Eren rubs his hands together, struggling to warm his fingers enough to work the pen pinched between them.

  ‘LP: 871 HTQ, 2007 Toyota Corolla, yellow tinted headlights, lateral scratch 15 inches long from the driver side door to the front quarter—” his pen hits a wet spot on his notebook, tearing the page.

  With a sigh, he flips through the next few saturated pages until he reaches something more usable to continue. He’s not sure what substance they saturated his notebook with exactly, but is vaguely sticky and wholly inconvenient, especially now. He supposes it could have been worse. They could have read what was inside assuming any of them were smart enough to decipher the code he wrote it all in.

  He starts over, marking the top of the notebook with today's date—day five of his newest test, which also marks week four of his total time spent gathering data. Eren sits where he always does at lunch, in the back corner facing the north window. It has an optimal view of the student and staff parking lots and plenty of natural light to make writing a little easier.

  It’s safe to say that the process has been an exercise in patience as he writes down the physical details of vehicles that match the description of his stalkers. While he wants to check and see if it's Victor and his friends, not all of them drive to school or even park on campus. Eren can always follow one of them to see if they get into a vehicle somewhere off campus but if any of them ever saw him, a wet, sticky notebook will quickly become the least of his worries.

  No, instead he marks down every scratch, every plate number and physical detail he can to help determine if the people following him are students or staff. As his wrist begins to cramp, his stomach rumbles, and the lunch period comes to a close it feels less and less likely his stalkers are anyone here..

  If he was stalking someone, and wanted to inflict the most amount of psychological torment he would acquire an old license plate from a junkyard and swap them out to ensure the person he stalks wouldn’t be able to trace it back to him. Eren figures that's what his stalkers did. Monday he tried to look up his stalkers' license plates online but he came up empty handed. That being the case, he needs to determine any other physical markings that can’t be easily disguised, though that's proved fruitless so far as well.

  By now he’s seen every car at least three times, and despite the weight in his eyelids and the extra effort required to keep himself focused, he’s confident that the stalkers aren’t staff, and aren’t students parking on campus. Next week he will have to expand his search to the areas around the school.

  Eren taps his lip, and then scribbles out a crude rendition of his memorized map. His memory of the times it takes each vehicle to appear is near perfect and by the time the lunch bell rings he has potential parking positions mapped out. When he leaves school, it’s from one of the three primary campus exits. Over the past couple of weeks he’s used one of those three exits at random using trips to the store or a change of scenery as an excuse to keep Sophie from thinking too much about it.

  He’s noticed previously that no matter which exit he takes, the vehicle assigned to him on any given day appears to follow him with very little delay. That means each vehicle needs to be parked in such a way that they can physically see his exit from campus. Given the time it takes each vehicle to appear there are only three potential locations they can park to have a clear line of sight and not draw suspicion to their vehicles.

  Honestly, this is a lot of time and effort and energy they are putting in. The logistical implications alone aren’t anything to scoff at. Victor and his friends would have to be incredibly dedicated to this particular—

  Pain radiates out from his shoulder, something cold and wet saturates him as it runs down his back. It smells putrid, his brain can’t process what's happening until he catches the reflection of three familiar faces in the window in front of him.

  His stomach drops to the floor, his pulse spikes, and before he realizes almost everyone else has already left the cafeteria it’s far too late.

  “Shit! Sorry man, didn’t see you. You alright?” Victor asks, his voice as insincere as always. Victor's voice is high, almost nasally, which doesn’t at all match his angular, stone carved features.

  Victor is the kind of kid who probably gets beat at home, at least that's the conclusion Eren has come to over the past year of knowing him. No one from a loving family ends up this sick in the head at least. Now if only that deduction can help him with what he knows is coming.

  Eren closes his notebook and stuffs it into his backpack. He can hear them getting close, knows they won't stop, knows this isn’t the end, but still he grabs his things as though he might just get out of this by walking away.

  “Hey, hey where are you going dude? Come on, at least let me apologize.”

  Eren's fist tightens around the strap of his backpack. Victor is close enough now. Eren can pivot on his back foot, spin around and slam the ten pounds of books and papers directly into Victor's face. If he’s lucky it’ll break his jaw, and if he's really lucky it will knock him out cold long enough to run away. It would be easy, just a single spin, that's all it would take. A second longer and Victor will be too close, see it coming

  He needs to do it, no hesitation, he needs to swing. Now

  “It’s fine.” He mutters, and puts the backpack over his shoulder. Maybe he can wear it all day to cover whatever they threw at him.

