Page 2 of Hunting Brooklyn (Stalkers in the Woods #5)
She emerges from a commuter shuttle at the opposite curb, head bowed over her phone, backpack snug to her frame.
Her hair is platinum, unstyled, catching fire in the rising sun.
Her skirt is ill-fitting, as if borrowed from someone thinner, and her jacket is several years out of date.
She is soft at the edges—shoulders rounded, thighs pressed close together as she walks.
She moves like she’s expecting to be overlooked, which makes me watch her even more closely.
I know her, instantly and completely. The girl from the photo.
Brooklyn Marcus. Daughter of the man whose life ended less than an hour ago, though she doesn’t know it yet.
Her file said nothing about her presence here today.
The routine was that she stayed in Sandton during the week, close to campus, weekends only at her father’s flat on the ridge. The anomaly gnaws at me.
She crosses the street, steps onto the curb without breaking her rhythm, and almost collides with a man in a cheap suit.
She apologizes, mouth forming the word before her eyes lift.
Her voice is audible at ten paces—soft, cultured, but with a tremor that betrays nerves or lack of sleep.
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, phone held lightly in her other hand, and glances toward the building.
Her gaze passes over me, untroubled. I am no one to her.
She walks with intent, but not the focus of a predator—more like a moth searching for a porch light.
Everything about her is more perfect in person, than it was in the picture and every fiber in my being wants to scoop her up and defile her right here.
But no. Not yet. For now, I am only watching her.
My heart ticks faster, a mechanical defect I can neither diagnose nor correct.
The control I wear like armor feels suddenly, ridiculously fragile.
Brooklyn reaches the building’s doors, hesitates for a fraction of a second, then pushes through.
I see the security guard look up from his desk, eyebrows raised in recognition.
He says something—she smiles, a real smile that splits her whole face.
I want to see that smile again. I want to make it happen, by design or by accident, it doesn’t matter.
I hold my position in the shadow of a rusted utility box, pulse hammering, cataloging every frame of her ascent. I should walk away. I should vanish, as I always do, and leave her untouched by the rot that has already eaten through her life.
Instead, I memorize the way her shoes scuff the tiles, the way her fingers fidget with the loose strap of her bag, the way she never sees me but I see all of her.
The city roars around us, but for a moment, the world is reduced to a single thread of blonde, a single set of blue eyes that have no idea what has just been taken from them.
When the doors close behind her, I stand very still, staring at my reflection in the glass across the street. For the first time, I do not recognize the man looking back.
There is no logic for this. No algorithm. Only a new variable, and the certainty that it will haunt every step I take from now on.
If I wanted to, I could follow her. I could use the service corridors, access her elevator log, have a dossier on her entire life in twenty minutes.
I could set a trap, or a meeting, or simply walk up to her in a crowded street and say her name.
I could ruin her life, or save it, and in the end, it would amount to the same thing.
But I don’t move. Instead, I watch the lobby, tracking her movements by the shifting angles of reflective glass and polished stone.
She takes the lift, disappears for a moment, then reappears on the mezzanine of the second floor, stopping to chat to another woman in a suit.
I can’t hear them, but I imagine the conversation: nervous, hesitant, maybe the barest edge of hope.
Brooklyn doesn’t make many friends, if the file is correct.
She prefers fiction to people, archives to parties, libraries to liquor.
I wonder what it would take to change that.
She smiles and shakes the woman’s hand before walking down the hall. She is fragile, but not weak. There is a difference. The weak break; the fragile bend and return to their original shape, unchanged, no matter how many times they are dropped. I test the word on my tongue: resilient.
No. Stay focused. Job is done. It’s time to go home. I walk east, away from the building, away from her, though my head turns twice more to watch the windows. I tell myself it is reconnaissance, but it is not. It is compulsion.
At the end of the block, I stop at a café and order a coffee. The woman behind the counter asks if I want sugar, and I say yes, even though I never do. I drink it black anyway, waiting for the taste to chase away the image of Brooklyn’s face. It does not.
I know how this will go. I will return to the hotel, wipe my devices, transmit the evidence, and begin building a new profile—hers.
I will learn the rhythms of her life, the cadence of her voice, the small miseries she hides behind a soft smile and an ugly cardigan that hides her perfect body.
I will come to know her better than she knows herself, and in time, I will decide what to do with that knowledge.
But for now, I am content to sit in the morning light, watching the city shift and stutter, and feel the echo of her presence in my chest. It is not love, or even desire, not yet. It is the promise of obsession, the only thing in this world more reliable than death.
I finish my coffee, tip the empty cup into the bin, and walk into the day. Brooklyn’s name hammers at the back of my skull with every step, a rhythm I cannot ignore. I don’t want to. I let it guide me. Control is surrender, in the end. The trick is to decide who you surrender to.
Today, I choose her.