Doppelbänger

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

GOOD AUGUST

IS A FUCKING NARCISSIST

“You’re an absolute fucking narcissist, August Blackthorne!”

“I’m a fucking narcissist?” I scream right back at my phone. “Have you seen your hair lately?” I pause for Jon to reply, and when he doesn’t, the silence—that sinking feeling of being alone—stabs a reminder into my heart of why I’m calling him in the first place.

I need his help.

Badly.

I force myself to calm down, drawing in a deep breath to get control. “Listen, I’m in trouble and…”

Still nothing.

Such a void-like nothing that my stomach clamps in outrage. “Did you just hang up on me?”

I wrench the phone away from my ear, every muscle in my arm ready to smash the thing when I see that blank screen. But it’s a champagne-pink finish, and I can’t afford another one.

All that energy has to go somewhere, though, so I simultaneously clench my fists, stomp my foot, and make a weird screech-shout sound, before yelling at the top of my lungs, “Fuck you, Jon!”

Then I slightly recoil when I hear a mother, a few metres away, scolding her son into crossing the street away from me.

His big blue eyes are open double wide, locked onto me as she carries him along while he protests, “But that man said the f-word!”

To which she hurriedly whispers, “Don’t make eye contact!”

Because yes, I’m standing in the middle of the street at nine a.m. on a Thursday morning, screaming at my ex over the phone like a madman. And maybe I look a little rough. A lot rough. But with good reason.

He was there again this morning.

My stalker.

You know that feeling when you’re being watched?

That was me fifteen minutes ago. Sound asleep, but then the sensation of another presence nearby ripped me into reality.

It felt like a demon sitting on my chest, that sense of danger.

My eyes flicked towards the window by instinct, and there he was—a dark shape, obscured by shadow and the thick lace curtains my landlady insists are just as good as the blackout blinds she won’t let me install. But it was him.

Until now, the guy’s mostly been poking through my mailbox, stealing clothes off my line. He’s followed me home a few times. But this was the boldest he’s been to date.

Clearly he scared the shit out of me, so I sat up and yelled something very decisive and threatening like, “Hey!”

I thought it did the trick because he ran. And I ran to the window, searching for him.

No sign, for about one minute.

I was just deciding whether to call the cops again when I heard it. That scuff of boots echoing off the concrete just outside my front door.

I knew it wasn’t my landlady. Thursday morning is mahjong day for her. She never misses it. Sure, it could have been someone else, but…

The door handle. No knock, no announcement—he went straight for entry. I watched it swivel, heard the sound of it rattling. Then it stopped.

I was bolted to the spot, my pulse hammering in my ears.

I know what to do in an altercation. Rule number one of self-defence: run.

Yet even as the thought occurred to me, I stood there watching, hoping that lock would hold—that he’d give up and go away.

Then came the gentle clang of metal on concrete. Did he have a knife? No… It was softer… It was…

Metal scraping metal.

A lock pick.

I barely remember what came next. My hoodie from the floor because it’s winter. My sneakers in my hand, ready to escape. My laptop and phone because they’re the only things I own of any value.

Then I was out the window. Out the window and running down the street. Calling the cops to hear that they’ll ‘drive by in a few hours.’ They’re too busy this Thursday morning, apparently, since they know I’m ‘safe.’

Then it was me calling Jon to hear that I’m a fucking narcissist because how dare I have a stalker when he doesn’t have one. Classic Jon. The prick.

And now here I am, standing in the middle of the street, with my stalker in my apartment doing god knows what.

Maybe he’s stealing more of my clothes? Maybe he’s wanking into my sheets?

Maybe he’s writing a threatening message on the wall in red paint?

Or blood? That will be nice to sleep with tonight, since I don’t have anywhere else to go.

All this to say, it’s no wonder I’m scaring small children with my dishevelled appearance.

I push the door open on a nearby cafe. It’s the safest place I can think of to get away from him.

And it’s warm. This winter has been vicious, and I’m trying to keep the heating bills down at home, so I come here regularly.

On a quiet day, I can get a good two or three hours out of this place before I start feeling too bad about having only bought one coffee.

I join the short queue, looking nervously over my shoulder through the glass door. He’s never followed me away from the house. That I know of. Maybe he has?