  “No, it’s not.”

  Eren manages to take a single step before he feels a hand on his shoulder. The world spins around in a blur as he's driven into the window, his back forced to bend unnaturally against his backpack as Victor grinds his forearm into Eren's chest.

  “Come on guys…” Eren winces, unable to meet any of their eyes.

  “Hey, hey, I just wanted to apologize, but now you’re being rude.” Victor grabs Eren by the mouth, pinching his cheeks painfully between his hands as he forces Eren to look up. “When did you get so rude, huh? Not cool dude.”

  Eren tries to speak, but his words come out slurred as Victor grinds his cheeks into his cheeks.

  “What was that? Sorry, I didn't get it.” Victor asks, nodding over to Zack, a much stouter almost dwarfish kid. He opens his own backpack and produces a ziplock bag of milk, chunks visible inside the liquid.

  Eren winces instinctively, turns his head from it.

  “What, not a fan of milk?” The other boy says, Henry. A bowling ball of a teenager with a voice far too deep for a high school sophomore.

  “Listen, come on, you’ll be late to class, the teachers will know—” Eren tries, but is cut off. Zack opens the bag of milk and pours it over Eren’s head without much fanfare. Eren closes his mouth tight, trying to hold his breath to defend against the acrid smell of curdled dairy but Victor drives a fist into Eren’s stomach instead.

  Eren gasps, forced to take in the liquid as it soaks into his hair, his clothes, his backpack.

  “Late to class, that's really cute, you know, I think I can afford to skip a period though. I appreciate your concern, though!” Victor shrugs.

  Eren coughs, spits the milk and tries to find his breath at the same time, neither working well. His body begins to shake as he tries to look for an escape, a way out of this, but Victor's forearm on his chest is just too strong. He can feel his adrenaline pumping, the corners of his vision grow dark, everything begins to sound like it's underwater.

  Not now, not right now. Anything but a panic attack Eren can work with, but he can feel his body begin to shut down and that very realization begins to send him into a spiral.

  “I was going to go easy on you today too.” Victor clicks his tongue and shakes his head.

  Eren feels like a caged animal. His body fights his conscious mind and Eren finds himself struggling to not lash out. He wants to rip and tear and bite at them, he wants to escape, needs to escape, needs to get away by any means necessary but he knows he can’t, knows if he tries it will only be worse, it's always worse. The scar on his thigh burns, it knows, it remembers. Or maybe that's just the panic setting in. Does it matter?

  Eren hates himself, hates how helpless he is, hates this moment. God if only he could do something, fight back, if only…if only he brought his knife, he’d do it.

  Maybe it's the exhaustion, maybe it's the strain of working his brain day after day, counting, documenting, detailing. Maybe parts and pieces of him are breaking away a hell of a lot more than he thought because in this very moment with Victor's arm edging closer to his throat, the sickening scent of old milk, fear pumping through his veins—he wants to do it.

  Eren’s ears roar with the sound of blood, his breath comes shallow, quick, he feels like he’s falling, he wants it to end. Just get it over with already.

  “Hey!” a familiar voice pierces the roar in Eren's ears. It's not enough for Victor to take his arm off of Eren, but at least he doesn’t continue either.

  “Stop.” Eren grinds out, eyes flicking to the source, Sophie. She has something in her hands as she sprints towards the group.

  “Awe, that’s cute! Look at her—”

  CRACK—impact.

  Eren doesn’t see what it is at first, only a white blur that soars through the air to meet the distance in a split second. It’s not until the object rebounds off Victor's bleeding face and back into the air does he actually recognize it. A softball. it arcs through the cafeteria to bounce off the ground. Victor reels from its impact, both hands releasing Eren to grab at his bleeding nose with a cry of pain.

  Eren gasps for breath and falls to the ground, his back burns, his chest aches, his vision still swims from the pounding adrenaline, making it hard to focus.

  Victor stumbles back, and shifts to close the distance to Sophie but Eren won’t let him, he throws himself between them, arms out wide, legs shaking, breathing hard. He doesn't know what he’ll do exactly, be a punching bag to buy her time to get a teacher maybe? It doesn’t matter. He’s not letting Victor touch her, and if he does then Eren will kill him, consequences be damned.

  Luckily, Victor doesn’t continue, his two friends urge him away. His curses echo down the hall outside the cafeteria as he leaves a trail of blood drops behind him. Eren lets out a sigh of relief, for now. He’s sure they are both fucked the second Victor has the mind to get his revenge, but for now they are safe.

