The Last Page; Part Two

“Find out?" I echoed, my voice tight. "Find out what? Whether you're a monster or I'm just crazy?"The smile on Zade's face didn't falter. "Perhaps both," he said, his tone dangerously smooth. He took a step back, breaking the intense proximity and giving me room to breathe, yet the atmosphere in the room remained just as charged. His eyes scanned my small bedroom, lingering on the posters on my wall, the stack of books on my nightstand, the half-empty mug of tea I’d forgotten. He was an anomaly of darkness and sharp edges in my soft, lived-in space."You're very... neat," he observed, his gaze finally settling on the book still lying face-down on the. He bent down in one fluid motion and picked it up, handling it with a strange reverence. "My life is in here. All the things I've done. The good, the bad... the necessary." He turned the book over in his hands, his thumb tracing the title. "Haunting Adeline.""It's not your life," I countered, finding a sliver of courage. "It's a story. Written by an author. You have a plot, a character arc." My words sounded clinical and detached, a desperate attempt to impose logic on an impossible situation."And what is a life if not a story with a plot and a character arc?" he retorted, his eyes lifting to meet mine again. The question was so simple, yet it disarmed me completely. He held the book out to me. "You stopped reading. Why?"It was the same question as before, but now it felt less like an inquiry and more like a demand. I didn't take the book. My arms stayed glued to my sides. "I told you. That scene... it was too much.""No," he said, his voice dropping lower. "That's not it. You've read darker things, haven't you?" He tilted his head, a gesture so unnervingly perceptive it felt like he was reading the titles of the books in my mind. "You weren't upset that it happened. You were upset because you understood it. You felt her fear, but you understood my reason. And that scared you more than anything."My breath hitched. He was right. It was the flicker of understanding, the terrifying empathy for the monster, that had made me slam the book shut. It was a truth I hadn't even admitted to myself."How could you know that?" I whispered, the question laced with a new kind of fear. This wasn't just a character come to life; this was something that could see right through me."Because you and I are not so different," he murmured, taking a step closer once more. "You hide away in your room with your books, feeling things through pages because you're afraid to feel them out here." He gestured vaguely to the window, to the world outside. "I live in the shadows because the world doesn't understand the things I have to do. We both live between the lines."Suddenly, a loud knock on my bedroom door shattered the tension. "Hey, you okay in there? I heard a thump." It was my roommate, her voice muffled through the wood.Panic seized me. My eyes darted from the door to Zade, expecting him to hide, to vanish, to do something. But he just stood there, a calm, predatory stillness about him, a faint, challenging smile on his lips as if to say, What will you do?The doorknob began to turn……

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