Lights out

Chapter 7Aly

Ineed to stop checking my phone, I thought as I pushed open the breakroom door.

Every time I had five seconds to myself, I dashed inside to look at it. I’d installed my security system yesterday, placing the little sensors on all my windows and setting up the doorbell cameras. It also came with interior cameras, but there was no way in hell they were getting installed. Not when the Faceless Man could use them to keep spying on me.

The bastard.

I couldn’t fucking believe he’d put a camera in my bedroom. Breaking in was bad enough, and even though I shouldn’t have been, I was halfway to forgiving him for it yesterday. I mean, I had asked him to do it. But watching me without my consent crossed the line, and after everything he’d done, I’d be foolish to believe his “Aly, I stopped” bullshit, despite my weird gut reaction telling me I could trust him.

What kind of stalker had that moral fortitude? How was that his line in the sand? Maybe it made me a bad person, but if our roles were reversed and I’d gotten the chance to watch him masturbate, I wouldn’t have stopped. I would have slid a hand into my underwear and joined in on the fun.

Two notifications were waiting for me from the security system when I grabbed my phone from my locker. One showed a tubby little raccoon ambling past my back door, and I saved it to my photos to rewatch it later because even though I knew they were wild animals and carriers of the rabies virus, every time I saw a trash panda, I wanted to pick it up and smoosh it.

The second video was of my weird neighbor Steve from down the street, who ran late at night, even in winter. He was an ultramarathoner and competed in some of the most extreme environments on the planet, and the harsher the conditions, the better, according to him. I knew far too much about the man because he was also chatty as fuck, and he’d cornered me at the last neighborhood block party and talked for a solid twenty minutes about his training regiment and how ultramarathons were more about being mentally tough than physically tough. I’d avoided him since. His intensity was u

That was it. Just two videos. I’d watched a dozen others over the last six hours, and all of them were cars driving past my house. I needed to find some way to turn the camera sensitivity down, or I’d get spammed with notifications during the day as my diurnal neighbors went about their lives.

I kept expecting to come into the breakroom and see the Faceless Man in full masked glory, trying to get back into my house while I was at work, but there was no sign of him. The disturbing thing was I couldn’t tell if I was more relieved or disappointed. On the one hand, a stranger had broken into my house and filmed me; on the other, he was fulfilling the dark fantasy that had haunted both my waking and sleeping self for the past three months.

The biggest reason I longed to believe him when he said he didn’t want to hurt me was the potential to play out my mask kink. How often had I dreamt about putting that muscular body through its paces? I wanted his fingers wrapped around my neck while he fucked me so I could stare at the veins popping out along his forearms as he held me in place. I wanted him behind me, my hands gripping a headboard while he pressed a knife to my throat and told me not to move.

Damn it, I needed to stop getting this turned on at work.

My gaze refocused on my phone.

Don’t do it, I told myself, my finger hovering over my social media app. It was Saturday night, which meant a new video from the Faceless Man. He was punctual to a fault, and I doubted that stalking me would interfere with his posting schedule. So far, I’d managed to hold out, but my willpower was cracking.

“You are a weak, weak woman,” I said as I opened the app and navigated to his profile. Sure enough, there was a new video.

“You don’t have to watch it,” I told myself. But my thumb was already moving of its own volition, and a heartbeat later, a low, drugging melody came from the phone speakers. The Faceless Man was back in one of his usual filming locations, and I let out a heavy breath of relief that it wasn’t more content from my bedroom. He lay on his couch, clad in a black Henley with the sleeves pushed to his elbows, revealing tattoos and the corded, veiny forearms I obsessed over. Like usual, he held a knife, toying with it as he stared up at the ceiling while a tortured male voice sang about getting his heart broken.

The scene changed, showing him sitting up in bed against a heavy-duty headboard that looked made to take a pounding. It spoke of vigorous, athletic sex, complete with what looked like hook holes designed to tie people to it. He was shirtless now, big body leaning against his pillows, head turned to the side like he was staring into space.

The scene changed again, to a locale I’d never seen before. He stood in front of a large picture window, still shirtless, his arms lifted overhead as he leaned against the top part of the frame. I hit pause, taking a minute to let the sight of him sink in. His body was a goddamn masterpiece. Pretty privilege was real because looking at him made me want to forgive him for all ma

Right until I glanced down and noticed that he’d added a caption to one of his videos for the first time ever. It read: When she’s mad at you.

Oh, hell no. This motherfucker better not have been talking about me.