  “We gotta go, come on.” Sophie urges, her voice urgent as she guides Eren up. “Teachers heard that, come on, we need to go. Now.”

  Eren nods and lets his sister guide him up. She recoils at the smell, and for some reason the only thing Eren can think to do is say “I'm sorry.”

  “Shut up.” She hauls him through the empty corridors and out through the crisp air towards the side of the locker rooms. The sound of a PE class bounces off the walls, a few other students linger around farther off in the distance but it doesn’t look like anyone’s noticed them.

  “We need to do something.” She says curtly.

  Eren can't speak, his brain is too rattled, his stomach too full of acid to conjure up a response other than shaking his head.

  “Jesus Christ, Eren, please. Look at you.” She takes a step back, her face twisted up at the state of him, or maybe the smell, Eren can’t tell which. It’s probably both.

  “I know-I know, I-it’s my fault.”

  “How the fuck is this your fault? No, that’s bullshit and you know it. I’m talking to mom and dad about—”

  “No!”

  “Why not?” She practically begs. She grabs Eren by the shoulders and leans down, desperate to meet his eyes despite his best efforts to avoid hers.

  “Last time they made it worse. Last time, it just made them angry.”

  Sophie bites her lower lip. “Well we can’t just let this keep happening either.”

  “I have a plan.”

  “This looks like a great plan.”

  “I have a plan. Trust me, please.”

  “You really haven’t given me a reason to.”

  Eren wipes the old milk from his eyes. He can’t do this, not right now. His lungs hurt, his throat burns, it feels like the sky around him is slowly crashing down and there’s nothing he can do about it. Tears well in the corner of his eyes as he bites back his next words. He can’t tell her, he can’t, not yet, not now, not until he knows more.

  “I need to shower.” He nods towards the locker room doors. “Change into my PE clothes.”

  “You need to let me talk to mom and dad, the police, the counselor, anyone.”

  “Please don’t, Sophie.” Eren meets her eyes then. He’s unable to stop the tears from coming, and hopes that they give him some credibility. It's cruel, using his emotions like this, but he can’t risk her telling anyone, not yet.

  Sophie grimaces. “I really worry about you dude…"

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “I know, thank you, I really mean that, but I need you to trust me enough. I’m working on something, this won't be like last time.”

  “Fine, but you can’t convince me to ignore this shit a second time.”

  “I know.”

  “Good.” Sophie crosses her arms and casts a look back towards the school. “Hopefully I broke his nose and he’s not at school tomorrow.”

  “Just in case he is, hang around your friends. If he gets you alone…”

  “If he gets me alone I'll kill him.”

  A small weight lifts from Eren then. She might be exaggerating for dramatic effect but its a relief to know they are of a very similar mind in this.

  “I’ll help you hide the body.” Eren tries his hand at a smile.

  “You better.” Sophie takes a deep breath. “This has been a very long ‘bathroom break’. I need to go.”

  “How’d you know to come and help me?” Eren quickly cuts in as she turns to leave.

  “Saw Victor and the other guys walking from the field. Figured they were up to no good, and with how you’ve been lately I knew you would still be in the lunchroom.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You can thank me when we get them to actually stop.” She dismisses, and disappears around the corner of the gym building.

  Eren takes in a few deep breaths to calm his nerves the rest of the way, and after he showers and changes into his PE clothes, he uses an app on his phone to disguise his phone number as his fathers, deepens his voice, and calls himself out of school. There is a faint crackle in his phone when he makes the call, and for a second he worries that milk got into it, but the rest of the call goes without issue so he ignores it.

  He walks home in relative silence, the only sound other than the wind in the trees and passing cars is the crackling pages of his now dry notebook as he thumbs through it.

  Today the black Suburban is much closer than usual, and despite him leaving halfway through the school day, arrives exactly on time. Eren tries to pretend he doesn’t notice like always, but it looks as though the past four weeks spent pretending to be oblivious to the stalkers has generated a pretty bad side effect. Whoever they are, they believe they can afford to be closer now.

  Closer now, close enough that it's obvious. Maybe it wants to be seen? Why?

  The thought of it being Victor snaps into his mind again and sends a clawing chill down his back. Sophie hit him with a softball, gave him a bloody nose, and now he’s driving this black Suburban waiting for Eren to be alone.

