Chapter 13 Cassian’s Past
Ever since Grayson talked to the guys at the precinct, Sabine’s stalker has gone quiet. Awfully fucking quiet.
Not a single message. No flowers. No packages. No sign he’s watching from across the street like before. It’s as if he vanished. Like he packed up whatever twisted obsession he had and let it rot in some dark corner of his mind.
But I’m not naive enough to believe he’s gone.
Sabine thinks it’s over. She’s easing up already. She's sleeping in, skipping the extra locks, even laughing without looking over her shoulder. And I get it. She wants it to be done. She needs it to be done.
But it’s not.
This is just the part where that creep proves he’s patient.
Where he learns how to go around the extra level of difficulty.
The truth is, he’s adapting. Adjusting. He knows I went to Grayson.
Knows I’m circling Sabine’s life like a goddamn bloodhound, showing up day after day, and waiting for him to slip. And that’s why he’s gone quiet.
Because when he does make a mistake—and everyone does sooner or later—I’ll be there. I’ll grab him by the balls and squeeze until there’s nothing left of them.
So now it’s a waiting game. Him on one end, me on the other. A silent war drawn out over time and nerves and stubborn fucking resolve.
I wake before dawn. 0400 on the dot. I lie there for a moment, not out of laziness, but to let my mind sharpen. I run through the day’s plan: what I’ll check, where I’ll go, what I’ll do if something’s off. Then I sit up and let my eyes sweep the room.
Everything’s where it should be.
Gun in the drawer. Knife strapped to my ankle. Phone facedown by the lamp.
I stand and move to the window first. The curtains are pulled just enough to give me a narrow line of sight.
Nothing unusual outside.
Still, I scan twice.
Then once more.
Only when I’m sure I see nothing suspicious do I turn and make my way through the house, checking each lock, every window, and every point someone could slip through if they wanted it badly enough. I don’t rush. This is the part that matters.
In the kitchen, I check the cameras. They’re mounted high on the corners of the house, feeding straight to my phone. One by one, the indicators blink green.
Clear.
Clear.
Clear.
I sit at the counter, barefoot, the tile cold under my heels. My hands go through the motions of making coffee. Grind. Measure. Pour. But my eyes stay fixed on the screen.
West cam: nothing.
Alley fence: still.
Branches swaying. Birds losing their minds again, shrieking like the sky’s about to fall.
All normal.
I lean back against the counter, facing the front door like it might turn on me.
Almost two hours pass.
Then, finally, I hear it. The soft creak of her bedroom door opening upstairs.
Sabine steps into the kitchen like a ghost waking up. Her hair’s a mess. The collar of her sweatshirt slips off one shoulder. Her eyes are puffy with sleep. She pauses at the bottom of the stairs and blinks, squinting like the light’s too much.
“You’re still doing this?” she mumbles, voice rough and half-awake.
I don’t answer.
She knows I am.
Instead, I reach for the mug I poured for her ten minutes ago, back when I first heard her tossing under the blankets. I hand it over without a word.
“Thanks,” she mutters, then sits across from me, folding her legs up onto the chair like she used to when she was little.
“You check outside?” she asks, not meeting my eyes.
I nod. “Clear.”
She lets out a breath, but it doesn’t sound like relief. Just something to fill the silence.
“You think he’s still out there?”
I meet her gaze. “He never left.”
She doesn’t respond at first. Just sips her coffee slowly. Then, voice barely above a whisper: “Are you really sure about that?”
I study her. The bags under her eyes are still there but softer now. Her shoulders are still tense but some movement range returned to them. She seems so much better and so much worse at the same time.
And I know the reason for that. Sabine’s retreating.
Not because she’s afraid of pain. Because she’s tired of being afraid of pain.
So, she’s playing a convenient little game where she’s pretending her stalking’s over. That the silence means safety.
I wish I could let her believe it.
Fuck, I wish it was true.
But I’m not a liar.
“I’m sure,” I say quietly.
And I mean it. Down to the marrow.
Sabine exhales, sets her coffee down, and lets her eyes flick around the kitchen like she’s counting the bolts in the walls. Then she looks at the clock and stands.
“I’m gonna get ready. Eli’s picking me up.”
“I know,” I say. “And if he ever decides not to, he knows exactly what’s coming.”
She pauses. Her fingers tighten slightly on the edge of the counter. Then she sighs.
“I kind of regret ever telling you about this, you know?”
“I know,” I say again. “But I don’t.”
She glances over her shoulder once, then disappears down the hall.
Her footsteps are soft, but I count each one. Every step. Just like I’ve done every morning since this started. When the bathroom door clicks shut, I finally let myself move.