If I could just figure out what he wants from me… But this morning, hearing that door handle, seeing it twist… He’s escalating.

Which is why I called Jon. Having to call an ex for help is galling enough. But having to call one for shelter when you specifically broke up during a fight about how you didn’t want to live with him…

What an asshole.

“Order?”

I jump, realising the line that was in front of me has quickly dissipated, and I’m standing in the middle of the cafe holding everyone up. Head down, I shuffle forward and spit out my order as quickly as possible. “Oat cappuccino. Please.”

The woman behind the counter grabs a paper cup and a pen. She’s already writing as she asks, “Takeaway again?”

Again? “N-no. No, it’s for here.”

“Oh.” She pauses with a frown like I just shat in her paper cup, then scribbles out whatever she was writing. She slams the cup back down. “Size?”

“Large.”

Stalling again, she raises an eyebrow. “Two large coffees in the space of an hour?”

“What?” I lick my lips, already anxious about the stalker, having held up the line, having disgraced her paper cup. Now I’m being quizzed about my coffee intake while impatient people glare at my back. “It’s my first today.” I reach for my wallet in the hope that will move things along swiftly.

She grabs the pay station, tapping away, but she mutters, “It’s not good for your health, that much coffee.”

What is she, my doctor? “Yeah, no,” I sort of agree with her. “That’s why I’m just having the one.”

Eyes like a cobra, as if I just slapped her cheek with my duelling glove, she pauses again.

She looks over my mess of an outfit. The man behind me shuffles his position pointedly so I can hear his shoes creaking against the floor.

He sighs over my shoulder, his morning breath boring into my nostrils.

Then everything slows a little when the barista asks, “August?”

Not again…

And now the room shifts, the ivy and the heat lamps and the already dated raw-concrete walls all pressing down on me. My voice comes weak when I ask, “How do you know my name?”

She pushes the pay station forward for me to tap my card. “Because this is your second large coffee today.” She studies my face, and decides, it seems, that I’m neither obtuse nor arrogant. A touch of concern falls across her brow. “You don’t remember being in here?”

“No.” What kind of a stupid answer is that, August? “Yes.” Not better! “Yes, no, I mean, um…” Just give me the coffee! “I just need a coffee.” I smile over the words, squinting my eyes deliberately as if I can blame the lot of this mess on tiredness, but my hand’s shaking as I tap my card to pay.

“I’ll bring it over.” Her lips are tight when she speaks, but her voice has softened a little.

When I take a step back, it’s directly into the chest of the mouth-breather behind me.

I desperately want to escape at this point, get the coffee takeaway and get out of here, because I know she’s going to be scowling at me for the next two hours while I sip my steadily cooling large drink.

But I’m both polite to a fault and too broke to afford my heating bill at home (also, there’s probably a killer there), so I thank her, idiotically apologise to the encroaching guy I walked into, then look for the warmest table in the place.

As soon as I sit down, I realise I’m too close to the heater, but you can imagine how many fucks I give at this point.

I rip my hoodie off and get my laptop out so I can pretend I’m busy working.

Of course, the job market being what it is, I’ve really got nothing to do but sit here and sink into my anxiety.

Maybe I shouldn’t have got that triple shot…

But how does she know my name?

The thing is, this keeps happening to me.

People recognising me in places I haven’t been, asking me why I’m back there already, saying they just saw me.

People who know my name when they shouldn’t know my name.

It’s been going on for a full week, at least, and it started right about the time my stalker turned up.

The obvious conclusion is he’s trying to steal my identity.

That he’s taken mail out of my bin to figure out who I am, and now he’s using my name around the place.

But why me? My credit’s shot, I have no money or assets to steal.

What the hell does he think he’s going to find in my crappy studio apartment? Other than me…

But even then, none of that explains why random people are physically mistaking this guy for me. What’s he got, a face mask or something?

I’m not in this cafe every day. I have a rotation of warm places whose hospitality I routinely abuse.

I change a lot so I don’t overstay my welcome.

This is generally my Monday morning cafe, so the barista should recognise me, but she shouldn’t know my name any more than I know hers.

She doesn’t even remember my order after all this time.

I wonder why I—he—stuck out so much to her today, that of all the people still queuing steadily, she remembered my name.