Page 59 of He Sees You
Or saved her, I think.
Maybe Cain let her go because she couldn't handle what he was.
Maybe she's alive because she ran.
"I remember there was this thing," Juliette continues. "She had a stalker senior year. Some college guy who wouldn't leave her alone. Then one day, he just disappeared. Dropped out, moved away, never contacted her again. Rebecca left town a month later."
"You think Cain?—"
"I don't think anything. I'm just saying, be careful. My brother protects what he considers his. And if he's decided you're his..."
She doesn't finish, but she doesn't need to.
If Cain's decided I'm his, then I am.
The question is whether I want to be.
"Thanks for the warning."
"I just don't want you getting hurt. You're my best author and my friend. And Cain... Cain's my brother, and I love him, but he's not like other people. He doesn't see the world the way we do."
No, I think.
He sees it clearly.
Sees the predators and the prey, the guilty and the innocent.
And he acts on what he sees.
"I'll be careful," I promise, another lie added to the pile.
After we hang up, I try to write again. This time, the words come:
She stood at the crossroads between two worlds—the daylight world of law and order, where her father hunted monsters, and the darkness where her monster hunted those the law couldn't touch. She knew she should choose the light. Should tell someone what she knew. Should stop this before more blood is spilled.
But the blood being spilled was poison, and the monster spilling it was hers. How could she betray the only person who'd ever seen her completely and chosen to protect rather than possess?
She couldn't. She wouldn't.
She would meet him at midnight, in the place where his ghosts lived, and she would choose the darkness. Choose him.
Because sometimes the real horror isn't the monster in the shadows—it's the one with a badge and keys to your door.
I save the document, then pull up a search engine.
It takes some digging, but I find her. Rebecca Harrison, married, two kids, works as a graphic designer.
Her social media is locked down tight, but there's one public post from last year.
A memorial for someone named David Reese.
The caption reads: "Five years free. Thank you to my guardian angel, wherever you are."
David Reese.
I search the name plus our town.
A small article from five years ago—college student, twenty-two, died in a car accident just outside town limits.
