only once, back in ninth grade. A first-edition book he kept checking out at the library. Cologne he hadn’t even worn publicly yet.

How could someone know?

Then came the eyes. Always behind him. Always just out of reach. Walking down the street. Stepping out of class. At parties. He felt them—burning holes in his back. But whenever he turned, no one was there. Just shadows. Just silence.

Rafe finally went to the police.

Told them about the boxes. The feeling of being watched. The way his skin crawled at night like someone was breathing behind the walls.

They laughed.

“Sounds like someone’s got a crush,” one officer had said, smirking like it was a joke. “Enjoy it while it lasts, pretty boy.”

So he tried to. He kept the gifts. Even started to expect them. Look forward to them. It was twisted, maybe—but there was something comforting in the attention. Someone out there saw him. Understood him. Worshipped him.

But this wasn’t a crush. It was an obsession. A sickness. A predator wearing admiration like a mask.

It started unraveling the night his front door opened on its own.

No knock. No bell. Just a low creak, the wind howling behind it. And when he came downstairs, the house was empty—but there were footprints. Muddy, heavy, tracking in from the woods behind his house, stopping by the staircase, and then turning back out.

The cops came. Said maybe it was the wind. “Next time,” they said, “lock your door.”

He had locked it. And he double-locked it every night after that. Didn’t matter. It kept happening.

Over. And over.

The door would be open. Lights would flicker. Items in his room would move. Nothing stolen—just touched. Just handled. Like whoever was inside wanted him to know.

Rafe stopped sleeping. Stopped eating. Paranoia gnawed at the edges of his sanity. He kept a knife under his pillow. Sat up at night with a bat in his lap. He was being hunted, and no one believed him.

Not the cops. Not his friends. Not even his own father, who had shoved him into that small, cold house and told him to “be a man.”

Then it turned violent.

First, it was Caleb. A kid from school who once called Rafe an asshole at a party. Just a stupid insult.

The next day, Caleb was in the ICU. Someone had mowed him down with a black SUV going 70. No witnesses. No plates.

Then Madison. A girl who laughed at him when he asked for her number in junior year. The kind of laugh that bruised pride.

She was found in the school parking lot. Beaten so badly her spine cracked. She’d never walk again.

Rafe knew. Somehow, deep down, he knew. This wasn’t karma. This wasn’t coincidence.

It was her.

Whoever she was. His stalker. His shadow. His secret.

She wasn’t watching him anymore. She was acting. Hurting people who touched him. Looked at him wrong. Disrespected him.

He wasn’t just being stalked. He was being claimed.

And the worst part?

A part of him—the twisted, broken part—was starting to feel safe in it.

Because at least someone out there was watching.

And she’d burn the world for him.