WRONG OBSESSIONS (STALKER DARK ROMANCE 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️)

🥀 ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──── 🥀

(𝕬𝖚𝖙𝖍𝖔𝖗’𝖘 𝕹𝖔𝖙𝖊

𝕭𝖊𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖊 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖕 𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖔 𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖘𝖊 𝖕𝖆𝖌𝖊𝖘, 𝖘𝖊𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖌𝖊 𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖕𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖞.

𝕻𝖗𝖊𝖘𝖘 𝖕𝖑𝖆𝖞 𝖔𝖓𝕲𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖘𝖙𝖆’𝖘 𝕻𝖆𝖗𝖆𝖉𝖎𝖘𝖊𝖇𝖞 𝕶𝖊𝖍𝖑𝖆𝖓𝖎 𝖋𝖗𝖔𝖒 𝕾𝖚𝖎𝖈𝖎𝖉𝖊 𝕾𝖖𝖚𝖆𝖉, 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖔𝖗𝖈𝖍𝖊𝖘𝖙𝖗𝖆𝖑 𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖎𝖔𝖓 𝖎𝖋 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖈𝖆𝖓 𝖋𝖎𝖓𝖉 𝖎𝖙. 𝕷𝖊𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖘𝖙𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘 𝖗𝖎𝖘𝖊. 𝕷𝖊𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖉𝖗𝖚𝖒𝖘 𝖋𝖊𝖊𝖑 𝖑𝖎𝖐𝖊 𝖆 𝖕𝖚𝖑𝖘𝖊 𝖚𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖗𝖎𝖇𝖘. 𝕷𝖊𝖙 𝖎𝖙 𝖈𝖗𝖆𝖜𝖑 𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖔 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖇𝖑𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖘𝖙𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖒.

𝕿𝖍𝖎𝖘 𝖘𝖙𝖔𝖗𝖞 𝖇𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖘 𝖎𝖓 𝖘𝖍𝖆𝖉𝖔𝖜𝖘 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖜𝖆𝖑𝖐𝖘 𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖍 𝖆 𝖑𝖔𝖆𝖉𝖊𝖉 𝖍𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖙𝖇𝖊𝖆𝖙. 𝕴𝖙 𝖙𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖘 𝖔𝖋 𝖉𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖗, 𝖉𝖊𝖛𝖔𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓, 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖐𝖎𝖓𝖉 𝖔𝖋 𝖑𝖔𝖛𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖇𝖗𝖚𝖎𝖘𝖊𝖘 𝖇𝖊𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖊 𝖎𝖙 𝖇𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖘𝖊𝖘. 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙 𝖒𝖚𝖘𝖎𝖈 𝖜𝖔𝖓’𝖙 𝖏𝖚𝖘𝖙 𝖘𝖊𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖒𝖔𝖔𝖉, 𝖎𝖙 𝖜𝖎𝖑𝖑 𝖜𝖗𝖆𝖕 𝖆𝖗𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖉 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖙𝖍𝖗𝖔𝖆𝖙 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖕𝖚𝖑𝖑 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖚𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗 𝖌𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖑𝖞.

𝕿𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖊‘𝖘 𝖆 𝖋𝖚𝖑𝖑 𝖕𝖑𝖆𝖞𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙 𝖜𝖆𝖎𝖙𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖆𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖊𝖓𝖉 𝖔𝖋 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖇𝖔𝖔𝖐. 𝕴𝖋 𝖞𝖔𝖚’𝖗𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖙𝖞𝖕𝖊 𝖜𝖍𝖔 𝖑𝖎𝖐𝖊𝖘 𝖙𝖔 𝖕𝖗𝖊𝖕𝖆𝖗𝖊 𝖋𝖔𝖗 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖋𝖆𝖑𝖑, 𝖘𝖐𝖎𝖕 𝖙𝖔 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖋𝖎𝖓𝖆𝖑 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖇𝖊𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖊 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖇𝖊𝖌𝖎𝖓 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖇𝖚𝖎𝖑𝖉 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖖𝖚𝖊𝖚𝖊 𝖔𝖓 𝖄𝖔𝖚𝖙𝖚𝖇𝖊, 𝕾𝖕𝖔𝖙𝖎𝖋𝖞, 𝖔𝖗 𝖜𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖗 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖘𝖚𝖗𝖗𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖘.

