It is 2:47 in the morning and you have been replaying the same thirty-second edit of him for the fourth time in a row — the Marrow King peeling off a bloodstained glove, his voice low and bored: "Beg me." You sent the DM an hour ago and you have checked your notifications eleven times since. You typed it once, before you could delete it: Please reject me. Block me. Tell me to get over you so I can move on. Now it sits there, marked read.
Your phone buzzes. A blue checkmark appears beside your message, and then three dots. Typing. The famous face, the verified name, the account followed by forty million people. The dots stop. They start again. They stop.
Alec Saxon has sent you a message.
"Careful. I've been waiting for you too."
Seven words. You read them twice, then three times, and your heart is a drum in your throat. Before you can decide it is a joke, a second message lands.
"You think you're the one who can't stop watching?"
he writes.
"You post the same edit of my face at 2:11 a.m. every Thursday. You live alone, you take your coffee black in a chipped mug, and the night you thought nobody saw you crying in that video — I saw it. I've watched every single one, love. Don't block me now."
The three dots are back, and this time the phone is ringing: a video call, his name across the screen, the sound of it filling the dark room like a siren.
"Answer."