  Shit, he shouldn’t have left school, he should have stayed behind just in case they targeted Sophie. Eren pauses, winces as the black Suburban stops only a few hundred feet away. He shifts his weight, bites his lip, he needs to think.

  Maybe he should go back? He needs to call her, no, she’s in class, he needs to text her. What the fuck is he thinking. He pulls out his phone, sends her text to leave early too, just in case, but he fumbles with the keys and sends a mess of typos instead. He can’t go back to school. He already called himself out. He needs to make sure Sophie is safe and even if Victor went home his two friends didn’t, or are following him now. He picks up the pace as he decides to continue the path towards his house.

  He struggles to maintain his composure as the Suburban blatantly follows him, it's like it is Victor, taunting him.

  Every step he takes comes with a wave of panic. Every inch closer the black Suburban crawls threatens to send Eren off the metaphorical cliff. He projects his maps over the space around him, plotting his escape routes as he begins to jog. He scans the ground for large sticks or rocks or anything he can use as a weapon in case the vehicle rushes him down. His finger hovers over the phone in his pocket, his fingers ready to dial 911 at a moment's notice—what other option does he have?

  His breathing comes shallow, pinched off in his throat to prevent himself from hyperventilating, his vision starts to tunnel again as the streets blur together. He turns to a sprint, feet pounding against the ground. The suburban picks up its pace to match until the sound of the front door opening and slamming shut behind him sends reality crashing back down.

  “You’re home early! Is everything alright?” His mother calls from the living room.

  Eren doesn’t spare her a second thought as he sprints up to his bedroom. He closes the door, locks it, drops the blind, but this time it doesn’t help. He feels it, feels eyes on him, someone watching, that all too familiar sensation.

  He practically rips the vent off the wall when he can’t unscrew it in time. He grabs the key, unlocks the drawer, and grips the knife tight in his hands. He turns his ears to the sounds outside his window just in case that psychopath decides to try and knock on his front door.

  Eren’s phone buzzes, A text from his sister. He ignores it and presses his closed fist to his mouth.

  It doesn’t sound like the suburban followed him all the way home. By now he’s intimately familiar with the engine noise of his stalkers' vehicles and he knows for a fact he can’t hear it.

  Still, he feels it. He can sense its presence. No, that's stupid, there isn’t any one. There can’t be. The window is closed, he’s alone in his room, he needs to breathe. There is no one watching him, it's just his anxiety, the feeling is just in his head.

  It takes a moment to calm down, and even with his heart no longer racing it's hard to ignore the sensation of being watched, but he buries it deep and breathes to clear his head.

  He needs to consider exactly what the hell just happened. Needs to think, process information logically to suppress the animalistic panic threatening to return at any moment. He left school early via the track and field exit. That is not one of the normal student entrances, so how the hell did the Suburban find him?

  His panic stricken mind thought it would be Victor or one of his friends, but Sophie had thrown a softball at his face. The campus parking lot was opposite the PE room and Victor left first. There is no way he could have known that Eren was going to leave early through that particular exit. His current hypothesis about the stalkers is that Victor and his two friends were likely positioned in locations capable of viewing all the exits after school and following him that way. That is no longer logical.

  But that's besides the point. The implication of it not being Victor aside, there is no way that anyone stalking him physically could have arrived as quickly as they did when he left early, especially not given the fact that they maintained their normal time.

  Then, his eyes go wide.

  “Of course...” he eyes the phone. He feels like an idiot. It’s obvious now that he thinks about it. Whoever is stalking him must have a ping on his phone’s current location. This is bad. It isn’t like he can just turn it off forever. He needs to have his phone on in case mom needs him to pick stuff up on his way home or Sophie needs to stay late at school, or there is an emergency or he needs to call 911…

  Tap Tap tap, THUNK

  Something taps on his window, the front door just closed. His heart thunders in his chest, a surge of panic ripping through him. He lurches backwards, away from the noise. His legs hit something, his chair, he stumbles backwards crashing into the ground with a gasp. He flicks open the knife, hand shaking as he holds it to the window.

  This is it then, he’s going to do it, he’s—

  Black feathers catch the light outside his window. The silhouette of a crow flapping its wings.

  Thank god.

  His ass hurts from the fall, and so does his head. Standing with a grunt, Eren rubs at his eyes. He can’t believe he just did that…is he losing it? No, he’s scared, running on three hours of sleep a night and utterly exhausted. Anyone in this state would react that way. He just needs to breath, relax.