𝕿𝖗𝖚𝖘𝖙 𝖒𝖊.

𝕿𝖍𝖎𝖘 𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖑𝖉 𝖎𝖘 𝖉𝖆𝖗𝖐𝖊𝖗 𝖜𝖍𝖊𝖓 𝖎𝖙 𝖍𝖆𝖘 𝖆 𝖘𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖉𝖙𝖗𝖆𝖈𝖐.)

PROLOGUE

---

*One wrong number.*

*One accidental text.*

*One poem meant for a friend's eyes only.*

*She didn't know she was typing her fate.*

*He didn't know he was reading his future.*

*Somewhere between*

*"please delete this"*

_and_

*"you are my baby"*

*a match was struck.*

*The fire would take months to burn.*

*But the spark?*

*The spark lived in six words:*

*"I wrote your name where my pulse runs slow."*

---

**🖤 Let the obsession begin. 🖤**

JAX

The clubhouse reeked of sweat, stale beer, and the metallic tang of old blood that had seeped into the floorboards so deep nothing would ever really wash it out. The Iron Wolves' main chapter house sat on the outskirts of the industrial district like a tumor that had grown there—a sprawling two-story fortress of cinderblock and corrugated steel that had been converted from an abandoned auto body shop decades ago. The walls were covered in faded gang insignias, peeling Iron Wolves MC posters from runs long past, and a mural of a wolf tearing out the throat of a serpent that took up the entire south wall—a not-so-subtle message to anyone who walked through the doors.

Tonight, the common room hummed with the particular tension of war planning. The Crimson Vipers had gotten bold, hit one of their transport trucks two nights ago, and left a prospect bleeding out in the street. Not dead—they wanted the message delivered. The Wolves didn't forget messages.

Mace "Iron" Callahan, president of the Iron Wolves, stood hunched over a massive oak table that had seen more spilled blood than most emergency rooms. The table was scarred with knife marks, cigarette burns, and rings from a thousand beer bottles. At forty-three, Mace was built like a brick shithouse—six-four, pushing two-fifty, with a gray-streaked beard that hung to the middle of his chest and arms covered in ink that told the story of twenty-five years in the club. His cut hung open, revealing a wife-beater stained with sweat and the faded edges of old knife wounds. He jabbed a thick finger at a map of the territory, marking entry points, escape routes, kill zones.

"Gutter, you and Slick take the north approach. They'll be expecting us from the south, so you'll come in quiet, no bikes, no lights. Wait for my signal." Mace's voice was gravel and command, the kind of tone that didn't ask questions.

Gutter, a wiry man in his thirties with a missing ear and a perpetual sneer, nodded from his position sprawled across a cracked leather couch. "Quiet like church, Prez."

"Church ain't quiet when you're there," someone muttered. Laughter rippled through the room.

On the other side of the space, near the bar that ran the length of the east wall, a different kind of chaos unfolded. Jax "Reaper" Harlan, the club's vice president, had a prospect by the collar, holding the kid suspended on his toes like a disobedient puppy. Jax was thirty-six years of corded muscle and bad intentions, six-two with shoulders that blocked out light and hands that had ended more lives than most surgeons. His body was a roadmap of violence—knife scars across his ribs, a bullet exit wound just below his collarbone, and enough ink to make him look like he'd been painted by demons. The Reaper name came from the grim reaper tattoo that covered his entire back, scythe raised and ready, but the brothers knew the real reaper was Jax himself. Cold. Efficient. Absolute.

