He Sees You (A Dark Holiday #1)

Prologue

Two Days Ago…

New York City

Celeste

The conference room at Crimson Publishing has glass walls, which means everyone on the thirty-fourth floor can watch me slowly suffocate.

I press my thumb against the condensation ring my coffee cup left on the mahogany table, creating a perfect fingerprint in the moisture.

Around me, three executives in suits that cost more than most people's rent are dissecting my career like medical students with their first corpse.

"The problem," Richard Haverston says, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses, "is that your last book lacked teeth."

I lift my gaze from the table.

Outside, Manhattan sprawls in shades of grey and glass, snow beginning to dust the skeletal trees far below.

I can see directly into the building across the street, where other people in other conference rooms are having other meetings about other problems.

A massive taxidermied deer head hangs in what looks like a trendy gastropub, its dead eyes somehow finding mine across the distance.

"Crimson Vendetta sold over three hundred thousand copies," I say quietly.

"It did." Richard pulls up something on his tablet, projecting it onto the wall-mounted screen. My words fill the white space, and my stomach clenches. "But let's look at what your readers are saying, shall we?"

The reviews scroll past like an indictment:

"Where's the darkness we fell in love with?"

"This felt safe compared to her earlier work."

"I miss when Celeste Sterling made me afraid to turn the page."

"Her heroes used to be dangerous. Now they're just damaged."

Each comment is a small knife between my ribs.

I take a sip of cold coffee to avoid responding, the bitter liquid coating my throat like medicine.

"The market is hungry for something darker," Jennifer from Marketing chimes in, her red nails clicking against her phone screen.

"Have you seen what's trending? Stalker romance is up forty percent.

Morally black heroes are what readers want.

They don't want men who ask permission anymore, Celeste. They want men who take."

"I understand the market."

"Do you?" Richard pulls up another document.

"Because Scarlett Cross' latest? Debuted at number one.

Her hero killed three people in the first chapter.

Hollis Black's new release has a kidnapping on page two.

The readers are craving that fear, that adrenaline rush.

And frankly, you're not delivering it anymore. "

My phone buzzes against the table.

Dad calling.

I flip it over without answering.

"Perhaps," my friend and what feels like my only ally, Juliette Lockwood, says from her corner of the room, speaking for the first time since the meeting began, "we should consider that Celeste's writing reflects her own experiences.

When's the last time you felt genuine fear, Celeste? Or real passion?"

The question hangs in the air like a noose.

Juliette sits with perfect posture in her cream-colored suit, looking like she stepped out of a Vogue editorial rather than the fiction editorial department.

Her smile is subtle, almost sympathetic, but her eyes hold something else.

A challenge, maybe.

My phone buzzes again.

A text this time, from Mark—the investment banker I've been seeing for three months:

Dinner tonight? That place you like with the truffle mac?

I delete it without responding.

The thought of sitting across from him while he talks about portfolio diversification and wonders aloud if my books are "a bit much" makes me want to scream.

"We need the manuscript by January fifteenth," Richard continues, seemingly oblivious to the tension threading through the room.

"That gives you eight weeks. The streaming deal depends on book five delivering something spectacular.

Netflix wants their next You, but darker.

They want viewers sleeping with the lights on while simultaneously falling in love with a monster. "

"I can't just manufacture darkness."

Juliette laughs, the sound sharp as breaking glass. "Of course you can. You've done it before. Your first book? Crimson Prophecy? I couldn't read it at night. That scene where he watches her through her apartment window for six months before they meet? Genius. That's what we need again."

"Maybe," Richard says, pulling up another slide, "you should consider method writing."

My hand stills on my coffee cup. "Method writing."

"Immerse yourself in the world. Some writers spend time in prisons interviewing convicts. Others embed themselves with motorcycle clubs or—"

"I know what method writing is."

"Then you know it works." Richard leans forward, his cologne aggressive in its attempt at subtlety. "When Daniel Craig prepared for James Bond, he learned to shoot, to fight. When Heath Ledger became the Joker—"

"He died," I interrupt.