  The adrenaline flows out of him as quickly as it had appeared, leaving him somehow even more tired than before. All the hours spent focusing and observing has him on the brink of a breakdown. He needs a distraction. Even if they don’t last very long he knows he simply can’t continue to function running this ragged. His brain can only process so many numbers, so much adrenaline, so many theories. He needs to pull himself away from the mania of it, at least for a second long enough to breathe.

  “Sorry guys...” He mutters out loud while grabbing a handful of peanuts from his drawer and opening the window to make his delivery. Crows are smart, they recognize faces. They must have seen him come home early.

  Inside the bowl is a couple of dollars, which he takes and stuffs into his back pocket with a lazy movement. His limbs feel like they weigh a thousand pounds each.

  Eren watches the birds happily eat away, letting the window remain open for fresh air. His mind drifts, eager to latch onto anything other than panic. It will start to snow soon, he thinks, noting the darker clouds looming in the distance. It will make walking to school a royal pain. He wonders how his stalkers will fare in the snow. He hopes their heating breaks or their tires slip…

  “Ooo, what’s this, your diary?” Sophie’s voice makes Eren half jump through the window. The twitch of movement sends the birds cawing and flapping away from him in an equally scared flurry.

  Spinning around, Eren’s eyes go wide. Sophie flips through the pages of his notebook, her mischievous expression souring into something Eren doesn’t like.

  When did she get home? The text. The front door—right.

  “It’s not a diary, but it’s mine. Hand it back.” He lunges for her, but she is too slippery and evades with little effort, sending Eren stumbling into his door.

  “What are you doing in my room anyway?” He lunges again—this time, Sophie doesn’t bother to move.

  He snatches and closes the notebook, setting it back on his desk with a huff.

  “What is that?” Sophie asks, her voice dropping an octave, and it's only then that Eren realizes that he left the drawer to his desk open, maps and photos visible, along with the still open knife on this desk.

  “It’s nothing... Why are you in my room?”

  “Because you sent me a text to come home early, and mom says you just ran to your room? I texted you, but you ignored me. Mom was worried.”

  Sophie crosses her arms. “I was worried at school but now I'm actually kind of freaking out.”

  Her attention then shifts to the book, the map, and the knife. “Why do you have all this stuff?”

  “It’s for a project.”

  “No, it isn’t. You’re a horrible liar.”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Eren rolls his eyes and closes his window along with the curtains. The sensation of being watched hasn’t left yet, but he thinks maybe that will help.

  “Try me.” Sophie crosses her arms.

  “Drop it, please?”

  “Try-me.”

  “No, now leave, or I’ll... fart on you or something.”

  “Eren, you’re scaring me,” her voice quivers a bit, sending a pang of guilt through his heart.

  He bites his lower lip and turns to the desk, looking down at the notebook.

  “Sophie, it’s nothing. Really.”

  “You’re full of shit, and a fucking asshole. This isn’t normal dude. What the hell even was all that stuff? Code? Are you some kind of serial killer or school shooter or—”

  “Jesus Sophie no! What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you think something like that?”

  “Then tell me why you have maps and a knife and serial killer code notebook!”

  “Keep your voice down!”

  “No! Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on!” Her voice cracks, quivers, one hand shoots up to cover her mouth.

  He wants to tell her, wants to say it. He can’t, he can’t find the words. He can’t let her get involved, can’t let her get hurt. Eren can barely stand himself now. If he gets her involved, if he tells her and she tries something, if she gets hurt because of him…if they cut her, the way they cut him.

  Vomit threatens to fill his mouth. It takes every ounce of strength to stop it. He can’t do it, he can’t risk her.

  “I…Sophie, I-It’s for a project.”

  She turns on a dime and slams his door closed as she leaves the room. The weight of it crushes Eren like a brick of lead dropped into his heart.

  He sprints for the door, tears it open and gets the first syllable of her name out before he watches her own bedroom door slam shut hard enough to rattle the house. He hears the lock click into place, and his head drops.

  “Is everything alright up there?” His mom calls out, and Eren watches her appear at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Yup!” Eren lies, and slinks back into his room, closing and locking the door behind him.

  “Are you sure?” His mom continues, voice now muffled.

  “Yes!” Eren calls again. She probably doesn’t believe him, but she doesn’t try to push it any further when she knows he doesn’t intend to talk. Just like Sophie…

  He rubs his eyes. He wants to explain himself, not fully but enough for her to really understand. He wants to think of some excuse or an elaborate lie that will put her mind at ease.