The prospect, a kid named Danny who'd been patched over from a support club three months ago, had fucked up. Simple as that. He'd left a door unlocked during a drop, and now there was two kilos of product missing and a Viper had walked in like he owned the place.

"I'm sorry, VP, I swear, I didn't—"

"Shut your mouth." Jax's voice was low, almost conversational, but it cut through the kid's panic like a knife through warm butter. "You didn't think. That's the problem. You don't get to think. You get to follow orders. When I tell you to lock a door, you lock that motherfucker like your life depends on it, because it does. When I tell you to stand guard, you stand guard until your fucking legs give out. You don't get tired. You don't get distracted. You don't get to make mistakes."

He tightened his grip on the kid's collar, watching the prospect's face go from red to purple. The room paid them no mind—this was discipline, part of the rhythm of club life. Danny's feet scrabbled against the concrete floor, his hands clawing uselessly at Jax's forearm.

"You want to wear this patch?" Jax continued, his face inches from the kid's. "You want to call yourself an Iron Wolf? Then you earn it. Every. Fucking. Day. One more mistake and I'll feed you to the Vipers myself. Understood?"

Danny managed a strangled nod. Jax held him there another five seconds, letting the fear sink in, then dropped him. The kid crumpled to the floor, gasping, clutching his throat.

"Get the fuck out of my sight."

Danny scrambled away, disappearing toward the back rooms where the club kept their sleeping quarters. A few of the brothers chuckled, but most just watched with flat, assessing eyes. This was how it worked. This was how you survived.

Near the pool tables, a cluster of club girls occupied the space between decoration and furniture. They were the usual mix—hard-eyed women in their twenties with too much makeup and not enough hope, wearing cut-off shorts and tank tops that showed off the tattoos they'd gotten to prove they belonged. Candy, a bottle-blonde with a heart-shaped face and a mean streak, racked the balls with practiced efficiency while Trixie and Nova nursed beers and watched the men with the careful attention of predators who knew their place in the hierarchy.

"Reaper's in a mood tonight," Nova muttered, her eyes tracking Jax as he moved toward the bar. "Someone's gonna lose teeth before this is over."

"Someone already did," Candy said, nodding toward the prospect who'd fled. "Kid's lucky he kept his."

Trixie, the youngest of the three, with raccoon-eye makeup and a nose ring, watched Jax with an expression that was equal parts fear and want. Every woman in the room watched Jax that way. He was beautiful in the way a loaded weapon was beautiful—dangerous, precise, capable of devastating damage. When he walked through a room, something in the air changed, tightened. Even the men gave him space.

Jax's phone buzzed in his pocket. Once. Twice. A third time with that particular insistent rhythm that said someone wanted his attention.

He ignored it initially, reaching for the whiskey bottle on the bar. But the phone kept buzzing, the vibration working against his thigh like an itch he couldn't scratch. He had the prospect suspended, one hand wrapped around the kid's collar, the other fishing in his pocket for the sleek black device.

He almost swiped the unknown number away. Almost.

But something made him pause. Maybe it was the area code—a little too close to the university district. Maybe it was the preview on his lock screen, which showed more text than most wrong numbers. Maybe it was fate, or luck, or the universe having a sick sense of humor.

His thumb swiped the screen.

The message opened.

**Unknown Number:** *Hey Mia...are you picking up the cheesecake for Lu's birthday party next Sunday? also I have submitted the draft of the poetry book for editing and I named it Amira because I dont want Mr Radcliffe to say I have a fixation with mammary glands...let me show you a sample poem...*

Jax's brow furrowed. Cheesecake. Poetry. Mammary glands. What the actual fuck?

Then the poem came through.

**Unknown Number:** *I wrote your name where my pulse runs slow,*

*Inked in a place only restless hands would know.*

*Come read me close, don't ask me to behave,*

*I taste like sin and I don't plan to save.*

**Unknown Number:** *Guess what happened when I went to the campus coffee shop...Craig was there...ugh he was in my spot as if waiting...it's literally like he knows where I'm going...if he flirts with me one more time I'm gonna tell him I'm a lesbian and kiss you in front of everyone...I am so done...Needles has to go to the vet...I'll call you later about the project....goodbye gorgeous...*

Jax's hand went slack.

