Rain falls in gentle sheets around Eren and Sophie, casting them in a haze. The cold air tastes like wet bark and smells faintly of rust and pine. Eren welcomes the natural white noise—especially now. It drowns out the details of his younger sister's story and disguises the seconds he counts aloud under his breath.

  “Two hundred and fifty five, two hundred and fifty six, two hundred and fifty seven…”

  His foot catches the edge of the curb, slips, and sends him into the water-filled gutter.

  “Shit.” He winces as pain shoots up from his heel and into the fresh bruise on his thigh. He corrects his step, jaw clenched. Sophie doesn’t notice, but more importantly, he doesn’t lose his count.

  Sophie pauses, and for a moment Eren worries she noticed. He begins to conjure up some halfway believable excuse for why he missed the very wide sidewalk at all, but drops it as soon as he realizes she is only waiting for the automated voice on the crosswalk to finish its warning.

  She presses the button a few more times for good measure, then continues her story— something about her match next week, or maybe it’s about the new girl on her team that smells bad? He only partially listens, but drowns it out quickly as he feels the air behind him shift.

  “Two hundred and sixty-three.” His hand instinctively twitches towards the inside of his raincoat, fingers grazing the tattered edges of the notebook pressed against him. He almost pulls it out too early, but stops himself as the air behind him continues to shift—closer than normal.

  There is a weight to the movement even at this distance, like someone pressing their knuckles into the base of his spine, sending a wave up the nervous system until it crashes into the base of his skull. His skin crawls, prickles, like a thousand strings attached to the nerve endings all tugging, pulling, screaming at him to turn around.

  The metal traffic mirror above the intersection shows the source of the sensation, a warped outline of movement two streets behind him. Its headlights catch in the fog, barely visible to almost anyone—painfully obvious to Eren.

  Two hundred and sixty-three seconds. Thirty seconds earlier than normal.

  He shifts his position, blocks the car's view with his body, and slides the notebook out of his coat pocket, thumbing the corner of the page he marked earlier this morning. He grabs his pen and scribbles down the details. It’s the 2007 silver Toyota Corolla again, just as it has been the other three Wednesdays. He can’t get a good view of whoever's behind the windshield, not without turning around and shifting his body to reveal the notebook, but he’s pretty damn sure it's the same driver as always.

  No, it definitely is.

  He watches the car's reflection as it moves. The same turn pattern, same speed, but thirty seconds earlier. He protects the ink and paper from the rain, his hands working faster than his mind. He doesn’t have time to code it, not as it approaches at this new distance. He needs to—

  “Hey.” Sophie’s voice cuts in, sharp. It sends him stumbling as his mind spills and loses momentum, stunning him.

  Eren blinks and stuffs the notebook into his coat pocket

  “You’re ignoring me again.” Her voice isn’t loud, but it's pointed. She has stopped walking just a little bit ahead of him, her arms crossed and cheeks flush with color despite the cold.

  “What? No, I would never.” That wasn’t convincing, not even to himself. Shit.

  “What was I talking about then? It’s been five minutes of the same story, should be easy.”

  It’s actually been four hundred and seventy-one seconds, but he keeps that to himself.

  “Soph, come on, I was listening!”

  “Prove it. What was I talking about?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  Eren sighs. There is a good chance she was talking about her upcoming tournament. He watches how she shifts her weight off her left leg and balances on the heel of one foot. She’s been working herself harder than usual to make up for her recent run-in with the flu after all. It would make the most sense that it’s weighing heavy on her mind. He’s ready to bet the house on it, but she huffs and rolls her eyes, cutting Eren off before he draws in a breath to respond.

  “No, actually, don’t even say it, I see you guessing.”

  He opens his mouth, closes it, then forces a smile. “Can we maybe call it a deduction instead? That would make me feel better.”

  “Ohhh! Are we doing deductions now? Sure, okay!”

  “Wait a second, actually—”

  “Victor, right after the lunch bell.” Sophie cocks her head and smiles, nodding down to Eren's left leg.

  “How did you figure that one out?”