The hum of the fridge and the faint tick of the kitchen clock fill the silence she left behind. The kettle lets out one last dying hiss. And under all of it, the pressure in my chest sits like a stone. Same place it’s been since she showed me the first message.
I drain the rest of my coffee, rinse the mug, and place it in the rack.
Then I reach behind the microwave and pull out the notepad.
It’s battered, half the pages dog-eared, some smudged from being written in the rain or scribbled on in the dark.
But every word in here matters. Names. License plates.
Suspicious cars. Unmarked delivery trucks.
People who lingered too long. Times. Locations.
Patterns. Gut feelings I’ve learned not to ignore.
To someone else, it’d look like the ravings of a man spiraling. A tangle of paranoia and red-string logic.
Fair enough.
But I know what I’m looking at.
This is my own personal war journal.
Grayson couldn’t do this. Not like I can. He’s a good man. He cares about his job, about his family, but he still believes in the system. Still thinks the truth should be earned the right way.
Me? I don’t care about the right way.
If I want to catch this bastard, I have to be every bit as obsessive as he is. I have to see the world the way he does. In habits. In vulnerabilities. In soft spots and slippages. I have to crawl inside his rotted skull and sit there long enough to understand how he thinks.
I flip to today’s date. Pen already in hand.
0400 – Wake
0420 – Perimeter check. Clear.
0630 – Sabine awake. No signs of distress.
Feed stable. West cam glitch at 0516 – no visual. Logged.
I stare at the entry.
That glitch… it’s probably nothing. Could be a bug, a flicker, a blown fuse. But I don’t like unexplained gaps. Even the smallest blind spot makes my skin crawl. I circle the timestamp, underline it once, and make a mental note to check the wiring later.
Then I close the notepad and slide it back into its hiding place, tucking it behind the microwave like I’ve done a hundred times before.
When Sabine walks into the kitchen again, she’s got her game face on. Hair braided, hoodie zipped, earrings in. Looks like nothing ever happened.
“Sure you don’t want me to drive you?” I ask.
Eli’s fine, but I’d rather it be me.
She slings her bag over her shoulder and gives a small shake of her head. “Eli’s probably already halfway here.”
“He wouldn’t mind.”
“Cassian…” she exhales.
“Fine.” I nod once. “Text me when you get there.”
“I always do.”
“And if anything feels off—”
“I’ll let you know.” She gives me a ghost of a smile. “You going to be okay?”
Stupid question. She knows I will. I’m always okay. Trained to be okay.
“Go,” I say, flicking my hand toward the door.
She lingers for half a second, like she wants to say something else, but then she turns and walks out, locking the door behind her.
I step to the window. Watch as she gets into Eli’s car. He gives a short wave.
I don’t wave back.
The car disappears into the haze, taillights blinking red through the fog.
And the moment they’re gone, I exhale.
Long. Slow.
Then I turn from the window, head upstairs, and step into my room.
The drawer slides open with a soft scrape. I reach in. Pull out the black hoodie. The fabric is worn in places, elbows, cuffs, but it fits perfectly. I slide it on over my T-shirt.
Because now that Sabine’s gone?
Now the real work begins.
I kneel.
Draw the knife from the sheath at my ankle. Test the edge with my thumb. Clean. Sharp.
Another blade rests at the small of my back, secured beneath the waistband. A third is hidden in the lining of my boot.
Overkill? Maybe.
But I don’t do half-measures anymore.
I cross the room. Reach into the closet. Past the hanging shirts, to the back panel. Just left of center. My fingers find the latch by feel.
A quiet click. The wood shifts.
And I’m in.
The crawlspace is low and narrow, thick with dust and the scent of dry rot. I crouch inside, reach for the old metal box buried beneath a ratty blanket.
It’s dented. Heavy. Familiar.
I drag it out.
Set it down.
Undo the lock, and stare at everything I’ve gathered.
Inside are the clues too important to be stored in the notebook downstairs.
A photo of a license plate that’s shown up too many times in too many places.
A gas station receipt, two streets over—Sabine’s name scrawled in marker and taped to the pump, like a message.
A flash drive, encrypted, labeled only by a date. Footage of a man in a hoodie pausing too long at the end of our street.
And a gun. Not the one in the drawer.
That one’s for warnings. For slamming against a doorframe at two in the morning when instincts go hot and stupid.
This one is for when there’s no one left to warn.
I set it beside me on the floor and open the laptop—one I keep permanently offline. No Wi-Fi. No cloud. No risk.
I load the footage from the camera, the one that glitched.