The prospect dropped to the floor with a thud, gasping for air, but Jax didn't notice. He didn't notice anything. His entire world had narrowed to the glowing screen in his hand, to the words that had just burrowed under his skin like parasites.

*I wrote your name where my pulse runs slow.*

*Inked in a place only restless hands would know.*

Jesus Christ.

His blood went south so fast he felt lightheaded. His cock thickened, pressing against the fly of his jeans, and he had to shift his weight to accommodate the sudden, urgent hardness. He read the words again. And again. Each time they hit harder, painting pictures in his head—a girl, young, soft, spreading her thighs to show him where she'd written. A name. His name? No, not yet. But it would be. It would be.

"Jax? You good, brother?"

Gutter's voice came from somewhere far away. Jax looked up, and the room swam back into focus. The prospect was gone—probably ran the second Jax's grip loosened. The brothers were staring. Mace had straightened from the map, his eyes sharp with curiosity.

"What the fuck you starin' at, VP?" Mace asked, his gravel voice carrying across the suddenly quiet room.

Jax looked down at his phone. Then back at the room. A grin spread across his face—slow, dangerous, the expression of a wolf who'd just caught a scent worth chasing.

"This..." He held up the phone. "I got a fuckin' butt dial with sex poetry from some college girl. Think it's a wrong number."

The room exploded.

"Read it! Read the fucking thing!" Slick abandoned the pool table, cue still in hand. He was a lanky bastard with snake tattoos crawling up his neck and a perpetual leer. "Is it about tits? Tell me it's about tits."

"Roses are red, bullets are blue, I want to ride your face until I do—what?" Gutter shrugged at the looks he got. "What? I got a way with words."

"Shut the fuck up, Gutter, let the VP read the damn thing."

Mace had moved closer, a rare smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth beneath his beard. "What's her name?"

Jax shook his head, still staring at the screen. "Don't have a name. Just sent it to someone named Mia. Talking about cheesecake and poetry publication and some dick professor called Radcliffe. And a pen name—Amira."

"Amira," Candy repeated from the pool tables, her voice dripping with disdain. "Sounds like some art hoe bullshit."

"Oh, it's art," Jax said, and there was something in his voice that made the room go quiet again. He read aloud, his voice dropping to that low, rough register that made men nervous and women wet: "*I wrote your name where my pulse runs slow, inked in a place only restless hands would know.*"

Silence.

Then chaos.

"Holy shit, VP, she wrote that?"

"That's fucking filthy."

"What's the rest? Read the rest!"

"*Come read me close, don't ask me to behave,*" Jax continued, his eyes never leaving the screen, "*I taste like sin and I don't plan to save.*"

Nova actually fanned herself, a theatrical gesture that made Trixie giggle. Even Candy looked impressed, her eyebrows climbing toward her bleached hairline.

"That girl's got a dirty mouth," Gutter observed. "I like her already."

Mace was studying Jax with an expression that said he saw more than the others. "You gonna reply?"

Jax's thumb was already moving.

**Jax:** *Wrong number, sweetheart. But that poem? Got me hard in a room full of assholes. Who the fuck is Amira?*

He hit send before he could think better of it. The room held its breath.

A minute passed. Two.

"She's not gonna reply," Slick predicted. "Probably scared shitless."

"Probably blocking him," Candy added with a smirk. "I would."

Then the phone buzzed.

**Unknown Number:** *Oh god I'm so sorry I did not mean to send that to you. Please delete it. Please.*

Jax could almost hear her panic. Could almost see her—soft hands clutching the phone, cheeks flushing, heart hammering. The image made him harder.

