Sona's pov
They never understood that I vanished because I wanted to.
Not because I was taken.
Not because I was scared.
But because I needed silence to hear the truth beneath everyone's lies.
Those two days were mine.
My kingdom of shadows.
My hunting ground.
I slipped out of the dorm without a single sound, leaving nothing but the warm indentation on my bed and a trail of suspicion for them to choke on. The corridor was empty at that hour, that strange blue hour before dawn when the world forgets to breathe. My pulse was steady, my heartbeat smooth, sharp, focused. Anyone else in my place would've run. I walked. I always walk.
Because the predator doesn't rush.
The predator chooses.
I followed the invisible threads pulling me, the patterns no one saw except me. Kabir's doubts. Riya's fear. Arjun's rage. All of it shimmered around me like smoke. People talk with their breath, their expressions, their voices. But guilt, fear, obsession… those tell their truth in silence.
I went to the one place where silence felt familiar: the outskirts, the warehouse district where street lamps flicker like dying souls. I'd been there before, once, tracing a case for my book. This time, I came for another reason.
Someone had been watching me.
So I went to watch them back.
The air smelled of wet concrete and rusted metal. I slipped through an alley, climbed the narrow staircase of an abandoned building, and positioned myself near a cracked window. Below, the world crawled: shadows moving with intention, footsteps echoing too carefully, a pair of headlights switching off long before the driver stepped out. The killer? A stalker? A ghost? No. This one had lighter footsteps. A smaller frame. Their curiosity mirrored mine. They wanted to follow the killer, and I wanted to follow them.
The irony tasted sweet.
For hours I waited, tracking the murmurs of the night. My notebook filled with details. Patterns. Motives. I wasn't scared. Fear is for prey. And I have never been prey. Not truly. Not even when I pretended to be.
By the second day, the city started looking for me.
Riya panicked.
Kabir hid it badly.
And Arjun…
His fury burned through every corner of the world.
I felt it in the way my phone vibrated nonstop.
In the way their footsteps kept tracing old places, calling my name.
In the way the air thickened with their desperation.
But I stayed hidden.
I wanted to see who followed me first: the killer or Arjun.
Turned out, it wasn't a competition.
The killer didn't come. He was ahead the one i was stalking , so someone else did.
I heard him before I saw him.
Arjun's footsteps have a pattern: controlled, heavy, predatory.
But that night, they were shaking with chains he couldn't break.
His breath was a storm.
His rage a wildfire.
Every step screamed where the hell were you.
He found the warehouse easily. I should've expected that.
He always finds me.
Even when I don't want him to.
He didn't knock. He stormed in, grabbed me by the wrist hard enough that my bones sang, and slammed me into his chest like he needed proof I was real. His breath was unsteady against my neck, and his voice was a low threat when he said, "You do not disappear from me, Sona."
Not a question.
A law.
I didn't answer.
Didn't fight back.
Didn't apologize.
I just watched how panic, relief, anger, and obsession twisted inside him like a storm swallowing itself.
He looked at my notebook then.
He saw the pages filled with notes about the stalker, the killer, the patterns neither boy had caught yet.
His jaw clenched so violently I thought it might crack.
"You were tracking him alone," he said.
"You were too slow," I whispered.
That broke whatever thin line of restraint he was holding.
He killed the killer in single sharp sliced of his thorat.
Expected, i was fascinated by him.
He dragged me out of the warehouse, practically hauling me behind him, furious enough to set the night on fire. The world outside blurred as he shoved me into his car, slammed the door, and drove like the roads had personally offended him. His fingers kept tightening around the steering wheel as if imagining it were someone's throat.
He didn't talk.
He didn't need to.
His silence was a blade pressed to my skin.
When we reached the campus gate, he yanked me out again and pulled me straight to the dorm. I could feel Kabir's eyes on us from the hallway window. Riya's gasp echoed behind the door. They all rushed to me, asking questions, panicking, clinging.
Arjun didn't let them touch me.
He pushed them aside with one arm, keeping me behind him like a wolf shielding its wounded mate.
He locked the dorm room door.
And only then, only when we were alone, did he finally let his breath break.
He cupped my face, his thumb tracing the small bruise on my lip, his eyes molten with something darker than anger.
"You disappear again," he said softly, "and I won't bring you back. I'll keep you where no one can take you."
I should've been afraid.
Instead, I felt the world settle inside me.
Because prey trembles.
But predators recognize their own kind.
When he dragged me back, he didn't rescue me.
He reclaimed me.
And I let him.
Because I had hunted my answers.
Collected my truths.
Seen the stalker's pattern.
And now Arjun had seen mine.
The irony was delicious:
I vanished to find the predator.
And all along, the real one was the boy who dragged me home.
By the time he finally stepped back, the night outside had shifted.
Something darker waited at the edges.
Something coming for all of us.
I felt it long before Arjun did.
But I didn't tell him.
Not yet.
Because the hunt wasn't over.
And this time…
I wasn't planning on being the one who vanished.
For the first time in my life, fear didn't feel like fire.
It felt like ice.
Sharp.
Silent.
Unforgiving.
It wasn't when the killer hunted me.
Not when I vanished alone for two days.
Not when I traced the shadows of strangers with nothing but a pen and instinct.
Fear never touched me then.
But that text…
That message that wasn't from Arjun…
That cracked something inside me I didn't know existed.
My phone vibrated once.
Just once.