  “Victor wouldn't be able to reach your leg from a standing position which means you were walking past him while he was sitting, you don’t share any classes together so it would have had to have been lunch. The only reason you would move from your designated spot is if the bell rang.”

  “How did you know it’s Victor?”

  “Physical violence? When is it not Victor?”

  Eren blinks. “Well, you nailed it.”

  “I also saw him do it.” She frowns and spins on her heel to continue down the road.

  “That makes more sense.” Eren pauses a moment, and watches the reflection of the Toyota in the mirror, unmoving, waiting for him to continue.

  It never moves until he does.

  He can still feel the eyes of the driver on him, watching. Eren swallows, and forces himself to move. He needs data. Stopping and waiting to see how the vehicle reacts is important information after all.

  When Eren speeds up to match Sophie’s pace, he doesn’t have to see it to know that the car follows him, as that prickling sensation raises the hairs on the back of his neck once again.

  Ten seconds to start driving again after a stop. He’ll need to write that down later.

  “I can help, you know,” Sophie continues after they hit a normal stride.

  “I know.”

  “Then why won’t you let me?” She takes up a fighting stance as they walk and throws a few punches at stray branches that reach into their path, the battered limbs sending showers of water and leaves into the space between them.

  Sophie seems to be easing up, an olive branch that melts the tension. He needs to accept it.

  “Would you? For me?” Eren flutters his eyelashes.

  “Eren, I pray you would.” She ducks under a particularly long branch and throws two quick strikes its way. The unsuspecting foliage shudders under the incredible act of violence, spraying orange and red upon her in defeat.

  Eren can’t help but laugh as a few sticks catch in her hair, mouth, and eyes, sending her stumbling forward as she tries to swipe the shower away from her, losing all sense of bravado in a moment.

  “Wow, you really invoke so much confidence.”

  “Fuck off!” Sophie laughs and bats his hands away as he reaches for her.

  “No, now hold still” He guides Sophie towards him, picking the leaves from her hair and brushing them off her backpack.

  Another pause. Eren counts.

  Sophie sighs and suppresses the traces of a smile as she waits patiently. Eren cleans her up, though when her eyes open, she snorts.

  “What? What is it?”

  “Sorry, looks like you got caught in the crossfire.” Sophie picks a few stray leaves from Eren as well, struggling to reach the top of his head even on her tiptoes.

  “Thank you.”

  Sophie lingers there for time, looking into Eren’s eyes. The pressure in the back of Eren’s neck rises higher from her gaze, like someone just took a tuning fork and struck it at the base of his skull. He chews on the inside of his lip, and then breaks her eye contact, and instead focuses on the small ripples at their feet as the rain continues to fall. He feels pathetic, he can’t even look his sister in the eyes…

  “So, you, going to tell me what's happening?” she asks.

  “Just worried about school, I'm already struggling with chemistry and the test on Friday is worth a huge chunk of—”

  Sophie pushes him with a huff, sending Eren stumbling backwards. She crosses her arms again and shakes her head. Her mouth presses into a thin line, head half cocked to one side. “Why won’t you just be honest with me?”

  Eren feels the words rise in his mouth like bile. He wants to spit them out, to tell her—'I’m being stalked, followed, and I'm scared out of my fucking mind.'

  He swallows the words. Sophie would believe him, of course she would, she always does, but then what?

  Eren pictures it—Sophie halfway down the street with her fists balled up before he has a chance to even think about stopping her, heading straight for the Toyota. God forbid it’s Victor or one of his friends. Eren already has a permanent reminder of their games carved across his body. He can’t stomach the thought of Sophie getting caught up in that. She might be able to send Victor to the hospital, but his friends would never let it stand. She is a damn good fighter but she isn’t that good.

  That sends a brand new kind of bile up into this mouth. No, he can’t get her involved, not until he knows for sure what's going on, or at least knows that they can handle it together.

  “I…I just, it’s—”

  Eren can see her chest rise, her mouth part to begin to protest, so he holds up his hands, and prays that she can read the emotions behind his eyes better than the words from his mouth he’s fumbling.