Silence crystallizes in the room.

My phone buzzes again.

Another call from my father.

This time, I see the voicemail notification pop up immediately after.

Then a text:

Call me back. It's important.

"I need a moment." I stand abruptly.

The room spins slightly—when did I last eat? Yesterday? "Excuse me."

I grab my phone and head for the bathroom, my heels clicking against the marble floor like a countdown.

The executive bathroom is mercifully empty, all black marble and gold fixtures, trying so hard to be luxurious it circles back to feeling like a tomb.

I brace my hands on the sink and stare at my reflection.

When did those shadows appear under my eyes?

When did my skin take on that grey city pallor that no amount of Drunk Elephant can fix?

I look like one of my own characters—haunted, hollow, waiting for something terrible or wonderful to happen.

My phone screen shows three missed calls from my father, two voicemails, and five texts. I scroll through them:

Call me back.

Celeste, it's important.

Not an emergency but we need to talk.

Are you in a meeting?

Just call when you can.

I play the first voicemail, my father's gruff voice filling the bathroom, "Honey, just wanted you to know... we've had some trouble up here. Nothing for you to worry about, but there have been some incidents. Young women. Just... maybe this Christmas isn't the best time for a visit. Call me back."

The second voicemail is shorter, "Actually, forget what I said. It's fine. You should come home if you want. Your room's always ready. But we can talk about it. Love you."

I pull out my laptop from my bag and balance it on the marble counter.

The cursor blinks at me from a blank page, mocking.

I deleted everything I wrote this morning—all fifteen hundred words of flat, lifeless prose about a heroine who felt nothing when the dangerous man touched her because I've forgotten what it feels like to be touched by someone who makes me feel anything at all.

I start typing:

Darkness isn't something you can schedule. It doesn't arrive between nine and five, doesn't wait for you to have your laptop ready, and your coffee warm. Real darkness comes when you're—

I delete it all.

My phone buzzes.

Juliette:

You okay in there?

They're being assholes, but they're not wrong. Your writing has lost something.

When's the last time you did something that scared you?

I look at myself in the mirror again.

Behind my reflection, I can see the city through the window, snow falling harder now, turning the world soft and quiet.

Somewhere out there are eight million people living their lives, feeling things, experiencing passion and terror, and everything in between.

And here I am, hiding in a bathroom that costs more to build than most people's annual salaries, trying to write about feelings I've forgotten how to have.

I walk back into the conference room and don't sit down.

"I'm going home," I announce.

Richard's eyebrows climb toward his receding hairline. "Excuse me?"

"To the Adirondacks. My father's the sheriff there. Two months. I'll write your darkness, but I need to get out of this city to do it."

"Celeste, we have marketing meetings scheduled, the holiday party, the—"

"Cancel them." I start packing my laptop, my movements decisive for the first time in months. "You want me to method write? Fine. I'll go somewhere that actually feels dangerous. Somewhere that isn't all glass and steel and artificial everything."

"The mountains?" Juliette looks skeptical. "What are you going to do, write about park rangers?"

"I'm going to remember why I started writing these stories. Before they became products and streaming deals, and market analysis. When they were just about that feeling—" I pause, searching for words, "—that delicious terror of being seen by something in the dark."

"Actually," Juliette says, standing as well, her movements fluid as water, "I think it's brilliant."

Everyone turns to look at her.

"My brother and I grew up there. He still lives there, actually," she continues, smoothing an invisible wrinkle from her skirt.

"He always says the mountains clear your head.

Says the silence helps you hear things you've been drowning out.

" She smiles, something flickering across her face too quickly to identify.

"Plus, small towns always have the best secrets.

All those people who've known each other forever, thinking they know everything about everyone. "

"It's almost December," Richard protests. "You'll get snowed in."

"Perfect. Isolation breeds creativity."

"Or insanity," Juliette mutters.

"In my genre, they're the same thing."

Richard sighs, the sound of a man accepting his fate. "January fifteenth, Celeste. That's non-negotiable. And I want updates. Weekly pages."