The screen lit up with an unknown number.
At first I thought it was Kabir or Riya, panicking again. I almost ignored it.
Then I opened it.
Not words.
Not threats.
My own body staring back at me.
A naked version of me I didn't consent to.
A pixelated, stolen, intimate violation.
A stranger's gaze pressed into my skin through a screen.
I didn't freeze.
I shattered.
The air thinned.
My hands went numb.
My heartbeat wasn't a heartbeat, it was an echo running away from me.
I had always been the observer.
The hunter.
The girl who saw everything, understood everything, controlled everything.
But in that one moment…
Someone saw me.
Someone took me.
Someone turned me into prey.
I almost dropped the phone.
Instead, I backed away from it like it might bite me. My breathing spun out of rhythm, a broken pattern I didn't recognize. My notebook slipped from my hands, pages fluttering across the floor like frightened birds.
That was when the door opened.
Arjun stepped inside with the storm he always carried—
but when he saw my face,
his rage stopped mid-stride.
I didn't need to show him the phone.
He saw it in my shaking fingers, in my bruised breath, in the way my eyes wouldn't meet his.
He didn't ask a single question.
He didn't say a single word.
He just reached for me.
His hands were warm and sure, grounding me as if he could stitch my panic back into place. He cupped the back of my head and pressed me into his chest, one arm locking around my waist with a possessiveness that wasn't violent… but it wasn't gentle either.
It was a promise.
A warning.
A vow.
"You're safe," he said into my hair.
I didn't believe it.
Not then.
Not with my stolen skin still burning in my mind.
He carried me to the bed, not letting my feet touch the floor. Tucked me under the blanket. Pulled his hoodie over my shoulders. Turned off the lights. Sat beside me. And he kept touching me, constantly, as if making sure I didn't disappear again.
His thumb on my shoulder.
His fingers brushing my hair back.
His knuckles running along my cheek.
His scent grounding me in the dark.
I didn't fight sleep.
The fear had drained me empty.
His voice was the last thing I heard.
Soft.
Dangerous.
Terribly tender.
"I'm not letting anyone touch you again."
After that, blackness.
When I woke, it wasn't morning light that greeted me.
It was chaos.
Riya shaking my shoulder.
Kabir shouting in the background.
The phone ringing again and again, vibrating across the bed like a dying heart.
I blinked.
Riya shoved her phone in my face.
Another nude.
Her this time.
Her breath broke.
Kabir snatched the phone out of her hand before she could cry harder. His face was calm. Too calm. The kind of calm that should scare entire cities.
"I'll kill him," he said simply.
Arjun didn't disagree.
His silence was agreement written in blood.
They didn't wait.
Didn't plan.
Didn't breathe.
The boys left in seconds, dragging laptops, wires, burner phones, and fury with them. Riya stayed with me, pressing ice packs to my bruises, applying ointment Arjun must've left on the table. She kept whispering small things, soft things, but I couldn't hear her.
All I could hear was the echo of that text.
The one that made me human.
Hours passed.
Or maybe minutes.
Time didn't feel real.
Then the call came.
Arjun's voice.
Sharp.
Triumphant.
Breathing fast.
"We found him."
Riya and I didn't waste time. We grabbed the car keys Arjun had thrown earlier and left the campus before anyone could stop us. The world outside looked different. Too bright. Too loud. Too full of secrets bursting from the cracks.
The lake house came into view.
That cursed place of truth.
When we stepped inside, the air was thick with violence.
Dry.
Metallic.
Heavy.
Nikhil was tied to the same chair the killer once sat in.
Duct tape over his mouth.
Sweat dripping down his temple.
Eyes wild with terror.
Arjun stood behind him.
Kabir in front of him.
Both boys breathing like predators who had been denied a kill for too long.
The laptops lay open, screens flashing evidence.
Stolen photos.
Drafted blackmails.
Hidden folders.
Tracking logs.
Every piece of filth he hid behind his "nerdy harmless" act.
For a moment, I didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Didn't speak.
Riya stepped forward first.
Her hands weren't shaking.
She slapped him across the face.
Hard.
I followed.
No rage in my veins.
No fear anymore.
Only clarity.
"You thought I was prey," I whispered.
He whimpered behind the tape.
Arjun's hand rested on my waist.
A silent Are you okay?
Kabir's jaw ticked.
A silent He dies.
The torture wasn't brutal.
Just cold.
Precise.
Poetic.
Kabir's questions.
Arjun's silence.
Riya's hatred.
My calm.
Nikhil broke fast.
And when he did, the boys didn't delay.
Arjun wrapped his hand around his throat.
Kabir pressed the blade to his skin.
It ended quietly.
Efficiently.
They buried him next to the killer.
The ground behind the lake house becoming a graveyard of consequences.
When we returned to the dorms, everything felt wrong.
And yet somehow… peaceful.
We showered.
We changed.
We breathed.
Riya curled up on her bed.
Kabir collapsed on the chair.
Arjun sat beside me, leaning back against the wall, eyes on the ceiling like he couldn't trust himself to look at me yet.
I picked up my laptop.
Opened a new document.
Title: The Predator And The Prey
Author: Me.
My truth.
Their secrets.
Our night.
And when the sun finally rose, warm and indifferent, my phone buzzed again.
This time… an official message.
"Graduation ceremony will be held this weekend."
Perfect timing.
Because none of us were the same anymore.
And the world had no idea.