Chapter 21 Home sweet Home
That night, the wind pushed against the windows, rattling the glass in slow, rhythmic bursts. Lila lay awake in her childhood room, surrounded by the same posters and books and silence she’d grown up with. She thought being here would make her feel safe, but instead, it made her feel trapped. The house felt too still. The walls seemed thinner.
She rolled over. On the nightstand, the notebook sat open where she’d left it. One of the pages fluttered in the draft from the window.
She reached for it.The ink on the open page looked darker than before. The same sentence the one she’d read on the bus stood out like it had been freshly written.
“He’s so kind.”
She frowned, and ran her fingers over the words. The ink smudged slightly, as if still wet.
A soft tap came from outside.
Lila froze.
Another tap. Then another, like something striking the glass.
Her pulse roared in her ears. She pushed herself up, heart slamming, and moved toward the window.
The curtains trembled as she pulled them back.
She saw nothing.
The backyard was empty, just the dark stretch of grass, the quiet outline of the old rosebushes swaying in the wind. She pressed a hand against the window to steady herself.
Then she saw it. A mark, a faint streak of red on the glass, right where her reflection’s throat would be.
Her breath caught.
She stepped back. The mark looked almost like a fingerprint, smeared, oily, tinted dark like blood or lipstick.
Her phone buzzed suddenly on the nightstand. She grabbed it.
It was a text from another unknown number. “Did you sleep better tonight?” Sent to her around 2:03 AM.
Her fingers trembled as she typed. “Who is this? What the hell do you want?”
The typing bubbles appeared, then vanished. Then it appeared again. Then stopped.
No reply came.
The phone slipped from her hand onto the floor.The sound echoed loudly in the room.
She backed toward the bed, every muscle tight. The air felt colder now, and she could swear she smelled something faint and familiar like sweet, dark, and cloying.
She inhaled again and this time she could swear it was the smell of chocolate. She was home and to her it was safe. So whatever was happening was just her mind playing games with her.
The next morning, her mother was already at the table, holding her phone, with a pale face.
“Lila,” she said slowly. “Why did you text me that picture last night?”
Lila blinked. “What picture?”
Her mother turned the phone around. On the screen was an image, the same window from Lila’s room, the red fingerprint clear and centered. It was sent at exactly 2:04 AM.
Her stomach dropped. “I didn’t…”
Her mother looked at her, terrified. “Then who did?”
“Mom, I don't know.” Lila replied, without waiting for her mother's response she ran upstairs, packed her things and was already out of the house.
The only thing she told was how she needed to settle something at school, that her visit to the house was just a day trip. She promised to call when she arrived.
But she didn’t promise to come back.
The ride to Halden felt shorter this time. She watched the trees blur past again, that same gray sky pressing down. Every few minutes, she checked her phone, scrolling through messages that weren’t there.
When the university finally came into view, its clock tower rising over the roofs, her chest tightened. She told herself she was going back for answers. That she wasn’t afraid.
Lila climbed the dorm stairs, the air was thick with the perfume of flowers. When she unlocked her door, someone was humming in the bathroom.
A soft tune carried by the sound of running water and clinking metal. The kind of melody that should have been harmless, maybe comforting. But Lila froze at her doorway, key still half-turned in the lock, her bag hanging heavy off her shoulder.
The light under the bathroom door spilled pale gold across the floor. Steam curled lazily out from the crack beneath it, carrying the scent of shampoo and something else. Something floral and sweet, like roses.
Her pulse quickened.
She took a step inside, quietly closing the door behind her. The familiar creak in the floorboards beneath her shoes sounded suddenly deafening.
Maybe it was a maintenance worker. Maybe housing staff. Maybe.
Then, the humming stopped.
Lila held her breath.
A second later, the doorknob turned, and the bathroom door opened.
“Oh!” A cheerful voice broke the silence. “You must be Lila!”
The girl who stepped out was wrapped in a towel, her hair wet and strikingly red, not the faded auburn kind, but a bright, fiery shade that seemed to catch the light. She smiled, oblivious to Lila’s shock.
“I’m Ruby.” She brushed damp strands out of her face with her fingers. “They said you were off-campus for the weekend. Hope you don’t mind, I just moved in.”
Lila blinked, still trying to steady her breathing. “Moved in?”
“Mm-hm. Yeah, your new roommate.” Ruby’s grin widened. “Housing said the room next door had a leak, so they shuffled everyone around. Guess we’re stuck together now!”
Lila tried to return the smile. It felt weak, brittle.“Yeah. I..uh. I just…needed a break.”
“Understandable.” Ruby dropped her towel on her bed and started rummaging through her duffel. Her movements were light, quick, and confident. Like someone who’d already decided she belonged here.
Her phone chimed with a soft ping. She ignored it, humming again as she brushed out her wet hair.
Lila watched her quietly. There was something familiar about the tune she was humming, the rhythm of it, the lilting rise and fall. It took her a second to realize where she’d heard it before.
Serena used to hum the same song while developing photos. A soft, wordless melody that drifted between concentration and comfort.
Her throat tightened.
Ruby noticed her stare and laughed. “Sorry, It's my habit. I hum when I’m nervous.”
“You’re nervous?” Lila asked, her voice quieter than she intended.
Ruby shrugged. “New place. New people. But Prof. Mercer said I’d fit in fast.” She smiled at the name warmly, as if saying it out loud gave her comfort.
“My professor, Colin Mercer? He said you’re in his class too. And he said you’ve got talent.”
Lila’s stomach went cold. She swallowed hard. “He…told you that?”
“Yeah! He was super nice when I met him for counseling. He gave me an extra camera to use and said it used to belong to one of his favorite students.” Ruby tilted her head, thinking. “Maybe that was you?”
Lila forced a small laugh. “Maybe.”
But she felt dizzy. The words favorite student looped in her head. Serena had been one of Mercer’s photography students too. He had given her a camera once and that camera had been returned to Lila, as a gift, weeks ago. A gift she’d learned once belonged to Serena.
Ruby didn’t notice the shift in Lila’s expression. She was too busy untangling her necklace, humming again under her breath.
The tune crawled under Lila’s skin.
It wasn’t the song. It was the normalcy of it, the way Ruby seemed so carefree, so unaware of the campus she’d just walked into, the danger curling at its edges.
Lila wanted to warn her. To say, You shouldn’t have come here. Not with that hair. Not with that smile. Not when he’s still out there.But the words wouldn’t come.
Ruby chatted on, oblivious. “Oh, and I love roses. They’re kind of my thing,” she said with a laugh, gesturing to her white phone case with printed red rose on it. “I even brought a few for the windowsill. Makes the room smell better.”
Lila stared at the vase by the window. Three deep red roses stood in it, the petals were still wet, and their stems looked dark with moisture.
Her hands went clammy. The air felt heavier, and sweet with perfume. The scent was everywhere now, roses and something faintly bitter underneath, like metal.
“Where did you get those?” Lila asked carefully.
“Oh, Mercer brought them!” Ruby said easily. “He helped me move in yesterday. Isn’t he the best?”
Lila’s lips parted, but no sound came out. Her pulse pounded so loud she almost didn’t hear Ruby’s phone buzz again, a text alert that lit up the screen for a brief second.
Ruby didn’t even notice it. She was toweling her hair, talking about dorm mixers, about how excited she was to start new projects. Lila nodded at the right times, barely hearing her. She felt like she was standing in a dream one that smelled like roses and sounded like humming.
Ruby turned to grab her phone from the desk. As she moved, her towel slipped slightly from her shoulders, and something fell light as air.
Lila's eyes widened.