**Jax:** *Nah.*

**Unknown:** *What?*

**Jax:** *Not gonna happen. Send the rest, poet. That was hot.*

The typing bubble appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

**Unknown:** *What? No. I don't even know you. I'm blocking you.*

**Jax:** *You heard me, baby. Send me the rest.*

The reply came instant.

**Unknown:** *Ew. Don't call me baby.*

Jax snorted. Ew. She'd said ew. Like he was some guy at a coffee shop hitting on her. Like he was Craig, the douchebag who kept showing up in her spot. The comparison made something dark curl in his chest. He wasn't Craig. He wasn't anything she'd ever encountered before.

He tapped her profile picture. It was just a cropped image—two eyes, long lashes, brown irises rimmed with kohl that made them look smoky and bedroom-sexy as fuck. But those eyes. Those eyes had depths he wanted to drown in. They were the kind of eyes that looked at you like they already knew your secrets and liked them anyway.

He saved the picture to his phone. Then he typed:

**Jax:** *You are my baby. You just don't know it yet.*

The typing bubble appeared. Disappeared. Then her profile picture vanished, replaced by the default gray silhouette.

*Blocked by user.*

The room erupted.

"Oh shit! She blocked you!"

"Reaper got rejected by a poetry girl!"

"Damn, VP, you gonna let the little one get away with that?"

Jax looked up from his phone, and the laughter died in their throats. His expression hadn't changed—still that dangerous half-smile—but his eyes had gone flat and cold. The kind of cold that preceded violence.

"Not my style," he said quietly.

He walked to the bank of metal drawers against the far wall, the ones where they kept a dozen burner phones for various operations. He pulled one out, cracked the plastic, and started setting it up. New number. New untraceable line.

Mace watched him, arms crossed over his massive chest. "Easy there, cowboy. She's some twenty-five-year-old who sent you the wrong message. You really gonna pursue her like that? You'll scare her."

Jax didn't look up from the phone. "She's mine. She doesn't know it yet."

The words hung in the air, heavy with absolute conviction. This wasn't lust. This wasn't even obsession yet, though it would be. This was something deeper—a recognition, a claiming. He'd read her words, seen her eyes, and something in him had locked into place. She belonged to him now. She just hadn't figured it out.

Gutter exchanged a look with Slick. "Damn, VP's gone full predator."

"Always has been," Mace muttered, but there was something almost like concern in his eyes. He'd seen Jax operate for fifteen years. He'd seen him kill without blinking, torture without flinching, claim territory with absolute ruthless efficiency. But he'd never seen him look at a woman like this. Like she was already his, like the universe had made a delivery error and he was about to correct it.

Jax finished setting up the burner, then pulled out his personal phone and transferred the number. He had it memorized now—he'd read it enough times. The area code put her somewhere near the university district. A quick check through club resources would give him a name, an address, a schedule. He'd find her. It was just a matter of time.

"Back to business," Mace announced, returning to the map. "We got a war to plan. Jax, you with us?"

Jax pocketed both phones and walked back to the table. "Always."

But his mind wasn't on the Vipers. It was on a pair of kohl-rimmed eyes and words that had burrowed under his skin. On a girl who wrote about inking names where pulses ran slow. On the way his blood had roared when he'd read her lines.

He was going to find her. And when he did, he was going to make her his in every possible way. She'd write poems about him—real ones, private ones, words that belonged only to him. She'd learn what it meant to be claimed by a man who didn't know how to let go.

The meeting continued around him—talk of supply routes, safe houses, retaliation plans. Jax participated, gave orders, made decisions. But part of him was already gone, already hunting.

The burner phone buzzed in his pocket. He'd set up a number tracker app. Any text to the original number would now forward to him. She'd blocked him, but that didn't matter. He had ways.

He'd always get what he wanted.

And what he wanted was her.

LINA

Lina was seated in the coffee shop.

