Page 62 of Problematic

A thought slid into my brain.

In every stalker book I loved, the girl always made one of two mistakes. She either pretended she was safe until the plot dragged her by the hair into danger, or she challenged the monster without keeping an eye out for his teeth.

I’d read enough to know better.

The smart heroines paid attention. They studied the gifts. The timing. The words he repeated. The places he entered. What he touched or refused to touch. Obsession had rules, even when it acted like said rules were for people with health insurance and normal hobbies.

My stalker liked roses.

My stalker also liked the shadows.

My stalker liked my door locked, my enemies dead, and my dignity somewhere on the floor beside my cracked cat mug. I flipped the page and glanced at my phone. Three a.m. I went to pick the book back up at the next line and froze.

Black ink was scrawled across the page. Not mine. I sucked in a hasty breath and choked on my own spit.

The sentence had been crossed out.

You want me because I scare you.

Under it, written in precise, elegant handwriting:

Fear is easy. Make her curious.

For a second, I forgot how to blink.

The room changed around me. Same sofa. Same lamp. Same cheap curtains. Same old floorboards groaning under the weight of my terrible decisions.

Different air.

He had touched this. My book.

My private, dog-eared, shamefully abused comfort read. The one I grabbed when I needed fictional danger to drown out the stresses of life. The one with the folded corners I would deny under oath.

My fingers tightened around the paperback.

“No,” I whispered. “He did not just say that!” I giggled at the line of text, then slapped a hand over my mouth.

I turned the page, because, apparently, my survival instincts had died of embarrassment and left curiosity in charge. Another line had been crossed out, this one where the fictional stalker grabbed the heroine’s wrist when she tried to walk away.

Beneath it:

If she stays, it means more.

My knees pressed together before I could stop them.

This was worse than the roses.

The roses were creepy. The ward, excellent craftsmanship aside, was creepy.

This was intimate.

This was him sliding his fingers into the one place I thought was mine and leaving ink behind.

I flipped deeper into the book, pulse thudding in my ears.

Page 243.

Of course.