Page 8 of Stalked & Bred by the BRATVA
And soon, she will see me again.
But not too soon. The space between sightings matters. It lets the mind breathe and then crave the weight again.
I turn from the monitor to the desk drawer beside me. Inside are more photographs. Not just of her face, but of her hands polishing silver, of her hair slipping free from its tie, of her in the garden at sunrise, steam rising from the damp soil around her. I have dozens. I take them for me, not for her.
For now.
One day, I’ll show her every one. I’ll make her sit on my lap while I flip through them, telling her exactly what I thought each time I pressed the shutter. She’ll blush, and she’ll squirm. But finally she’ll understand.
I run my thumb over the edge of the latest print still on my desk, identical to the one in her drawer. The paper is smooth under my skin, but the memory is sharper than any blade I’ve ever held. The way her lips parted slightly as she breathed in the scent of the mint. The sunlight warming her neck. The small crease between her brows as she worked.
She was mine before she ever knew I existed.
And soon, she will know.
I close the drawer and lean back in the chair, letting the thought settle in my chest like a slow, steady drumbeat.
The gifts are only the beginning.
Sarah
I can’t bring myself to take the photograph back out of the drawer.
It sits there now, hidden under the nightgown, as if burying them together will cancel out the strangeness of both. But it doesn’t. I can still feel it in the room with me, the way I used to feel Thom in the house even when he wasn’t in sight. Like a pressure in the air.
The thought hits me hard enough to make my stomach turn.
Thom.
Could it be him?
It sounds ridiculous at first, he’s not here, and I doubt the Vasilievs would let him anywhere near the property, but that never stopped him before. He’s always found ways to make sure I knew he could reach me, no matter where I was. A text from a stranger with a message only he would write. A photograph slipped into my locker at school, taken through my bedroom window.
He liked to remind me I could be watched without even realising it.
That was his game. Not just hurting me, but keeping me off balance. Making me question what was safe and who I could trust. I’ve never understood if it was about control, or if he justenjoyed knowing I’d be lying awake at night wondering when he was next going to hurt me.
And I’m lying awake now.
I keep telling myself I should take the photograph straight to the house manager, say I found it and have no idea who put it there. But that means admitting someone was in my room. That means people asking questions. That means being noticed.
I don’t want to be noticed.
Except…
Except some small, shameful part of me does.
I’ve never been given a gift just for me. Not one that wasn’t attached to strings or punishment or both. I’ve never been looked at like I mattered enough for someone to capture me in a moment they thought was worth keeping.
It’s wrong. I know it’s wrong. But when I picture someone,him, watching me in the garden that morning, the memory doesn’t feel like the other kinds of watching I’ve lived through. The ugly, dangerous kinds.
This feels different, but not less dangerous.
I lie in bed with the lamp off, my knees drawn up under the blanket, listening. The curtains are still closed. I thought about opening them earlier, but what if I looked out and saw someone standing there? The thought was enough to keep me away from the window entirely.
The house is quiet now, the dinner party long over. I can hear the faint hum of the central heating, the occasional creak of old wood as the building settles. And then, somewhere in the hallway beyond my door, the soft tread of footsteps.
My breath catches.