Not just any coffee shop—*her* coffee shop, the one tucked between a used bookstore and a vintage clothing store on a street that smelled like rain and old paper. The Grinding Page, they called it, and it was exactly the kind of place an English grad student was supposed to frequent: exposed brick walls, mismatched furniture, a chalkboard menu that changed with the barista's mood, and enough ambient noise to make you feel intellectual without actually being distracting.

Lina Evergreen was twenty-four years old and inconveniently pretty in a way she'd never quite learned how to manage. At five-foot-one, she was easy to overlook in a crowd, but once someone actually *looked* at her, looking away became difficult. Her hair fell in sheets of black silk that caught the afternoon light and transformed into deep chocolate brown, the same shade as her eyes—those eyes that were too large for her face, framed by lashes that curled naturally and made every expression look slightly tragic or slightly seductive, depending on the angle. Her body was a study in contradictions: soft curves that her cream-colored cashmere sweater couldn't hide, hips that flared under her black leggings, a waist that begged for hands to settle there. She was built like a Renaissance painting in a world that preferred Instagram filters.

Today she'd made an effort. Gold hoops dangled from her ears, catching light when she moved. Her nails were freshly done—a soft pink that matched the inside of her lips. A silk scarf, pale lavender with tiny embroidered flowers, was tied at her throat in a loose bow. She looked like everything soft and sweet in the world, like a pastry you wanted to bite into, like something precious that needed protecting.

She also looked utterly, completely horrified.

Her phone sat on the scarred wooden table between her laptop and a precarious stack of books: Plath's *Ariel*, Rich's *Diving into the Wreck*, a worn anthology of Beat poetry, and three library books on contemporary feminist theory. The screen was still lit, still displaying the text thread that had made her stomach drop through the floor twenty minutes ago.

**Unknown:** *You are my baby. You just don't know it yet.*

She'd read it twelve times. Maybe fourteen. Each time it landed differently—first as confusion, then as alarm, then as a strange flutter in her chest that she absolutely refused to acknowledge.

What the hell kind of person talks to a stranger like that?

She'd meant to text Mia. Mia, her best friend since freshman year, the only person who knew about the poetry collection, who was currently picking up cheesecake for Lu's birthday party next Sunday. She'd typed the whole message—the cheesecake reminder, the Amira pseudonym joke (Mr. Radcliffe could go fuck himself with his "fixation on mammary glands" comment), the sample poem that she'd been *specifically* workshopping for her thesis, the rant about Craig showing up at the coffee shop *again* like some kind of persistent fungal infection, the reminder about Needles' vet appointment—

One digit. One single misplaced digit in Mia's contact, and instead of going to her safe, familiar best friend, all of it had gone to some stranger. Some stranger who'd replied with *that*.

*Got me hard in a room full of assholes.*

Lina's face burned at the memory. She'd read those words and felt heat explode across her cheeks, down her neck, into places she didn't think about in public. The casual crudeness of it. The assumption. The way he'd called her *poet* like it was a pet name, like he had any right.

She'd blocked him immediately after sending that last indignant *Ew. Don't call me baby.*

But not before reading his final message. Not before those words had seared themselves into her brain.

*You are my baby. You just don't know it yet.*

There was something in that sentence that hadn't been in the others. The first messages had been crude, sexual, the kind of thing she expected from anonymous internet creeps. But that last one... that last one had been *certain*. Like he knew something she didn't. Like he'd already decided something she had no say in.

It made her skin prickle in a way she couldn't name.

"Lina? Earth to Lina?"

She blinked. Craig was standing at her table, holding a coffee cup with that smile on his face—the one that was supposed to be charming but always landed somewhere between entitled and desperate. He was good-looking in a conventional way: sandy hair, blue eyes, an artfully disheveled sweater that probably cost more than her monthly rent. An MFA candidate in creative writing. He'd been "running into" her for three months now.

"Oh. Hey, Craig." She forced a smile, grateful for the distraction from her spiraling thoughts.

