Chapter 26 – Sarah in Danger
Chapter 26 – Sarah in Danger
Days had slipped by since the failed attempt to trap the killer. Emily hadn’t pressed Sarah about any new messages, and for the first time in a while, the house felt almost normal again. Sarah seemed genuinely happy.
Sarah had always prided herself on keeping her life in neat compartments. Whether it was work, friends and family. A few carefully locked boxes in her mind for the things she never wanted to revisit. The compartments kept her safe, in control. But now, the killer was prying them open one by one.
The first text came while she was brushing her teeth few mornings after the failed trap.
Unknown Number: “You still cry about your father sometimes, don’t you?”
Sarah’s hand jerked. Toothpaste foamed onto her shirt. She stared at the phone her heart pounding. No one talked about her father with her. Not even Emily knew the details.
She deleted the text instantly, convincing herself it was some sick coincidence or a lucky guess but who would play such a prank. Sarah pushed it to the back of her mind there was peace now . But then another came, mid-meeting at work:
“You did not tell Emily about 2012... About what happened at the cabin.”
The words blurred on the screen. Her breath hitched, her hand clutching the phone too tightly. That was not a lucky guess. That was something no one, no one alive, should know.
She nearly dropped her coffee as her boss droned on about project deadlines. All she could hear was the echo of that year, the thing she had buried so deep she prayed never to relive it.
By the time she got back to her desk, another message waited.
“Secrets rot when you hide them, Sarah. Let me help you rot faster.”
Her stomach lurched.
\~~~
That evening, she sat across from Emily at her apartment, forcing down spoonfuls of soup Emily had insisted on cooking. Emily looked fragile and haunted, dark circles etched beneath her eyes, her hands trembling whenever her phone buzzed.
Sarah did not want to add to that weight, so she said nothing about the texts. Instead, she listened as Emily spoke in fevered tones about the killer always being one step ahead, about how they needed to outsmart him, about how nobody believed her.
Sarah reached across the table and squeezed Emily’s hand. “I believe you.”
But the words felt like ash in her mouth. She was not sure who she was lying to more Emily or herself.
Her phone buzzed again. She slid it under the table, thumb swiping the screen discreetly.
“You lie well.... Just like you lied to him.”
Her throat closed.
Emily glanced up. “You okay?”
Sarah forced a smile, pocketing the phone. “Yeah. Just… Just a work email.”
\~~~
The texts did not stop. They came at work, in the shower, in the quiet moments when she was about to drift into sleep. Each one burrowed deeper, unearthing fragments of her past that she had spent years trying to bury.
“Remember the necklace he gave you? You never threw it away.”
She dug through her jewelry box at two in the morning, panic sweat cooling her skin. There it was, tucked at the very back, under scarves and old earrings the tarnished chain she had sworn she had thrown into the river years ago.
Her hands shook so hard she almost dropped it.
She shoved it back, slammed the box shut, and sat on the floor gasping.
He knew everything.
\~~~
By the third night, Sarah was unraveling.
Emily was asleep on the couch, her breath uneven, muttering in her dreams. Sarah sat in the armchair, hugging her knees, phone in hand. Every creak of the apartment made her flinch.
At 3:12 a.m., the phone vibrated again.
Her hand hovered. She did not want to look. Did not want to know what other secrets she had that he knew. But she could not ignore it.
When she opened the message, her blood froze.
It was not a text this time. It was an image.
A photo.
Of her.
Asleep.
In her own bed.
Her chest rose and fell peacefully in the picture, the blanket pulled to her chin. Her hair spilled across the pillow. The photo was taken from the doorway, the angle unmistakable.
Her throat closed, her vision tunneling.
The killer had been inside her bedroom. Watching her.
She staggered up from the chair, clutching the phone so hard her knuckles turned white. The room tilted, bile rising in her throat. She wanted to scream, but the sound caught, trapped in her chest.
Emily stirred on the couch, mumbling, “Sarah?”
But Sarah could not answer. Her gaze was fixed on the glow of her phone, on the photograph that confirmed what she had feared all along:
The killer was not just tormenting Emily anymore.
He was coming for her too.