I hit unpause, and the video lasted a few more seconds before it looped back to the begi

I sca

Who hurt you like this???

Give me a name and address, and I’ll take care of it.

No. I refuse to believe anyone could be mad at him.

Ladies, we ride at dawn.

When I say I would forgive this man for literally anything.

“Ha,” I said, my tone humorless. “You say that now, but just wait until he murders me and comes after you next.”

I jerked my head up, relieved to see I was still alone. I really needed to stop talking to myself so much.

I dropped my gaze back down and read a few more comments defending his nonexistent honor before my anger got the better of me, and I typed, When she has good reason to be mad at you, did you mean to say?

I had barely hit enter when my phone pinged. He’d already seen and liked my comment. Oh, fuck. He never liked comments. Would people notice?

Another notification popped up. User the.faceless.man has started following you.

I nearly dropped my phone. No, he didn’t.

Another chime came through. Someone, not him, had responded to my comment.

UM, MA’AM, HE LIKED YOUR COMMENT???

Someone else wrote, OMG, SHE IS THE ONLY PERSON HE FOLLOWS.

I reared back from my phone as the responses started pouring in. Uh-oh. What had I done? And what had he just done by singling me out like this?

My phone started pinging so fast that it sounded like the begi

Forgive him, you monster.

What is he like in real life?

Are you dating him???

So this is what jealous rage feels like.

How’s it feel to be the most hated woman on the internet right now?

If you don’t want him, I’ll take him.

I quickly exited the app and muted it through my settings. Nope. Not dealing with this shitshow right now. I still had the second half of my shift to get through, and tonight was already bad enough because we currently had both a rape victim and her attacker in the hospital after he’d gotten caught in the act. The woman’s family found out he was here, and we were having a hell of a time keeping them from killing him.

Not that I could blame them.

It was good that I wasn’t the woman’s nurse because, despite all my training and the ethics agreements I’d signed, I’d be tempted to slip her husband the man’s room number. Only the thought of going to jail might stop me, but I’d learned so much about myself in the past twenty-four hours that I wondered if even that would be enough.

Was I more like the Faceless Man than I realized? Between contemplating whether or not to act as an accomplice to homicide and choosing to go the vigilante justice route instead of reporting my newfound stalker to the police, I was heading down a dark path. Maybe it was time to take a few weeks off work and clear my head. I hadn’t taken so much as a sick day in…two years? No, that couldn’t be right.

I frowned, thinking back. Holy shit, it was. The last time I missed a shift was thanks to that bout of food poisoning from a local deli that had since, unsurprisingly, closed down.

Two fucking years of trauma nursing without a vacation. Yikes. Yeah, I needed to fix that. No wonder my head was so messed up lately.

Well, that was also partly thanks to the Faceless Man. Was he watching me even now through the hospital security cameras? Probably not, but just in case he was, I flipped the bird at the one in the corner of the breakroom.

My phone chimed with a text message.

I pulled it up to see an unknown number and a single word: Rude.

I nearly choked. He’d hacked into the hospital cameras. How good did someone have to be to pull that off? How obsessed did someone have to be to go this far?

And why, for the love of god, did that make me feel special instead of freaked out?

I shouldn’t have responded. I really shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t stop myself from typing, Are you watching me right now?

Maaaybe, he said, followed by a wink emoji.

I ground my teeth, trying to ignore the fact that, for a stalker, he seemed more cute than creepy in our exchanges so far.

You are breaking so many laws, I wrote back.

And you don’t even know the half of what I’m up to, he replied.

Listen, you, UGH, I don’t even know what to call you!

How about boo? he wrote back. You know, because of the – this was followed by three little ghost emojis meant to represent his mask.

Damn it, I was not going to smile right now. Not when he could see me do it. It was bad enough that he’d made me laugh yesterday. Curse Dad for passing his dark sense of humor on to me. The urge to laugh always overwhelmed me at the absolute worst moments.

I am NOT calling you boo, I said. I’ll stick with ‘asshole’ TYVM. And don’t you have anything better to do than spy on me at work?

Not really, he said. Insomnia is kicking my ass this week.

I blinked, feeling bad for him for a second before I checked myself. He deserved insomnia for his behavior.

I saw your comment on my video, he added. Looks like everyone else did, too. You’re real popular right now. He tacked on a laughing emoji to, I assumed, provoke me.

I swiped back into my app and cringed. So far, there were over a hundred responses, and people were out for blood tonight.