Chapter 4
JOHNNY
PRETTY LITTLE PROJECT
Stalking sounds desperate.
It sounds like some sad fuck sitting outside a girl’s window, waiting for her bedroom light to turn on so he can feel important.
That’s not me.
I don’t beg for attention.
I fucking take it.
Alice Aster isn’t hard to figure out. The quiet girls never are. They think because they keep their heads down, take the side doors, and sit with their backs to walls, no one is paying attention.
Adorable theory. Terrible execution.
Everyone leaves something behind.
And Alice leaves patterns.
Same coffee shop when she wants quiet. The back staircase after late nights in the arts building. The basement darkroom when she should’ve packed up hours ago. That off-campus apartment with the shitty lock and the front door that sticks unless you pull it twice before turning the key.
That part makes me smile.
Bad security is basically a fucking invitation. At least in my books.
She’s careful, I’ll give her that. She watches reflections. Checks corners. Notices when people get too close. But careful isn’t the same as hidden.
And Alice is not hidden, she’s just quiet.
Big difference.
Alice Aster was supposed to be easy.
A pretty little pressure point with a camera. Something I could press my thumb into whenever Jagger got too quiet, too controlled, too fucking convinced he was above reacting.
And it still is about that.
Obviously.
I like watching my brother tense when I say her name. I like the way his jaw locks when I get too close to something he hasn’t admitted he wants yet, and knowing I can touch the edge of her world and feel him notice from across the room.
That part is fun.
That part is always going to be fun.
But now there’s another part.
The annoying part.
The part where I catch myself thinking about her when Jagger isn’t there to watch. The way she looks through a camera like she’s cutting people open without ever getting blood on her hands.
The way she stays quiet until she decides not to, then says something sharp enough to make me want to lean closer instead of shut her up.
That’s the problem.
Jagger doesn’t get stupid over girls. He uses them, ignores them, or forgets they exist the second they stop being convenient. My brother can walk through a room full of people screaming his name and look bored by the effort of being alive.
Then Alice points a camera at him, says his name, and suddenly he’s acting like the world narrowed down to one girl in black with a death wish and good bone structure.
So, yeah.
I still want to fuck with her because it fucks with him.
But now I want to know what she has.
What he saw.
What she pulled loose in him without even trying.
What part of my brother she got to crawl out for her that never crawled out for anyone else.
Including me.
Which is rude, honestly, and very fucking inconsiderate of her.
Fall makes campus even more obnoxious than usual.
Everything is fucking wet. The stone paths shine black under the lamps, dead leaves stick to the steps, and the old brick buildings look like they cost too much money to still smell like mold and bad decisions.
There’s fog on the chapel lawn in the mornings, rain on every window by lunch, and by night, the whole place looks like a brochure for rich kids who want trauma with their tuition.
By mid-October, campus is already acting like Halloween came early and dragged everyone’s dignity behind it.
Plastic skeletons hang in dorm windows. Orange lights blink around doorframes.
Paper bats are taped to glass like someone’s arts-and-crafts trauma response.
Fake blood drips down mirrors in the bathrooms, and every other girl with black eyeliner and a lace dress suddenly thinks she invented being haunted.
The guys are worse. Cheap masks. Fake fangs. Dollar-store knives tucked into belts like wearing plastic makes them dangerous. They walk around grinning at girls, growling in hallways, acting like one themed frat party away from becoming a threat.
It's adorable.
Nothing funnier than a man in a rubber mask thinking he’s scary while asking if the beer pong table is free.
College kids love death when it’s washable.
They love skulls on sweaters, ghosts on cupcakes, blood in red lipstick, all of it neat and temporary and easy to wipe off before Monday morning.
They like the dark when it comes with a costume policy and a drink special.
They like pretending monsters are fun because nothing real has ever stepped out of the shadows and smiled back.
That’s my favorite part.
Everyone wants to play dead until death starts playing too.
Then suddenly it’s screaming, running, crying, calling campus security like some poor fuck making twelve dollars an hour is going to save them from anything interesting.
Personally, I think that’s rude.
If you invite the dark, the least you can do is be a good host when it shows up.
Two big-ass golden stars for effort, though.
Anyway, Alice spends the next week proving she has terrible instincts and a decent routine, which is helpful, because I enjoy when people make my life easier.