  “Please, Sophie.”

  She doesn’t like it, but accepts it more gracefully than his other excuses. The pain on her face at this moment hurts Eren even more than the pain in his leg. The tension drops to a frown, her eyes soft and wet, like she might even cry.

  “Listen, I swear to god I’ll tell you later, but right now I need to figure some stuff out. I swear to god, the second I can tell you, I will.”

  He can see her work her tongue around in her mouth. She looks so impossibly far away in the haze of the rain, even though a few strides would close the distance. The pressure on his spine grows, his breath catches, and comes shallow as she watches him, as that car watches them both.

  God, he feels awful. He wants to tell her, he wants to tell her so badly. Maybe if he’s just straightforward, maybe if he just comes out and tells her not to do anything about it—not to freak out, to keep her cool. She’s smart enough to understand. He could do it, he could tell her everything, and finally have someone to confide in.

  She shakes her head, tears building in the corners of her eyes—she’s so worried it crushes him. He needs to just say it. There are people stalking me, probably Victor, and I don’t know why yet. That's the sentence, that's all he has to say.

  “Hey, what do you say we take a detour to the gas station to grab something warm to drink? I’ll pay.”

  The tension she holds in her shoulders drops a little, and her watery eyes brighten just a touch, in time with a smile. “Bribing me with hot chocolate now? How low.”

  “Is it working?”

  “Hmmm, yes, for now. Help me with my math homework when we get home and I'll call it good. for now.”

  “Sinister.” Eren returns the smile and hopes the mist disguises the fact that it doesn't quite reach his eyes as he begins counting the seconds again.

  Sophie leads the way, following the arc of the hill away from their house and towards the nearby convenience store instead. With a faint chime, the two enter, and Eren takes his time browsing the snacks he has no intention of buying. He watches Sophie for a moment as she grabs the largest size available and shoots him a challenging look.

  Eren chuckles, shakes his head. He’s by no means made of money, but he figures he owes her at least a large. Once Sophie begins filling her cup, Eren brings his attention to the monitor posted high behind the counter. Black and white security cameras, with a small sign that says ‘smile, you’re on camera’ below it.

  “One hundred and forty-five, one hundred and forty-six…” he counts under his breath, until movement shows in the parking lot, and the sensation of being watched rises high enough to start a cold sweat down his back and under his arms.

  With the protection of the aisles, he takes out his notebook and maps the location where the vehicle stops, how long it takes, and begins his count to determine how much time will pass before it follows him again.

  “You getting some or what?” Sophie calls from the other side of the store, and Eren turns his attention away from the screens in time to see her heading towards the counter.

  “Yeah! Sorry!” He keeps his eyes on the monitor just a second longer to fully commit the space to memory. He takes a snapshot of the camera's positions in his mind’s eye before grabbing his own cup of hot chocolate and paying for himself and his sister at the counter.

  With a deep breath, Eren forces his body to relax, wills the pressure at the back of his head to ease, and tries to coax the prickling sensation of being watched from his being. He can’t afford to have the conversation veer back to him. If Sophie presses any harder, he knows he’ll crack. He can worry later, when she isn’t around to notice. For now, he needs to relax, or at the very least try his hardest to disguise the anxiety that refuses to leave despite his best efforts.

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  “Thanks!” Sophie sends an elbow directly into Eren’s ribs with a little more force than necessary as they continue back to the house in the rain. She probably would have hugged him, but her hands are too busy bringing the hot chocolate to her mouth.

  “Careful—”

  “Shit!” Sophie jerks the cup away, sticking out her upper lip and tongue in a turtle-like expression, redness already spreading from the burn.

  Eren turns away, snorting. She looks absolutely ridiculous. He forgets just how young she is sometimes, and then they have a moment like this and he remembers she’s still only thirteen. Not that being a year older puts him in a special category but still, younger is younger.

  “Don’t laugh at me!”