"You looked miles away." He gestured at the empty chair across from her. "This seat taken?"

She hesitated. It was. By her bag, her scarf, her claim to solitude. But Craig was already pulling the chair out, already settling in like he belonged there.

"Working on something good?" He leaned forward, trying to read her laptop screen upside down. Lina angled it away automatically.

"Just... thesis stuff."

"Right, right. The Plath obsession." He smiled like they were sharing a joke. "You know, I wrote a paper on Plath last semester. We should compare notes sometime. Over dinner, maybe."

*If he flirts with me one more time I'm gonna tell him I'm a lesbian and kiss you in front of everyone.*

The thought of Mia made her chest ache. Mia would know what to do about the creepy texter. Mia would make her laugh about it, turn it into a story, remind her that weird men were just part of the background noise of existing in a female body. Mia wasn't here, though. Mia was at work, and Lina was stuck with Craig and his persistent optimism.

"Actually, I'm pretty buried in work," she said, polite but firm. "Maybe another time."

"Sure, sure. I get it." He didn't move. "Hey, is that the new anthology? I've been meaning to pick that up." He reached for one of her library books, and Lina had to physically stop herself from slapping his hand away.

"It's checked out," she said. "To me."

"I'll just glance—"

"Craig." Her voice sharpened. "I really need to focus."

Something flickered in his eyes—annoyance, maybe, or wounded pride—but he covered it with that smile. "Right. Of course. I'll catch you later, Lina."

He stood, and for a moment she thought it was over. Then he leaned down, close enough that she could smell his cologne, and said quietly: "You know, you'd be prettier if you smiled more."

Lina's blood went cold. Then hot. Then cold again.

She watched him walk away, weave between tables, settle at a spot near the window where he could—she was certain—watch her in the reflection. The same spot he always chose. The same spot he'd been in when she'd typed that message to Mia about him *literally knowing where she was going*.

The thought landed differently now.

*It's literally like he knows where I'm going.*

She'd typed that to Mia. A joke. An exaggeration. But was it? How many times had she mentioned her favorite coffee shop? Her class schedule? The routes she walked between campus and her apartment? Craig was always *there*. Always appearing. Always smiling that smile that was supposed to be charming but now, in the context of the last hour, felt like something else entirely.

Lina shook herself. She was being paranoid. Craig was annoying, not dangerous. The creepy texter was just some random guy who'd gotten lucky with a wrong number. She'd blocked him. It was over.

She pulled her notebook closer, opened to a fresh page, and tried to focus on the words she'd written during class this morning.

**Howl. Ginsberg. The raw nerve of it, the way he took his madness and made it universal, made it sing. "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness"—there's a thesis in that, maybe. Contemporary feminist poetry as a kind of holy madness, a refusal to be sane in a world that demands female quiet.**

But her pen kept drifting.

*I wrote your name where my pulse runs slow.*

Where had that come from? She'd written it weeks ago, in a fever of inspiration after reading Anne Sexton's love poems. It wasn't even meant to be erotic, not really. It was about ownership, about claiming, about the way love marks you in places no one else can see. But the man on the phone had read it differently. He'd read it like an invitation.

*Got me hard.*

The crudeness of it should have repelled her. It did repel her. And yet—

Lina set her pen down and pressed her palms to her burning cheeks. What was wrong with her? Some random creep had gotten an accidental peek at her private writing and responded like a caveman, and she was sitting here *thinking about it* instead of focusing on her actual work.

She checked the time. Poetry seminar in forty minutes. Enough time to review her notes on Ginsberg, to prepare her thoughts on the intersection of Beat poetry and contemporary feminist rage, to forget that any of this had happened.

She packed her bag with determined efficiency—laptop in its sleeve, notebooks stacked, pens collected, scarf retied. She didn't look at Craig as she passed his table, though she felt his eyes on her back like a physical weight.

