Sariyah's heartbeat was erratic, her mind a mess of contradictions. 

D'kazi's confession should have sent her running. 

It should have cemented the fear still clawing at the edges of her mind. 

But instead... 

She hesitated. 

Because beneath the terror, beneath the wrongness of the situation, there was something else. 

A pull. 

A sick, twisted part of her that wasn't just afraid—but curious.

Because she remembered him. 

Not just as the quiet boy in the back of the classroom, but as someone she had noticed before. 

Back then, she'd never given it much thought. 

But now—standing this close, his presence surrounding her, his gaze locked onto hers with unsettling intensity—she couldn't ignore it. 

He had always been attractive.

Even in high school, when he had been silent, distant, nothing but a shadow in the background, there had been something about him. Something dark. Something intense.

And now? 

Now, that same intensity was solely focused on her.

A shiver crawled down her spine. 

Her body screamed at her to run. 

Her mind whispered that he was dangerous. 

That he could be planning to kill her, that he could be luring her into some sick game— 

But another part of her, a part she hated, wasn't thinking about escape at all. 

That part of her was wondering why someone like him—someone who had spent his whole life unseen, unheard—had chosen her. 

Her fingers curled into fists. 

She needed to end this. Needed to shut it down before she got sucked in further. 

"Do you—" She swallowed, trying to steady herself. "Do you understand how insane this sounds?" 

D'kazi didn't flinch. 

"Yes." 

His bluntness sent a jolt through her. 

"You stalked me," she snapped, trying to hold onto her anger, onto the fear that was slipping through her fingers. "You followed me for years—" 

"I watched you," he corrected quietly. "There's a difference." 

Her stomach flipped. "Not much of one." 

He exhaled slowly, gaze flickering over her face. "Maybe not." 

She clenched her jaw, heart hammering against her ribs. 

It was infuriating—the way he spoke with such calm certainty, like he had thought this through a thousand times before. 

Like he had justified it. 

She should be running. 

She should be screaming. 

But she was still standing there, trapped in his presence, trapped in this impossible moment, feeling everything she shouldn't. 

"You could be planning to kill me," she whispered, half accusing, half testing him. 

D'kazi tilted his head, something unreadable flickering in his dark eyes. 

"I could." 

Her breath caught. 

"But I won't," he murmured. "Because that would mean losing you." 

Her pulse stuttered, a deep, unsettling chill crawling over her skin. 

He said it so simply. So matter-of-factly.

Like he had already decided. 

Like she had never had a choice at all. 

Her legs twitched, every instinct still screaming at her to go, but her body refused to move. 

Because no matter how much she wanted to deny it, no matter how much she wanted to fight it— 

Something about the way he spoke, the way he looked at her, felt real. 

Twisted. Wrong. 

But real. 

And that terrified her even more. 

She was trapped. 

Not by his hands. Not by his strength. 

But by the sick, impossible truth that she didn't want to admit. 

She was afraid of him. 

But she wasn't repulsed. 

And that made her just as dangerous as he was. 

---