  “I’m not, I’m not!” Eren protests, his eyes scanning the roadside as the cold sweat builds, ripping him away from the moment for a time before he manages to recompose himself and stuff down the anxiety that tries to burrow into him.

  “You so are!”

  “Am not!”

  “Look at me then!”

  Eren turns around, steeling himself with the most neutral expression possible, only to crack the moment he sees Sophie’s exaggerated expression.

  “See! You’re laughing.” Sophie teases, elbowing Eren a little more.

  “You made me laugh! It doesn’t count.”

  “A laugh is a laugh is a laugh,” Sophie offers in a sage-like tone, one that comes out half-lisped as she tries to say it with the tip of her tongue still hanging out of her mouth.

  Eren shakes his head and blows on his own cup of cocoa, unable to stop himself from scanning the roads once more as they trek onward into the haze.

  “So, you comin’ to the tournament?” Sophie asks after finally letting her lip cool down.

  Eren looks up to the sky, and lets out a long breath, watching it drift away in the wind. As the rain eases up he can hear the sound of the Toyota’s tires on the road. It’s closer than normal, much closer.

  He wants to focus on Sophie, on the conversation, but something more primal begins to take over as he becomes hyper-aware of his surroundings, of every sound, every shift, every second of time he counts in the back of his head. The tingling crawls up his spine and latches onto his ribs, squeezing them tight, making his insides feel as though they are about to burst.

  “Eren?”

  “Hmm?” He lets out another breath and wills himself to calm down, wills the strength back into his lungs. Eren is all too familiar with the pull of anxiety on his body, recognizes all of the symptoms of an impending attack, and works through the steps to try and bring an end to it with moderate success.

  “Are you coming to the tournament or what?”

  “Nope.”

  “Asshole!”

  He tries his best to maintain the lie. It’s fun to tease her, and god knows he needs something to break his mind away from building anxiety. Sophie plants another headbutt directly into his ribs, knocking him off balance and nearly stumbling off the curb. It doesn’t hurt, but it shocks him out of his spiral enough to break out a smile.

  It’s fake at first, an attempt to pass himself off as fine. Quickly though, the fake smile turns real as Sophie keeps her turtle lips pouting out and shifts her stance, ready to lay him out with her signature takedown.

  Eren snorts and wipes a hand over his face, feeling the weight lift from him as the attack is staved off, though still he can’t fully erase the pressure that lingers on the road behind him.

  “Yeah, of course I’m coming, when do I not?”

  “Who knows, you’ve been weird lately so I had to ask! Besides, if you weren’t, I'd have to really go hard on you next time.”

  The notion makes Eren shudder. For as young as she is, his little sister is a shockingly competent ass-kicker—and not in a ‘oh she’s so cute when she throws punches’ kind of way either. Sophie has an honest to god shot at really taking this talent of hers far. Truthfully he’s fairly jealous of her. Maybe if he had that gift, his leg wouldn’t be hurting right now.

  “I really would kick their asses, by the way,” Sophie adds.

  “I know,” Eren admits with a soft smile, one hand unconsciously going to his sore thigh, his thumb grazing an old scar just below it through the fabric of his pants.

  “Do you? I really mean it, Eren. I’ll do it. Just give me the word and I’ll break their knees.” She mocks a genuinely impressive ax-kick. The sound her foot makes as it cracks into the rain soaked concrete is enough to send a shiver down Eren’s spine.

  “I know you mean it, but don’t worry. I’ll be alright.”

  “You don’t look alright. You keep looking in all the mirrors. And the cameras at the store. Is someone following you? Is he following you? Because if he is, that’s like super serious. You should have gotten that restraining order like I said dude.”

  “No… I’m just anxious, it’s fine.” Eren partially lies

  Sophie pouts. She clearly has more to say on the matter, but Eren doesn’t let her. He picks up the pace, forcing her to jog to keep up. She might be stronger than him, but he is much faster, even with a bruised thigh. It’s a surefire strategy to shut her up until they get home.