"Fine."

"And if you're not delivering by Christmas, you're coming back."

"I'll deliver."

I head for the door, then pause. "You want darkness?

You want a hero who makes readers question their own moral compass?

Who makes them afraid to be alone but more afraid to be without him?

" I look back at them, and for the first time in months, feel something spark in my chest. Not quite inspiration, but the promise of it.

"Give me two months in the mountains. I'll write you a monster worth falling in love with. "

"Just don't become one of your own headlines," Juliette calls out, trying to be funny.

I don't answer.

I'm already walking toward the elevator, typing a text to my father:

Coming home. See you in two days.

His response is immediate:

Celeste, wait, we should talk first.

I delete the message and type another:

Already booked the rental car. Need to get out of the city. See you soon. Don't worry. I'll be fine.

As the elevator descends, I scroll through my phone's photos, looking for something I can't name.

My finger stops on a picture from the Christmas before last—I'm sitting at my childhood desk, laptop open, snow falling outside the window.

I look peaceful, focused, real in a way I haven't looked in months.

I almost delete it, then stop.

There's something in the window behind me, barely visible through the snow.

A shadow among the trees. Probably just a trick of the light or a deer.

I zoom in, but the image just pixelates into abstract darkness.

Thirty-four floors down, I emerge into the New York winter.

Snow swirls around me, immediate and shocking after the stuffiness of the office.

The cold bites at my exposed skin, sharp and real and exactly what I need.

My Uber driver is playing Christmas music, Bing Crosby crooning about being home for the holidays.

I settle into the backseat and watch Manhattan blur past, all those people living their safe, predictable lives.

In two days, I'll be in the mountains.

In the silence.

In the place where I first learned that darkness wasn't just something in stories.

My phone buzzes one last time.

Juliette:

My brother says the mountains are beautiful this time of year. Says the deer are everywhere. You'll love it.

He reads your books, you know. Says you understand darkness better than you think.

I stare at the message, something cold that has nothing to do with winter settling in my stomach.

I start to type back, asking how Juliette's brother knows my work, but delete it.

Everyone reads my books. That's what being a bestseller means.

Instead, I type:

Tell him thanks. Maybe I'll run into him.

Juliette responds immediately:

Oh, I'm sure you will.

The Uber pulls up to my Murray Hill apartment building.

I stand under the awning for a moment, looking up at the sky.

Snow falls in thick, lazy spirals, erasing the city's hard edges, making everything soft and dreamlike.

Somewhere upstate, snow is probably falling too.

Covering the mountains, the small towns, the secrets everyone keeps.

I think about my father's voicemail.

Some trouble up here. Young women.

I think about my empty apartment waiting upstairs, my empty bed, my empty pages.

I think about Juliette's brother in the mountains, reading my books, thinking I understand darkness.

He has no idea, I think, how much I want to understand it.

But that's the thing about darkness—you never really understand it until you're already drowning in it.

And by then, it's usually too late to swim back to shore.

I go inside to pack.

In forty-eight hours, I'll be home.

Where the silence will help me write.

Where inspiration is waiting.

Where nothing ever happens except the occasional bar fight and teenage vandalism.

My father will worry. He always does.

But I haven't come this far by playing it safe.

I've built my career on darkness, on making readers fall in love with monsters.

Now I just need to remember what makes monsters worth loving in the first place.

As I throw clothes into a suitcase, my laptop sits open on the bed, cursor still blinking on that empty page.

Soon, I promise myself.

Soon, I'll fill it with something that makes Richard Haverston's wire-rimmed glasses fog up with excitement.

Something that will make readers sleep with the lights on.

Something real.

Outside, the snow keeps falling, erasing footprints and covering sins, making the whole world look innocent and new.

But some things can't be covered.

Some things are patient, waiting in places where the snow falls differently, where the silence isn't peaceful but predatory, where darkness isn't just the absence of light but a presence all its own.

I'm going home.

And home, as they say, is where the heart is.

Or in my case, where it stops beating.