Breaking Hailey (Shadows of Obsession Book 1)
Breaking Hailey: Chapter 23

The temporary high of a job well done makes my fingers itch as I quietly open Hailey’s door. I’ve become somewhat of a master at picking her lock, down to fifteen seconds from the three minutes I started with on the first night.

Time at Lakeside moves at its own pace, faster than Chicago. Faster than Ohio. One minute I’m arriving on campus, filled with hatred toward the girl who aided and abetted my sister’s death. The next minute it’s three weeks later, and I’m struggling to walk the path I chose.

It’s hard. The hatred weakens every day, but chanting she killed Aalyiah on repeat keeps me relatively on track.

Quality, undisturbed sleep makes the days blur into each other. No late-night wake-up calls, no early mornings spent carving the skin of men who wrong me or Dante Carrow. Four hours in bed is a privilege back home. Here, seven is a short night. A restless night.

No wonder time’s flying by. I’m sleeping it away, or wasting it in class, feigning interest while turning over the information I’ve gathered thus far inside my head.

In the evenings, when Hailey’s down for the night, since there’s nobody who needs torturing and no people to see, I read through Aalyiah’s texts. A small chunk every night. A page here, three there…

I can’t stomach more. I need breaks. Short breaks, but breaks, nonetheless.

Some of their interactions send me halfway to the grave. Some pump my blood pressure so high I should be in cardiac arrest.

I’m almost through the entire exchange, maybe two hundred pages left, and I’ve not found one mention of Hailey, Rhett, the evidence, or even one nosey question from Alex.

So what is it your dad does?

Nothing of the sort. Alex wasn’t as dumb as I pegged him for. He didn’t leave any trail. At least not on this phone. Jackson and Ryder haven’t located the other one yet.

Every other minute of my day is spent watching Hailey. With amusement I’ve realized I’m a stalker. Not a crazy one—yet—but, nevertheless, a stalker watching her all day long.

I watch as she leaves the dorm building, always half-asleep, stumbling across campus to the cafeteria. I watch while she eats breakfast, her favorite foods etched into my memory: BLT sandwich takes the crown. Then waffles, French toast, and on the days when the bags under her eyes are more prominent it’s either cereal or a fucking apple.

I watch her head to class with Chloe, Rachel, or Amari, and in the afternoons I’m her shadow, out of view but trailing her footsteps wherever she goes.

She’s a loner in the evenings. She either writes or reads her diary, and occasionally another book from Agatha Christie. Watching her obsess over her own past or smile when Poirot replaces a clue shouldn’t be interesting. Her memories are interesting, not Hailey.

Yet she is.

I spend hours watching from a distance, more drawn to seeing her write than read. The rhythm of her hand moving along the page, long strokes for ys and gs, the dots sharp like little stabs. The occasional lip-chewing pause while she thinks, the slight headshake before she crosses something out. I can tell if she’s writing a memory or jotting down questions and possible answers based solely on how she guards her words.

If she restlessly shifts in her seat, protecting the pages whenever someone passes too close for comfort, she’s writing memories. If she doesn’t notice people whizzing by, she’s focused on the possible answers to all those questions she poses in the margins. I meticulously catalog all the inconsequential details, memorizing the nuances of her expressions, how she bites the tip of her fineliner when she reads the memories back and how she always has more to add.

Sometimes, when the need grows too visceral, I approach, though I’ve been careful not to since she bolted out of my car last week, running as if she were chased by vicious dogs.

I broke into her room that night. Of course I did, I couldn’t stop imagining what nightmare she’d fallen into. I had to know exactly what she saw, but there were no new flashbacks in her diary. Not that night and not any night since. I found all the stuff about her mom though, she’s been writing that in the back, for some reason. But that doesn’t help me now.

I know she’s regained at least three new memories. Her eyes turned dull on Monday, then again when I interrupted her reading in the almost empty cafeteria late on Tuesday. And again, when she spilt hot coffee all over herself this morning.

Including the flashback from the car, that’s four glimpses into the past, but nothing on the page.

Whatever she remembered this week wasn’t as intense, but the sadness in her eyes drove me crazy late into the nights.

Why isn’t she writing about whatever she saw?

I need to know what she saw.

I’ve been holding back from getting close to her all week. I should keep at a safe distance. It’s enough that—in a way—I’ve been compromising the task when I’m alone, fucking my hand to thoughts of Hailey’s round, perky ass, full lips, and what I imagine to be a pretty, pink pussy.

Once the orgasm has rattled through me, I’m fine. Ashamed she is the shining star of my fantasies but in control of my actions…

Too bad that soon enough I somehow replace myself wherever she is… and it’s not only during the day now.

Careful not to make a sound, I close Hailey’s bedroom door behind me, my eyes dart to her nightstand for confirmation that the diary’s there.

It is, so now I’m a creep, watching the sleeping beauty.

She’s tangled in the sheets like every other night, though tonight she’s facing the wall, not me. That’s disappointing. I enjoy her unguarded face.

Though I admit… in this position my view is fucking exquisite. She has one leg draped over the comforter, the soft curve of her hip bathed in the moonlight.