  It’s only after Eren closes the front door behind him that the sensation of being watched fades, like dropping a fifty pound vest and finally being able to breathe. His hairs no longer stand on end, his nerves don’t scream at him to turn around, he can think without counting the seconds. If there is a heaven, this is as close as he’ll be getting for now.

  “We’re home!” Sophie calls.

  “What took you so long?”

  “Eren bribed my forgiveness with hot chocolate.”

  “Oh, how sweet!” Eren’s mom coos from the kitchen, the smell of something delicious and herbal following the sound of her voice. “How much was it?”

  Eren grabs a few papers from his backpack, and heads into the kitchen, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “You are too kind. Have you ever thought about bullying her instead? You know, just to see what it’s like?” His mom teases, rummaging through her purse on the table. She eventually pulls a five-dollar bill out and presses it into Eren’s protesting hands.

  “Mom! What the hell!” Sophie pouts, pretending to punch her in slow motion. Mom happily leans into it, making a show of the blows knocking her around the kitchen.

  “It’s fine, really!” Eren laughs, refusing the money as he pulls his hands away. Meanwhile, his mother escapes Sophie’s assault to chase him with the money, eager to force it upon him.

  “Nope!” His mom grins and lunges at Eren.

  Despite his best efforts, his mother wins the battle. She peels open his fingers, stuffs the bill into his palm, and forces his fingers to close around the money.

  She beams him an innocent smile, hurrying back to the stove to occupy her hands as a defense against counterattack.

  “Alright, alright!” Eren places the five on the countertop along with his homework. “Do you have a pen?”

  “In my purse.” Eren’s mom responds, but she realizes her mistake too late.

  Eren dives over the table to the open purse, a decisive victory mere moments away.

  “Sophie!” his mom calls, but she doesn’t need to, his sister already has her hands around the strap and pulls it out of Eren’s reach.

  “Damnit!” Eren slams his hand down, the purse long gone. His hand and the money slap hard against the wood, echoing out over the kitchen, further sounding his failure.

  “Hide it!” their mom cries out, and the ever-diligent soldier obeys. Sophie tucks the purse tight to her chest and sprints from the kitchen at full speed. The sounds of her feet crash through the halls, preceding the slam of a door and a cackle that echoes through the air vents back into the kitchen.

  Eren lets his weight drop onto the table, utterly defeated.

  His mom lets out a chuckle that quickly rises to a full belly-laugh in a matter of seconds. She has to take her hands off the pot and spoon to clutch at her stomach. She snorts, wheezes, tries to recover and fails miserably which sends Eren into a pitched frenzy.

  He falls from the table and lets himself sink into the ground. Tears well up in the corners of his eyes as they are locked in silent hysteria.

  It really isn’t that funny, but his mom’s reaction is infectious, and he can’t help but get lost in it all.

  They stay like that for a while, eventually breaking the silence with wheezing and coughing fits that descend into a further downward spiral.

  Just as they recover, the front door opens, and the look on his Dad’s face at the sight of them falling on the floor and crying reignites the hysteria.

  “What the hell did I come home to?” Dad pretends to grumble, setting his briefcase down, but he can’t hide his smile for long at the display of incredible nonsense before him.

  Mom tries to explain, but in uttering a single word, expels all of her breath in another fit of laughter.

  Eren has no idea how long it continues, nor does he care, because god knows he needs this. After what feels like an eternity, the timer goes off, forcing his father to step over his fallen Mother who wiggles on the ground locked in a silent laugh, while Dad turns off the stove above her.

  Sophie emerges from her room, having heard everything through the vents. Distance didn’t make her immune to the effects it seems. Tears streak her face, though she tries her hardest to bat them away.

  The growling in Sophie’s stomach reminds everyone that they are hungry, an excellent natural cure to the lingering laughing bug that threatens to reemerge at any moment.

  They eat dinner together, and Sophie has thankfully all but forgotten his leg and doesn’t seem to intend on bringing it up. He smiles as he eats, grateful for the distraction.

  He knows his family cares, knows they’ll be worried if they see the massive bruise that radiates like spilled ink on his thigh. Likely, they would try to talk to the school and make a big fuss about it, or bring it up to the police given the size of it. It would work to put a temporary stop to the abuse, but the school would relax soon after, and the bullying would only be worse than before.