She doesn’t move through campus like the rest of them.
Most students walk around half-blind, faces buried in their phones, earbuds in, no idea who’s behind them until someone bumps their shoulder and ruins their little main-character moment.
Alice is different. She clocks reflections in dark windows, checks corners without making it obvious, and notices when a car slows too long near the curb or when a guy holds a door open because he wants an excuse to talk to her.
She sees all of it.
She just doesn’t always react, which is interesting.
Not smart, exactly. Smart would be staying the hell away from people like me, but Alice Aster seems to have confused survival instincts with curiosity, and honestly, I respect the commitment to poor choices.
I find her on a Thursday night in the library basement, because of course, she chooses the creepiest part of campus during a fucking rainstorm.
Very on-brand for a girl dressed like a funeral fucked an art-school dropout and handed her a camera.
The university library is old, expensive, and way too proud of itself.
Stone walls, narrow windows, dramatic staircases, and the kind of shitty lighting that makes every freshman think they’re one bad grade away from getting haunted.
Rich people love buildings like this. Slap some ivy on brick, put a dead man’s name over the door, and suddenly everyone’s paying tuition for the atmosphere.
The basement is worse, which means obviously it’s better.
Cold. Quiet. Shelves packed too tight. Old wooden tables carved up by bored students who thought scratching initials into furniture counted as leaving a legacy.
Marble statues sit shoved in the corners, staring at nothing, because apparently even dead men get demoted when the donors stop giving a shit.
And there’s Alice, right where she belongs.
Hiding under the school like a pretty little problem with a camera and terrible fucking survival instincts.
She’s at the far table near the anatomy section, because apparently the regular creepy basement wasn’t doing enough for her.
Camera in hand. Open book in front of her.
Some rib cage illustration spread across yellowed pages like a dead guy agreed to help with homework.
Her black sweater hangs loose off one shoulder, her skirt is short, her tights are ripped, and her boots are hooked on the chair rung like she’s planning to stay down here until the building gives up and accepts her as part of the furniture.
Silver rings cover her fingers. Crosses sit at her throat. Her hair falls forward when she leans over the book, dark with that blue shine in it under the shitty basement lights.
Pretty little thing, hiding with bones.
Cute as fuck, in a deeply concerning way.
I watch her take three photos before I say anything. She changes the angle, adjusts the lamp, shifts the book half an inch, then pauses with her finger over the button like the rib cage might suddenly blink and ruin the shot.
“You always photograph dead things, Alice?”
She doesn’t jump. I’ll give her that.
Her hand stills first, then her head turns slowly, eyes finding me in the aisle like she already knew someone was there and was just waiting to see if I had the manners to announce myself.
Spoiler. I don’t.
“Johnny,” she says, flat and unimpressed.
I smile. “You remembered.”
“You’re memorable in a restraining-order kind of way.”
“Oh, I like that.” I step out from between the shelves, dragging one finger along the spine of an old book as I pass. “Specific. Mean. Little bit flirty if I ignore the obvious insult.”
Alice turns back to her book like I’m already boring her. “It wasn’t flirty.”
“Most things aren’t until I decide they are.”
Her eyes lift just enough to cut me a look. “What are you doing down here?”
“Library things.”
“You read?”
“I know.” I stop at the end of her table and put a hand to my chest. “Pretty and literate. It must be overwhelming.”
“I’ll survive.”
“Now, that’s very optimistic of you.”
The corner of her mouth moves before she shuts it down, and I file that away because she really does hate giving reactions. It’s adorable. Annoying too, but mostly adorable.
I glance at the open book. “Ribs?”
“For a project.”
“Very dark.”
“Dark? It’s anatomy.”
“Still dark. Don’t ruin this for me with scientific terms.”
She sets the camera down but keeps one hand near it, fingers curling around the strap like she thinks I won’t notice. Protective. Immediate. People always tell you what they care about by what they reach for first when someone gets too close.
With Alice, it’s the camera.
With Jagger, it’s his fists.
With me? Well, it depends who’s asking and whether there are witnesses.
Alice follows my gaze to her hand, then gives me a bored look. “You followed me.”
I blink at her like she just accused me of something tacky. “Followed you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s ugly wording.”
“Ugly or not, it’s accurate wording.”