Outside, the air was cold and clean, carrying the promise of rain. Lina pulled her sweater tighter and walked toward campus, her mind already shifting gears.

By the time she reached the humanities building, she'd almost succeeded in forgetting. The old stone architecture, the ivy climbing the walls, the students hurrying between classes—this was her world. Safe. Familiar. Predictable.

The poetry seminar met in a small room on the third floor, windows overlooking the quad, desks arranged in a circle to facilitate discussion. Professor Whitmore was already there when Lina arrived, arranging her notes at the head of the circle. She was a small woman in her sixties with sharp eyes and sharper opinions, the kind of professor who'd seen every academic trend come and go and had outlasted them all by being genuinely brilliant.

"Miss Evergreen." She looked up as Lina entered. "I read your latest submission. The Plath-inspired piece."

Lina's heart stuttered. "Oh. Um. Thank you?"

"It's good. Angry in the right places. Don't let anyone tell you to soften it."

The simple validation made Lina's chest expand. "I won't. Thank you, Professor."

She took her seat as other students filtered in—the usual mix of earnest poets, theory-heads, and at least two people who were clearly only here because they needed the credit. By the time class started, the room was full, and Lina had successfully buried the morning's events under layers of academic focus.

"Today we're discussing Ginsberg," Professor Whitmore began, "but I want to approach him from an angle you might not expect. We've talked about Howl as a manifesto of Beat rebellion, as a cry against conformity, as a queer text ahead of its time. Today I want to talk about howl as a love poem."

A murmur of interest rippled through the room.

"Because that's what it is, underneath everything. It's a poem about watching the people you love be destroyed by a world that has no place for them. It's a poem about the sacredness of madness, about the holiness of the outcast. And I want you to think about that—about the intersection of love and rage, about what it means to write from a place of such profound tenderness for the broken."

Lina's pen moved across her notebook, capturing phrases, ideas, connections. But her mind snagged on something else.

*Love and rage.*

*Tenderness for the broken.*

She thought about her own poetry—the secret collection, the Amira pseudonym, the way she poured all her hidden desires into lines she never showed anyone. There was rage there, yes. Rage at a world that wanted women soft and quiet and small. But there was also tenderness. A desperate, aching tenderness for the parts of herself she kept hidden.

"I want you to try something this week," Professor Whitmore continued. "Write a poem that contains both love and rage. Not one after the other—both at once. The same line, the same image, containing both. It's harder than it sounds."

Lina was already drafting in her head when her phone buzzed in her bag.

She ignored it.

It buzzed again.

And again.

A familiar rhythm. The insistent pulse of someone who wanted attention *now*.

Lina's hand moved before her brain could stop it, slipping the phone from her bag, glancing at the screen under the desk.

**Unknown Number:** *I liked your poem.*

**Unknown Number:** *The one about inking names.*

**Unknown Number:** *I think about it when I stroke myself at night.*

The blood drained from Lina's face.

**Unknown Number:** *You blocked me, poet. That wasn't nice.*

**Unknown Number:** *But I understand. You don't know me yet.*

**Unknown Number:** *You will.*

Lina's thumb moved automatically, frantically, blocking the number again. Her heart hammered against her ribs so hard she was sure someone would hear it.

"Miss Evergreen? Are you alright? You've gone pale."

Professor Whitmore's voice cut through the panic. Lina looked up to find the entire class staring at her.

"I—yes. Fine. Just... bad news. Family thing. I'm sorry."

She shoved the phone back in her bag, grabbed her pen, and tried to look normal. Tried to look like someone whose private words hadn't just been weaponized by a stranger. Tried to look like someone whose safe, ordered world hadn't just developed a crack that something dark was pushing through.

The class continued around her. Voices rose and fell. Ideas were debated. Lina sat frozen, her notebook blank, her mind replaying those words on an endless loop.

*You will.*

Outside the window, the sky had gone grey. Rain was coming.