  As much as it sucks, it’s a cycle he is familiar with, and one that’s repeated more times than he is comfortable admitting. Ultimately It’s easier to make his parents believe they succeeded, as opposed to revealing the painful truth that they had made it worse. He can’t do that to them, not again. Besides, after a few months of not reacting, Victor will get bored and move on. Hopefully.

  The scar under his fresh bruise seems to react to that thought, but he pushes the feeling down.

  After dinner, Sophie and Eren battle over who has to do the dishes. Sophie loses as Eren holds the hot chocolate over her head. It’s cruel and very underhanded, but he hates dishes, so it’s also very worth it. The only thing he hates more than getting beat up and the ever-present current of anxiety that threatens to crush him daily is dishes. He will do anything to avoid them, even use sweets to leverage his dearest little sister.

  Maybe he doesn’t hate them that much, but it's most certainly a runner-up for third place to say the least.

  After dinner is cleaned and the dishes done, Eren and Sophie do their homework together at the table, intermittently interrupted by anecdotes of their day that expertly dance around all the depressing parts, which is unfortunately most of them in Eren's case.

  He completes his homework in an hour, and after another hour, Sophie comes close to finishing hers, too. It isn’t meant to take two hours, but Sophie manages to find a way. Normally he doesn’t mind, but as the seconds tick by, he can feel the snapshots of today's data leaking out of his memory. Every minute they spend working through problems sends the corners of his mind clawing for answers, filling in blanks with fictions.

  One of the reasons cops tell potential witnesses to sleep and call back in the morning after a crime, is because the human mind has a bad habit of conjuring up details to fill in blanks. If someone tries too hard to recall information in a vacuum, they run the risk of poisoning that data. Eren knows this and tries to prevent his mind from filling in false blanks in the silence between Sophie’s questions.

  He can feel the sweat begin to build around his brow, his legs bounce up and down. He tries to distance himself from the building anxiety by counting again, but it doesn’t last for long. He wants to get today's data recorded soon. He should have recorded it an hour ago.

  Sophie still has a few more questions to go; she’ll have to forgive him for leaving early, or maybe he can buy her forgiveness with some hot chocolate again, but he can’t stay down here, not as his mind races with images of the Toyota Corolla, its position, the times, the seconds. He can’t sit here and do literature homework with the thought of Victor behind the tinted windows, the image of his pocket knife angled towards him.

  “I’m exhausted, I’ll help you more tomorrow,” Eren mutters, and grabs his things from the table. He ignores Sophie's protests as he swings by the door to grab his coat and the notebook within it. He skips every other stair on his way to his bedroom, closes the door, and scowls. It’s faint, but the sensation of being watched picks up again from outside his bedroom window as he flicks on the light and changes his clothes.

  He tries not to make a show of noticing by continuing to put on a pair of sweatpants and a tank top before moving over to his window. Just like his notebook, it's better if his stalkers aren’t aware that he knows what they are doing. He pretends to watch the sunset by scanning the horizon, and watching the crows that, in turn, watch him on the powerline nearby.

  “Shit. Sorry, guys.” He sighs. One more chore to do before he can work. Sophie might give him a hard time about abandoning helping her with homework, but the crows are leagues more bothersome if they go unfed.

  Eren opens a drawer and pulls out a handful of unsalted peanuts. He opens the window the rest of the way and drops the nuts into a metal bowl on the roof, the sound alerting the birds on the powerline. Now, it’s their turn for dinner.

  Once they arrive, he closes the window, admiring the birds’ faint blue and purple-black feathers as they eat. He started doing it after learning you could train corvids to trade with you, and so far, the system has been nice and profitable.

  It started with birdseed, and eventually, they brought him little trinkets. Mostly sticks, a few bottle caps, or the tabs from soda cans. Once, they had brought him a dime, so he rewarded them with some nice bread instead. After a while, one managed to bring a single dollar bill and Eren made sure it was rewarded nicely with some in-shell peanuts.

  By the end of the year, he had a shockingly steady income of a dollar and change a day. It isn’t much, but given that he can get peanuts and bread for free at the school cafeteria, it’s a net profit that gives him enough money to buy some hot chocolate for himself and Sophie on cold days.

  With the birds nearly finished, Eren closes the curtains and breathes a sigh of relief at the tingle leaving his spine. Time for the real work now.

  Eren makes his way to his closet and grabs the screwdriver from its spot in his small collection of hand tools. Carefully, he unscrews the air vent across from his bed and peels back the heavy tape that secures the key to his desk drawer.

  Exhaustion pulls down his eyelids. He’s ready to sleep then and there, but he needs to do this to be sure.

  He double checks that his door is locked, and for safe measure presses his ear to it to ensure no one is coming. Satisfied—he unlocks the drawer on his desk, revealing the past three weeks worth of work.

  Maps, photographs, notebooks, and a large knife with a five-inch blade. That knife alone would get him sent to juvenile detention. The knife with pictures of empty random streets and mapped routes of travel would put him in a psych ward. Eren pulls the map out and charts his path home, along with the path of the silver Corolla, marking out its distances and times both on the map and in his notebook.

  For the past three weeks, three vehicles have been following him: a silver Corolla, a black Suburban, and a blue Explorer.

  The Toyota Corolla has previously maintained the same distance of approximately 500 feet at all times, save for today. There have been no anomalies with the Suburban or the Explorer recently—maintaining a distance of 800 feet and 1000 feet respectively.

  It’s safe to assume that the three vehicles have three unique drivers, as these distances offer very few deviations over the better part of three weeks, along with their unique driving patterns. The way they take turns, the speed at which they stop, or the rate of acceleration off stop signs are all consistent to their respective vehicles. The vehicles rotate daily—the same one never appearing two days in a row. On rare occasions they break rotation, but never for more than a single day before returning to the normal pattern.

  Eren taps the pen to his lip as he flips through the pages, ensuring his data is correct.

  “But why?” Eren leans backward in his chair and stares at the ceiling, hoping that he might find the answer there.

  It’s possible that whoever this is has been watching him for longer, and he just hadn’t noticed or recorded it until relatively recently. However, given how keenly aware his body is of being observed, he doubts that's the case.

  This past week in particular, Eren has been studying the people around him too, and thankfully he’s found no evidence to suggest the stalkers are following his sister. Better for him to be the victim of some child trafficking operation than her, assuming this isn’t Victor.

  He doesn’t want to be a victim either, but still, it’s a hint of relief in an otherwise incredibly bizarre situation.

  Eren closes his notebook, folds up his map, and stuffs them all back into the drawer. He will have to take a more proactive approach soon…

  He grabs the knife from the drawer and flicks it open. The sound of the metal makes a faint click. The blade is long, half serrated, illegal in the state of Oregon, and hopefully enough to do whatever needs doing, if this situation gets any worse.

  The metal of the weapon catches the light and sends a shiver down his spine. His thumb rubs at the cruel scar tissue on his thigh, just below the much fresher bruise. It's almost as if looking at the metal makes his flesh remember the pain. Victor had used a knife not too different from the one Eren has now. It's that memory that smothers any thoughts of going to the police.

  If there is one thing Victor ever taught him, it’s that a six-inch laceration and a history of physical abuse aren’t enough to win a court case. No, the evidence, the data, the information, the maps, pictures, and details aren’t for the police; they are for Eren. Even if it isn’t Victor or his friends, the knife in his hand is the more surefire way to ensure he’s safe than the police could ever be.

  He folds the knife back up, sets it into his drawer, closes it, locks it, and re-hides the key in the air vent.

  For the past three weeks he’s been gathering information, determining their paths, their patterns, their methods, and hopefully all without keying them into the fact that he knows. Soon, he’ll figure out who they are, and once he has everything he needs, he can start thinking about his next steps, about just how much he might be able to get away with if he decides he needs to use that knife.