I’ve seen countless boobs in my life, dozens of pussies, women in the throes of ecstasy, their bodies shaking and asses bouncing as I powered inside them, but Hailey’s hip is somehow the most arousing, stimulating sight.

It’s so fucking erotic it should be illegal.

She should be illegal. It’s unnatural for a woman to exude such raw magnetism.

Just as it’s unnatural for a man like me to get so hung up on a woman. A woman who’s supposed to be nothing more than a means to an end, a tool in my hands.

It’s appalling, this primitive want, the feral need to hear her moans and see her come undone beneath me.

I only want her because I can’t let myself have her.

The forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest.

I shake off the moment, moving my eyes back to her diary. This is why I’m here. I need answers, not a boner.

Too little, too late.

My boots barely make a sound on the carpet as I snatch the diary and lock myself in the en suite.

Nothing new… not one fucking sentence.

I exit the bathroom, place the diary back where it belongs and pause for a split second, checking it looks untouched.

I’m almost at the door, almost grabbing the handle when a sharp gasp pierces the air.

An invisible frost breathes across my neck.

Cold hands squeeze my throat, touting a sense of imminent danger.

Fuck! Busted.

I don’t have a single explanation for why I’m here in the middle of the night. My only line of defense is to lie. But, angling my head as I slowly turn toward her, I replace she’s still facing away.

The tightness in my chest unravels thread by thread as I soundlessly plaster myself against the wall, hiding in the darkness.

Relief doesn’t last long.

Hailey’s breathing grows loud, erratic, punctuated by agonized, distressed whimpers.

I think she’s having a nightmare, but… she doesn’t sound asleep. More like she’s having a panic attack.

My brows furrow. I saw her panic when she bolted out of my car. She was hysterical. She ran, waved her hands, scratched my face, and cried. There’s none of that now.

She’s still as a statue while the sounds she’s making grow more and more sinister. My pulse whooshes in my ears. An anxious, confused edge seizes my thoughts.

What the fuck?

Her whimpers fill the room, chilling me to the bone. They’re not loud but muffled like she can’t open her mouth. Like she’s gagged. Her shoulders barely move even though I can hear she’s pulling down gallons of air.

This isn’t right.

It’s not natural.

She’s frantic, trapped, desperate, and… motionless.

My blood chills, thickens and, soon enough, my veins flow with cherry slurpy. Every fiber in me wants to touch her, grab her, mold her into me and calm her down but rational thinking chains me in place.

If she sees me, I’ll blow my cover. She’ll tell Vaughn about the creep who broke into her bedroom and he’ll take her away first thing in the morning.

I can’t afford to lose her…

The more distressed Hailey sounds, the harder it gets to stand my ground. Her fear’s almost corporeal, substantiating in the air.

Fucking suffocating.

My hands ball into tight fists when my fingers twitch with the urge to touch her. Reason and instinct battle inside my head. One says wait, the other screams help her.

Each distressed whimper hits me like Tyson’s right hook.

It’s maddening and I’m so fucking grateful I can’t see her face. If I saw the terror I’m certain is in her eyes, I’d be with her by now. I’d jeopardize the task and risk Rhett’s life.

I’d risk my life.

Maybe even Hailey’s.

All to hold her. Calm her. Be there for her.

Time slows, drags like a dead weight. Every second’s an eternity. I’m so engrossed in Hailey, so consumed by the whirlwind of emotions running rampant inside me that I almost miss her head jerk.

It’s barely noticeable, but feels monumental.

Her breathing slows, her whimpers soften, and three heartbeats later, she sits up, shaking all over. She tangles her fingers in the comforter, her face bathed in the moonlight.

Tears stain her cheeks, the sight halving my lung capacity. For a fleeting moment, the world shrinks to her pain and my struggle before she slowly, like a mechanical doll, gets out of bed, her knees bending stiffly for the short distance to the bathroom.

She grabs the handle, flicks the light on and steps inside, closing the door behind her with a soft click.

Thank fucking God.

Leaning my head back against the wall, I let out a slow, measured breath, a storm of emotions raging within.

This was supposed to be easy. Get in, extract the information Rhett needs, and get out, but Hailey, with her pretty face, smarts, vulnerability, and raw emotions, quickly became a complication I hadn’t anticipated.

A complication I don’t fucking need.

The sound of running water from the bathroom mingles with Hailey’s continued soft sobs. My ears perk up, catching and magnifying every sound she makes.

I’m stalling…

Time to leave.

One silent step at a time I leave the room and don’t stop until I’m all the way outside, leaning against the wall, the cold, biting air a welcome distraction from Hailey’s inexplicable magnetism.

Her sobs, those whimpers, the fear… every sound she made is a small rubber ball without aim, knocking about my head, stirring my violent streak.

This isn’t part of the plan.

Caring isn’t part of the fucking plan.

Yet, here I am, flexing my fingers, itching to kill whatever caused her pain. Her past, the nightmare, tangible or not, it should fucking suffer…

Then again, I should want her to suffer. Why am I fighting on the wrong team?