Chapter One: The First Glimpse
She didn’t see me.
Not when she stepped onto the subway with her hair damp from the rain, not when she brushed past me to grab the metal pole, and certainly not when she tugged her coat tighter over her curves like it wasn’t driving me absolutely insane.
But I saw her.
I always saw her.
Emily.
Her name tasted like sin in my mouth, sweet and dangerous. I had memorized the way her fingers curled when she was cold, how her nose crinkled when she read something that made her think. The way her laugh bubbled out unexpectedly when she thought no one was listening. I had collected her like pieces of a puzzle, each day a new edge fitting into place.
She was perfect, and she was mine. She just didn’t know it yet.
The train jolted and she stumbled. My hand shot out, steadying her. Her eyes lifted to mine—those soft hazel eyes that had haunted me every night since the first time I saw her three months ago.
“Oh—thank you,” she said, her voice delicate, unsure.
I smiled. “You should be more careful.”
“I usually am,” she laughed nervously. “Guess the city’s out to get me today.”
I let my fingers linger on her elbow a second too long. She noticed. I saw the subtle shift in her body, not pulling away, but aware.
Good.
“Do you always take this train?” I asked casually, though I already knew the answer. Knew she caught it at 8:12 a.m. every Monday through Friday, knew which car she preferred, knew that she liked to stand instead of sit because she didn’t want to fall asleep and miss her stop.
She tilted her head. “Sometimes.”
Liar. She was being cautious. Smart girl.
“You should let me buy you coffee sometime. As a thank-you for not falling into me.”
That made her smile, her lips pulling up in a way that made my chest tighten. “Isn’t it usually the other way around?”
“Not when it comes to you.”
I saw the faint blush rise in her cheeks, saw the way she bit her lip. She was curious now. Interested. Just a crack—but that was all I needed.
She got off two stops later. I didn’t follow. Not yet.
I watched her go.
I always did.
Back in my apartment, the walls were covered in her. Photographs, sketches, pieces of her life like breadcrumbs in a forest I knew better than my own. Her favorite perfume—floral and soft—lingered on the sweater she’d once left in the laundromat by mistake. I hadn’t given it back. I never intended to.
I sat in the chair by the window, the one with the perfect view of the street she lived on. She hadn’t closed her curtains again.
Sloppy.
But lucky for me.
She moved through her apartment like she always did after work—first the kettle, then her journal. Sometimes she danced in the kitchen with bare feet and a glass of wine. That was my favorite version of her. Carefree. Unaware.
Soon she wouldn’t be unaware.
Soon, I’d make her see me.
The way I saw her.
Obsessed wasn’t the right word. No, what I felt ran deeper. It was need. Hunger. Possession. She was the light in a life that had gone too dark, too fast. And if anyone tried to take that from me—if anyone tried to touch her, have her, kiss her—
They wouldn’t survive it.
She was mine.
And soon, I’d make sure the whole world knew it.
