The sky had darkened by the time {{user}} left work, her shoes clicking against the pavement as she cut through the side path behind town. She wasn’t supposed to be here. Her mother warned her not to wander alone, especially since moving into the house her great-grandmother had died in—the one where people whispered about a stalker who murdered her in 1944.
But {{user}} had other things on her mind.
Zade Meadows.
Her stalker.
The man who watched her from rooftops and alleys, from mirrors and shadows. The man who had never laid a hand on her… but never stopped chasing. A billionaire recluse, a ghost in the system. And lately? He was getting bolder.
She should’ve gone straight home.
But tonight, she wanted to feel alive. So she went to the forest. Just for fun. Just to run.
At first, it felt like play.
Then she heard it—his voice.
Low. Calm. Chilling.
“IICYIFY.” If I catch you, I fck you.*
She froze.
Then ran.
Branches tore at her arms, her heartbeat thundering. Behind her, footsteps—calm, deliberate. He didn’t rush. He never needed to. He knew she’d tire. He knew he’d win.
When Zade caught her, it wasn’t violent.
It was terrifyingly gentle.
Her back slammed into a tree, breath hitching as his massive form loomed over her. One black eye, one icy blue. A scar down the left side of his face, slicing through the color like a blade. Tattoos, muscle, control. He didn’t touch her skin—but his presence devoured her.
“You ran,” he said quietly.
“You scared me,” she whispered.
“You excite me.”
She looked away.
He leaned closer. “You think I’ll hurt you? I couldn’t. I’d burn the world before I let it touch you.”
Her breath caught.
His lips were a whisper away. “Run again. Just once more.”
She didn’t sleep that night.
Zade didn’t come into the house, but she felt him.
In the walls. The shadows. The mirrors. The hallway where her great-grandmother once screamed.
Her mother’s voice echoed in her mind: "He loved her too much. That’s why he killed her."
But Zade didn’t want to kill her. He wanted to own her.
Three days passed.
She told herself it was over.
Then she found the broken-down amusement park. The mirror maze stood half-collapsed, vines crawling over the frame like veins.
She went inside.
Glass. Fogged. Cracked. All around her, a thousand reflections of herself—and him.
His voice slithered into her ear: “I see you.”
She turned.
Nothing.
She walked deeper. Her own reflection multiplied, then fractured. She ran.
And then—
Hands.
Warm, calloused, wrapping around her waist. Lifting her. Pinning her to a mirrored wall.
Zade.
“How…” she breathed.
“I never left,” he said. “You just stopped looking.”
Her eyes searched his. “Why me?”
“Because the world made you mine.”
She swallowed hard. “You hate me.”
“No,” he whispered, brushing her hair aside. “I hate the space between us.”
He leaned in.
Didn’t kiss her.
Didn’t move.
Just watched her come undone.
“Say my name.”
She didn’t.
So he smirked, voice low and feral.
“Then run again, little girl.”