  Maybe he can say that—

  Pain radiates from Eren's head. Be brings one hand up to press into his skull, like that might help the headache. God, it hurts to think. He’s already exhausted but the sensation of being watched drags him, pulls him under the water while simultaneously setting his nerve endings on fire.

  He makes his way back over to his desk, and taps at it rhythmically, miming the birds tap on his window. He swears he can still feel it, even with the windows closed now, and that scares the shit out of him.

  Maybe the feeling is in his head? Some byproduct of extreme anxiety? That one thought, that one sensation grows, its twisting roots burying deep into the corners of his psyche until it's the only thing he can think about. It grows to the size of a forest, this idea, that maybe he’s wrong? Maybe, just maybe, it’s in his head?

  It feels idiotic, of course it’s not wrong, he has mountains of data to prove it's correct but then again don’t paranoid schizophrenics believe their delusions?

  Eren drops onto his bed, his head spins, and slowly he watches as threads unravel in his mind.

  A paranoid schizophrenic believes their delusions. He tries to assess it, tries to put himself in someone else's shoes in order to view his actions through a more objective lens. He has a notebook filled with the details of every student and faculty car in a self made code. Maps of his routes, his near perfect serial stalkers who aren’t doing anything other than existing to do…what exactly? Scare him? They are almost always on time to the exact second. He obsessively counts the seconds between key events, counts his steps, counts everything. He thinks they have a tap in his phone. That crackle when he called the school, the thought crossed his mind that they might be listening.

  As much as Eren doesn’t want to admit it, these are all textbook hallucinations. Shadow people stalking him, listening to him, obsessive behavior.

  What if he is just crazy?

  He shakes his head, no, he can’t let that line of logic consume him. He needs to find some way to test it. He remembers from a documentary on the subject that schizophrenic hallucinations aren’t visible from a phone camera... but he absolutely recalls seeing the cars through the security cameras at the gas station on more than one occasion. His drawer has photos of…well, where the cars usually appear but he hasn’t been able to get an actual photo of the cars themselves just yet, not without revealing that he knows he’s being followed.

  Eren slaps himself in the face. That's crazy. It sounds clinically insane to even think about.

  Sophie’s right, something is really wrong. He hasn’t been sleeping—his mind has been alert all day, every day. He needs definitive proof, he needs to prove himself wrong, or right.

  First, he needs to make sure Sophie doesn’t try to see more details about his stash, or worse, tell their parents about it. Eren grabs a piece of his notebook and slides a tiny strip into the window so that when it opens, the piece will fly away. He doubts anyone will think to come through his window but it's better to be thorough and cover all of his entry points just in case. He creases the paper slightly and presses his thumbnail into the wooden window frame, aligning the piece of paper so that the crease perfectly aligns with his nail mark. It would be obvious to anyone that the paper is there when it falls. However, the likelihood of them noticing such minor marks is slim to none. If someone replaces the paper, he will know.

  In the morning he’ll do a similar trick with the door to his room. He will also place a piece of tape at the very top of the door. When it closes, it’ll be enough to stick the door to the frame from the inside. When he comes home, he can open the door a fraction and see if the tape is still stuck.

  Is it a little overboard? Probably, if he comes home and nothing has changed, and he still feels as though he’s being watched, Eren will tell his parents everything and hopefully get the psychiatric help he needs. If there is proof that someone has been in his room or if he can get proof of people stalking him, real proof—like a photo on his phone—then he will tell Sophie everything, and pray that she won't freak out when he says what he plans to do to solve it.

  Battlefield

  Heartsurgery

  Colonel Riza Emberfell is a living legend.

  Her kill count is in the tens of thousands. In her heavy black armor plating, she’s almost seven feet tall. To most humans that meet her, she looks like an alien demon—if they ever see her at all.

  The mission is simple: An asset has spent months undercover studying a horrific bioweapon. Extract both the agent and the sample, recover the prototype cure, and get the hell off the planet.

  The asset: Major Elias Blackwall—a quiet field medic with a warm personality—and the only person who’s never looked at Riza with fear. He doesn’t see a weapon or a legend—she’s just his commander and friend.

  And she’s surprised how much that disarms her.

  Battlefield Heartsurgery is a high-octane action novella set in the universe, taking place over five years before the main story begins. No prior knowledge is needed—just hop on in and enjoy the violence. Things get dark, characters get vulnerable, and a lot of enemies die. And underneath it all, the foundations emerge of a partnership that will one day shake the stars.

  [participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge]