Morning light filtered through the blinds in thin yellow stripes, cutting across the floor and up the wall. Alexa blinked at the ceiling, her body heavy in that half-awake way where everything from the night before rushed back in fragments. The dark. The camera. Hayden's hand on her thigh. Liam's breathing in her ear. Ben's quiet eyes watching from the corner.
She swallowed. Her mouth tasted like morning and memory.
Somewhere in the apartment, a machine whirred to life. The washing machine. A door clicked open, then footsteps moved down the hall.
Alexa turned her head. Marleny stood in the doorway, still in her black sleep shirt, her dark curls pressed flat on one side from the pillow. She wasn't holding tea. She wasn't holding her phone.
She was holding the foil packet between two fingers, held up like evidence, like something that had no business being in her apartment.
Alexa's stomach dropped.
"Found this in your jeans," Marleny said. Her voice was flat, unreadable. "Still sealed."
She stepped forward and set it down on the nightstand beside the phone, right next to the glow of the charging light. Her fingers lingered a moment, then she straightened.
"So either you didn't use it," Marleny said, crossing her arms, "or you saved the wrapper as a souvenir. And I need to know which one before I make breakfast."
Alexa opened her mouth. Closed it. The words sat somewhere between her chest and her throat, refusing to arrange themselves into a sentence. She sat up slowly, the sheet pooling around her waist. Her shirt had twisted sideways in the night, and she straightened it without looking down.
"I didn't use it," she said.
The silence that followed was worse than any question Marleny could have asked.
Marleny's expression didn't change. She just nodded once, a slow motion, like she was letting the information settle into a category she'd already prepared.
"Okay."
"It's not—" Alexa started.
"I'm not mad." Marleny cut her off, quieter now. "I'm not judging. I just needed to know if I'm making breakfast for one or two, and if I need to stop by the pharmacy before my nine o'clock."
Alexa pressed her palm against her forehead. The skin felt hot. "I don't know. I don't think—" She stopped. "He came inside me."
Saying it out loud made it real in a way the dark hadn't. The word hung in the air like something sharp that neither of them wanted to touch.
Marleny's jaw tightened, just for a second. She uncrossed her arms and set one hand on her hip. "Which one?"
"Liam."
"Okay." Another nod. "We'll figure that out today. There's a clinic on campus. You can get the morning-after pill over the counter. I'll go with you."
It wasn't a question.
Before Alexa could answer, her phone buzzed on the nightstand. The screen lit up. She glanced at it — unsaved number, but the preview line was visible.
Coffee's ready next door if you want it. Liam's idea. Ben's brewing.
Marleny's eyes flicked to the screen, then back to Alexa's face. She didn't move. She just stood there, waiting, the wrapper still visible on the nightstand between them.
"They're making coffee," Alexa said, her voice thin.
"I see that."
"They want me to come over."
"I see that too."
Alexa picked up the phone. Read the message again. The last bit — Ben's brewing — felt almost domestic. Normal. Like they were just neighbors inviting her over for a morning chat, not people who had watched her strip on camera and then fucked her an hour later.
"Are you going?" Marleny asked.
"I don't know."
"Do you want to?"
The question was simple, but it wasn't. Want had nothing to do with it, or maybe it had everything to do with it, and that was the problem. She wanted to. That was the part that scared her. She wanted to walk next door and see Hayden's face in the morning light, see Liam's messy grin, see Ben's quiet steadiness. She wanted to know if the night before meant anything outside the dark.
"Yes," she said. "I think so."
Marleny let out a slow breath. She turned toward the kitchen, then stopped. "Then go. But you're not going alone."
Alexa looked up. "What?"
"I'm coming with you."
"Marleny—"
"No." She turned back, her brown eyes sharp and steady. "You went over there last night and came back with a sealed condom in your pocket and a stalker tip from the same building. I'm not letting you walk in there by yourself until I've looked at them in daylight and decided if they're safe."
"They're not dangerous," Alexa said. "They're just—"
"Three guys who watched your streams for months, recognized your voice through the wall, tipped you with your own room number, and then had sex with you the first time they met you in person?" Marleny's voice stayed calm, but the words landed like stones. "I'll decide if they're dangerous after I've had coffee with them."
Alexa opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. Because Marleny wasn't wrong. Objectively, it sounded bad. It felt different in the room, in the dark, with Hayden's hand on her knee and Liam's laugh and Ben's careful attention — but laid out like that, in the morning light, it was easy to see how someone on the outside might draw different lines.
"Fine," Alexa said. "But you let me talk."
"I'm not going to interrogate them." Marleny pulled her phone from her pocket, typing quickly. "I'm going to sit, drink coffee, and evaluate whether they're decent people or just decent liars."
"You're texting them."
"I'm telling them you're coming. And that I'm coming with you. And that if they try anything, I will call the RA, the campus police, and my mother, in that order."
Alexa couldn't help it — a laugh escaped her, surprised and half-strangled. "Your mother?"
"My mother is terrifying. Trust me." Marleny pocketed the phone. "You have fifteen minutes. Shower, brush your teeth, put on something that says 'I'm here for coffee, not a repeat performance.' I'll make sure they have enough cups."
She left the doorway before Alexa could respond, her footsteps headed toward the kitchen. The washing machine hummed in the other room, a steady, domestic sound that felt almost obscene after the night before.
Alexa sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the phone in her hands. The message glowed up at her. She typed a reply before she could second-guess it.
Coming. Marleny's with me.
Three dots appeared immediately. Then:
More coffee then. See you in a few.
She let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding and stood up. Her legs felt shaky. Not from fear, exactly — from the weight of walking into that room in daylight, with nothing to hide behind but herself.
She grabbed her towel and headed for the shower.
---
Twelve minutes later, she stood in front of her closet in a loose sweater and jeans — the kind of outfit that said nothing. No cleavage. No intention. Just a person who wanted coffee and maybe a conversation. She caught her reflection in the mirror and tucked a strand of chestnut hair behind her ear. The silver anti-eyebrow ring caught the light. She looked like herself. That would have to be enough.
Marleny appeared in the hall, already dressed in black jeans and a dark sweater, her curls tamed into something close to neat. She held up two travel mugs. "I'm not drinking their coffee until I've seen the kitchen," she said. "This is backup."
"You brought your own coffee?"
"I brought us both coffee. You're welcome."
Alexa took the warm mug from her hands. The heat seeped into her palms, grounding her. "You're not going to make this weird, are you?"
"I'm going to be perfectly polite. I'm going to smile. I'm going to ask them about their majors and their hometowns. And then I'm going to decide if they're worthy of you."
"Marleny."
"I'm kidding." She wasn't. "Let's go."
The hallway between their doors had never felt so short. Alexa stood outside room 212, the same door she'd walked through the night before, but now it was just a door — painted the same institutional beige as every other door on the floor. A small whiteboard hung on it with a doodle of a cat playing a guitar. Liam, probably.
She raised her hand. Before she could knock, the door swung open.
Hayden stood there, framed in the morning light from the window behind him. He was wearing an unbuttoned flannel over a gray t-shirt, his dark curls still damp at the ends, like he'd just showered too. His dark eyes met hers, and for a second, neither of them spoke.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey."
A beat. Then he stepped aside, his hand gesturing them in. "Coffee's on the counter. Ben's still perfecting the ratio, so don't judge him if it's strong."
Marleny stepped past Alexa first, her eyes scanning the room with a calm, deliberate precision. The room looked different in daylight — lived-in, messy in a way that felt honest. A guitar leaned against the wall, cables tangled on the floor beneath it. A stack of textbooks served as a table leg propping up a cheap desk. Liam was sprawled on a beat-up armchair, his copper hair a disaster, his wired glasses sitting crooked on his nose. He looked up and grinned.
"You came," he said, and the way he said it — surprised and pleased — made something in Alexa's chest shift.
Ben stood at the counter in the small kitchenette, his back to them, pouring water through a filter with the kind of focus that suggested he'd done it a hundred times. He didn't turn around. "There's oatmeal if you want it," he said. "Liam burned the toast."
"It was a learning experience," Liam said.
Marleny set her travel mug on the table — a small two-person dining table that had clearly been rescued from somewhere — and sat down without being asked. She folded her hands on the surface and looked at each of them in turn.
"I'm Marleny," she said. "I'm Alexa's roommate. And before we drink anything, I'd like to know what exactly happened last night — not the sex, I don't need details — but the part about someone sending a threat from this building."
The room went quiet.
Ben turned, the coffee carafe in his hand, his blue eyes steady. "We were going to bring that up," he said. "After coffee."
"Now's good," Marleny said.
Hayden didn't sit. He stayed standing near the door, his hand resting on the back of a chair, watching the exchange with that unreadable quiet of his. Liam looked between them, his grin fading.
Alexa sat down across from Marleny, her fingers wrapped around the travel mug. "We talked about it a little last night," she said. "Before I left. Ben traced the IP."
"It's in this building," Ben said. "Same floor. Could be any of the rooms along this hall, or the one above, or the one below. The campus network routes through the same hub. It's not precise enough to pinpoint a door, but it's close."
Marleny's jaw tightened. "So the person who sent that knows where she lives, knows her stream name, and is close enough to hear her through the walls."
"Yes."
The word landed. For a moment, no one spoke.
Then Liam said, quietly, "That's why we invited her over. For coffee. So she knows she's not alone in it."
Marleny looked at him. Her expression was unreadable, but she didn't look away. "And why should she trust you?"
Liam blinked, his hand reaching up to push his glasses up his nose. "Because we're the ones who told her."
"You're also the ones who watched her for months without saying anything."
"We didn't know it was her until we heard her voice through the wall," Hayden said. His voice was low, even. "And when we figured it out, we told her. We apologized. We asked if she wanted to meet. We didn't push."
"You tipped her your room number," Marleny said.
"We wanted to get her attention." Hayden's eyes met hers. "Not to scare her. To let her know we recognized her, so we could talk about it face to face instead of letting it sit weird between us."
Marleny was silent for a long moment. Then she reached for one of the cups Ben had poured and took a sip. She didn't flinch at the strength of it.
"Okay," she said. "I'll give you that."
The tension in the room loosened, just slightly. Liam let out a breath he'd been holding. Ben set the carafe down and leaned against the counter, his arms crossed.
Alexa looked at the phone in her hand, then at the three of them — Hayden still standing, watching her; Liam sprawled in the armchair, messy and honest; Ben steady and calm. The stalker was still out there. The threat was still real. But sitting here, in the morning light, with coffee and people who had chosen to tell her the truth instead of hiding it — she didn't feel afraid.
"I'm going to the clinic today," she said. "To get the morning-after pill."
It was not a confession. It was a fact.
Liam's face flickered, something passing through his hazel eyes that he didn't voice. He just nodded. "I can drive you. If you want."
Marleny looked at him sharply, then at Alexa.
Alexa held her gaze for a moment, then looked at Liam. "Yeah," she said. "I think that would be okay."
Liam's smile returned, softer this time. "Cool. I'll get my keys."
He stood and disappeared toward the bedroom alcove, where a jacket hung over a chair. Hayden moved closer, pulling out the chair across from Alexa and sitting down. His knee brushed hers under the table. He didn't move it away.
"You don't have to do this alone," he said, quiet enough that only she could hear.
Alexa looked at him — at his dark eyes, his calloused hands resting on the table, the tension in his shoulders that said he meant it.
"I know," she said. And for the first time that morning, she believed it.
Marleny took another sip of her coffee, her eyes flicking between them, and said nothing.
Alexa's hand moved before she thought about it — reached for the carafe, lifted it, tilted it toward Marleny's mug. The coffee splashed against ceramic, steam curling up between them. Marleny's eyes flicked down to the refill, then up to Alexa's face. She didn't say thank you. She didn't need to.
The gesture sat in the air between them, small and deliberate. Alexa set the carafe down and wrapped her hands around her own mug, letting the heat burn into her palms.
"So," Liam said, reappearing from the bedroom alcove with his keys in hand, jingling them once before pocketing them. "Clinic run. I'm ready whenever you are."
He stood there, lanky and rumpled, his wired glasses still crooked, his copper hair defying gravity in at least three directions. He looked like he'd rolled out of bed and decided that was good enough. Alexa found it endearing in a way she hadn't expected.
"Give her a minute," Marleny said. "She just sat down."
"Right. Yeah. Of course." Liam dropped into the armchair, then immediately stood back up. "More coffee? Anyone need more coffee?"
Ben held up his own mug — still full. Hayden shook his head. Alexa shook hers.
"I'm gonna have more coffee," Liam announced, and crossed to the kitchenette to refill his cup with the enthusiasm of someone who needed something to do with his hands.
The silence that followed was the kind that could have been awkward, but wasn't quite. It was the silence of four people who had shared something intimate and were still figuring out how to exist in the aftermath. Marleny's presence helped — her calm, assessing stillness gave the room a center of gravity that kept it from drifting into uncertainty.
Hayden's knee was still touching Alexa's under the table. She hadn't pulled away. She wasn't sure if she wanted to.
"What are you going to do about the stalker thing?" Marleny asked, setting her mug down. Her voice was direct but not sharp. She looked at Ben, then at Hayden.
Hayden leaned back, his hand resting on the table, fingers drumming once before stilling. "We've been talking about it. Before you came over." He glanced at Ben. "Ben's been running through options."
Ben set his coffee down and folded his arms. His blue eyes were steady, the kind of steady that came from thinking through a problem before opening his mouth. "The IP is close. That means whoever it is lives on this floor, the floor above, or the floor below. Could be a student. Could be staff. Could be someone who figured out how to route through the campus network from a guest terminal."
"Guest terminals don't show up as the same building hub," Marleny said.
Ben's eyebrows lifted, just slightly. "You know networking?"
"I know enough to know that if it's on the same floor hub, it's a device that's regularly on this network. Not a guest pass."
A pause. Ben nodded, a new respect settling into his expression. "That's right."
Marleny didn't smile, but something in her shoulders loosened. "So it's someone who lives here. Or someone who's in and out enough that their device is registered."
"Yes."
The word hung there. Alexa felt it settle into her chest, cold and heavy. Someone in this building had watched her stream, recognized her face and her voice, tipped her two hundred dollars, and then sent a message that said I know where you are. I've always known.
She took a sip of her coffee. The bitterness grounded her.
"I don't want to stop streaming," she said.
The sentence came out before she'd fully decided to say it. Everyone turned to look at her. Marleny's expression was unreadable. Liam stopped mid-sip, his mug hovering in front of his face.
"I've been thinking about it all morning," Alexa continued. "Whether I should stop, or take a break, or change my name, or start filming from a different location. And I don't want to. This is how I pay my tuition. This is how I pay my rent. And I'm not going to let some anonymous asshole in this building take that away from me."
She set her mug down. Her hands were steady. That surprised her.
"Okay," Hayden said. Not argued. Not questioned. Just okay.
She looked at him. His dark eyes held hers, and there was something in them that she couldn't quite name — not pity, not concern, not admiration. Something quieter. Something that said he heard her.
"Then we figure out who it is," Ben said. "Without stopping your stream."
"How?" Alexa asked.
Ben reached for his phone, unlocked it, and turned it toward her. It was a campus directory page — a map of the building with room numbers listed. "We narrow it down. Whoever sent that tip was watching your stream live. That means they were online at the same time you were. If we can cross-reference the donation timestamp with network logs, we might be able to narrow the window."
"You can access network logs?" Marleny asked.
"No," Ben said. "But I know someone in IT who owes me a favor."
Liam let out a low whistle. "Ben's got a guy."
"Everyone has a guy," Ben said dryly. "I just happen to know mine's still sitting on the favor I did for him last semester when his server crashed during midterms."
Alexa looked at the phone screen, then at Ben. "You'd do that?"
"I'd do that." He said it simply, like it was obvious. Like of course he would.
Something shifted in her chest. She didn't have a name for it. She didn't try to find one.
"We should get going," Liam said, his voice softer than before. He was holding his keys again, turning them over in his fingers. "The clinic fills up after noon. If we go now, we'll be in and out."
Alexa nodded. She stood, her chair scraping against the floor. Her legs felt steadier now than they had when she'd walked in.
"I'll go with you," Marleny said, standing as well. Not a question.
"Marleny—" Alexa started.
"I'll wait in the car. You don't need me in the room. But I'm not sitting here drinking coffee while you're at a clinic because of something that happened last night." She picked up her mug, drained the last of it, and set it in the sink with a decisive clink.
Hayden stood too. He didn't say anything, just moved to stand near the door, his hand resting on the frame. When Alexa passed him, his fingers brushed her wrist — light, brief, a question more than a statement.
She stopped.
He didn't say anything for a long moment. Then, quiet enough that only she could hear: "You good?"
She looked at him. At the line of his jaw, the way his dark curls still held the damp from his shower, the calloused hand that had touched her last night and was now barely grazing her skin.
"Yeah," she said. "I'm good."
He nodded. Let his hand fall. Opened the door.
The hallway was empty, the same beige walls and fluorescent lights that had felt like a tunnel last night. Now they just felt like a hallway. Alexa stepped out, and the others followed — Marleny first, then Liam, then Ben, who paused to grab his jacket from the back of a chair.
Hayden stayed in the doorway, watching them go.
Alexa turned back, once, at the end of the hall. He was still there. His hand lifted in a small wave.
She lifted hers back.
The walk to the parking lot was short. Liam's truck was an old Ford with a dent in the passenger-side door and a bumper sticker that read I Brake for Garage Sales. He unlocked it and held the door open for Alexa with an awkward, earnest courtesy that made her almost smile.
Marleny climbed into the back without waiting for an invitation, her bag settled on her lap, her phone already in her hand.
"You know where you're going?" she asked Liam.
"Campus health center. Elm and Third." He started the engine, and the truck rumbled to life with a sound that suggested it was being held together by hope and good intentions. "Been there before. Forgot my tetanus shot."
"You forgot your tetanus shot?" Alexa asked.
"Stepped on a nail. It was a whole thing." He pulled out of the lot, one hand on the wheel, the other reaching to adjust his rearview mirror. "Ben said I was being dramatic. I had a fever for three days."
"You had a fever because you didn't clean the wound," Ben said from the back seat. He'd slid in next to Marleny, his long legs folded at an awkward angle. "Not because of tetanus."
"I'm choosing to remember it differently."
The truck turned onto Elm, the morning sun cutting through the windshield. Alexa leaned her head against the window, watching the buildings slide past. The campus was waking up — students with coffee cups, bikes chained to racks, a group playing frisbee on the quad. Normal. Ordinary. A world that had no idea about the night she'd had.
Marleny's hand appeared over the seat, holding out her phone. On the screen was a contact card: Ben Feist, with a phone number.
Alexa looked back at her. Marleny's expression was neutral, but her eyes said I'm watching him.
Alexa took the phone and saved the contact.
The health center was a low brick building set back from the road, with a glass door and a sign that listed hours and services. Liam pulled into the lot and killed the engine. The truck shuddered once, then fell silent.
"I'll be right here," he said. "Take your time."
Marleny opened her door. "I'll be in the waiting room."
Alexa looked at her. "You don't have to."
"I know." Marleny stepped out and shut the door.
Alexa sat there for a moment, her hand on the door handle. The truck smelled like Liam — coffee and something faintly mechanical, like he'd been working on it recently. The dashboard had a crack running across the top, and a small plastic dinosaur was glued to the center console, its head nodding slightly from the drive.
She smiled. Just a little.
Then she opened the door and stepped out into the morning.
The clinic was quiet. A receptionist with kind eyes checked her in, handed her a clipboard with forms, and pointed her toward a row of chairs. Marleny sat two seats away, scrolling through her phone, close enough to be present but far enough to give space.
Alexa filled out the forms. Name. Date of birth. Reason for visit. She paused at that line, then wrote Emergency contraception in neat, steady letters.
The pen felt solid in her hand.
A nurse called her name. She stood, handed the clipboard over, and followed the nurse down a hallway lined with posters about flu shots and mental health resources. The exam room was small and clean, with a paper-covered table and a window that looked out onto a parking lot.
"The doctor will be right with you," the nurse said, and closed the door.
Alexa sat on the edge of the table. Her fingers found the silver anti-eyebrow ring, touched it, then dropped.
She thought about Liam's face when she'd told him. The flicker in his hazel eyes. The way he'd just nodded and said I can drive you. If you want.
She thought about Hayden's hand on her wrist. The question in his voice.
She thought about Ben, already working on the stalker problem before anyone had even asked him to.
She thought about Marleny, sitting in the waiting room with her own coffee in a travel mug, ready to go to war for her.
The door opened. A woman in a white coat stepped in, her expression warm and professional. "Alexa? I'm Dr. Patel. I understand you're here for emergency contraception."
Alexa nodded.
"Let's talk through your options."
---
Twenty minutes later, she walked out of the exam room with a small paper bag in her hand. The pill was inside. She'd taken the first dose in the office, with a cup of water that had been just slightly too warm. The second dose sat in the bag, tucked next to a printed sheet of aftercare instructions.
Marleny looked up from her phone as Alexa emerged into the waiting room. She didn't ask. She just stood, pocketed her phone, and fell into step beside her.
They walked out into the sunlight together.
Liam was leaning against the truck, his hands in his pockets, his glasses catching the light. When he saw them, he straightened. His eyes went to Alexa's face first, scanning for something — and whatever he found there made his shoulders relax.
"All good?" he asked.
"All good," she said.
He nodded. Opened the door for her again. "Cool. I saw a place on the way here that does breakfast burritos. Anyone hungry?"
Marleny's mouth twitched. "I could eat."
"Alexa?"
She looked at him — at his messy hair and his crooked glasses and his earnest, ridiculous face. A laugh bubbled up from somewhere unexpected. "Yeah," she said. "Breakfast burritos sound perfect."
He grinned. "Get in. I know the way."
She climbed into the truck. Marleny slid in next to her this time, close enough that their shoulders touched. The engine coughed to life, and the little plastic dinosaur on the dashboard nodded along as Liam pulled out of the lot.
Alexa looked at the paper bag in her lap. Then she looked out the window, at the campus sliding past, at the students and the bikes and the ordinary morning happening all around them.
She wasn't alone in it.
His phone buzzed against the console. The sound was sharp in the truck's cabin — louder than it should have been over the idle of the engine and the low hum of the heater.
Liam glanced down. His hand moved before his eyes finished reading, thumb swiping the screen. The traffic light above them was still red, casting its dull glow through the windshield.
His expression changed. Not dramatically — just a small shift, the kind you catch in someone's jaw before they've decided how to react. He read the message again, then set the phone face-down on the console.
"Everything okay?" Marleny asked from the back seat.
"Yeah." He said it too quickly. "Just Ben. Wants to know if we're getting him a burrito."
Alexa watched him. His fingers stayed on the steering wheel, knuckles slightly white. The light turned green. He took the turn with more attention than it needed, checking both mirrors twice.
The lie sat in the air between them, small and unacknowledged.
Marleny's eyes met Alexa's in the rearview mirror. A single quick glance. She'd caught it too.
"You can tell Ben we'll bring him one," Alexa said, keeping her voice light. "What does he like?"
"Uh — anything with eggs. He's not picky." Liam's thumb tapped the wheel once, twice. "Hayden too. I'll text them when we get there."
He didn't reach for his phone.
The breakfast place was a small taqueria on a side street, painted bright yellow and green, with a handwritten sign in the window advertising $3 burritos before noon. Liam pulled into a spot at the curb and killed the engine. The truck shuddered once, then settled.
"I'll go in and order," he said, already reaching for the door. "You guys can wait here. Or come in. Whatever works."
He was out of the truck before anyone could answer, the door closing behind him with a hollow thud. Through the window, Alexa watched him walk to the entrance, his hands shoved in his pockets, his shoulders set in a line that didn't match his usual slouch.
She turned to Marleny. "That wasn't Ben."
"No." Marleny's voice was quiet, certain. "It wasn't."
"What do we do?"
Marleny considered for a moment, her dark eyes following Liam through the glass as he stepped up to the counter. "We wait. See if he brings it up. If he doesn't, I'll ask him when we're back at the dorm."
"Ask him in front of the others?"
"Ask him alone." Marleny's gaze shifted to Alexa. "He drove you to the clinic. He's earned the courtesy of a private conversation before I assume the worst."
Alexa nodded. Her hand found the paper bag on her lap, fingers tracing the folded edge. The second dose was still inside, tucked next to the instructions. She'd take it in twelve hours. The thought was mechanical now — a task on a checklist, not a weight.
Liam came back out five minutes later holding a brown paper sack stained with grease spots. He held it up through the window, his grin back in place, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Got us a feast. There's a bench around back if you want to eat outside."
They ate on a wooden bench tucked between the taqueria and a laundromat, the morning sun warming their faces. The burritos were good — eggs, chorizo, cheese, a smear of crema that dripped down Alexa's chin on the first bite. Marleny ate with methodical focus, unfolding her burrito from the foil like she was dismantling a piece of evidence. Liam finished his in about four bites, then sat with his hands resting on his knees, looking at nothing in particular.
"You're a quiet eater," he said, glancing at Alexa.
"You're a loud one."
"Fair." He picked at the foil wrapper, folding it into smaller and smaller squares. "I was thinking. About — you know. Everything."
"Everything's a lot."
"Yeah." He set the folded foil on the bench beside him. "I meant what I said earlier. About you not being alone in it. I know we're basically strangers, and I know last night was — a lot. But I'd like to not be a stranger. If that's something you'd want."
Alexa looked at him. The morning light caught the copper in his hair, made his hazel eyes look almost gold. He wasn't grinning. He wasn't deflecting. He was just sitting there, messy and honest, waiting for her answer.
"I'd like that," she said.
His smile — real this time — was worth the admission.
Marleny stood, brushing crumbs from her jeans. "I'm going to find a bathroom. Be right back." She walked toward the taqueria without looking back, leaving them alone on the bench.
Liam watched her go, then turned to Alexa. "She's something."
"She's everything."
"Yeah. I can tell." He paused. "She doesn't trust us yet."
"She doesn't trust anyone yet. That's how she is." Alexa wrapped the remaining half of her burrito back in the foil. "But she came with me today. She didn't have to."
"She came because she cares about you."
"Yeah."
The silence between them was comfortable, filled with the distant sounds of the city — a bus hissing to a stop, a dog barking from somewhere down the block. Liam picked at a loose thread on his jeans.
"Can I ask you something?" he said.
"Sure."
"Last night — when we were in my room. Did you feel — I mean, was it —" He stopped, ran a hand through his already-disheveled hair. "I'm not good at this part."
"The talking part?"
"The feeling part." He let out a short laugh. "I can tell you the chord progression to every song on the first three Modest Mouse albums, but ask me what I'm feeling and I freeze."
Alexa smiled. "What are you trying to ask?"
He was quiet for a moment, his fingers still working the thread. "I guess I want to know if it meant something to you. Not just the sex — the whole thing. Coming over. Meeting us. Sitting in that room with the camera on and then off, and then —" He gestured vaguely. "All of it."
She thought about the question. Really thought about it, the way you do when you know the answer matters more than the words.
"It meant something," she said. "I don't know what yet. But it wasn't nothing."
He nodded, his jaw relaxing. "Okay. That's — that's enough for now."
"For now?"
"I'm patient." He looked at her, and there was something steady in his gaze, something that hadn't been there before. "I can wait until you know."
Marleny reappeared from the taqueria, a toothpick in her mouth. "They have a clean bathroom. That's a good sign." She sat down on the bench, this time on Alexa's other side, forming a loose triangle. "We should head back. I've got a class at one."
Liam stood, offering a hand to Alexa. She took it. His palm was warm, his grip firm, and he held on a beat longer than necessary before letting go.
The ride back was quieter. Liam's phone stayed in his pocket. He didn't check it at any of the lights. But Alexa noticed his jaw was set, the same way it had been after the first buzz. Something was sitting in him, something he wasn't saying.
When they pulled into the dorm parking lot, he killed the engine and sat there for a moment, his hands still on the wheel.
"I need to tell you something," he said. "Before we go in."
Marleny's hand paused on the door handle. She didn't open it.
Liam took a breath. "That text. At the light. It wasn't from Ben."
Alexa's stomach tightened. "Who was it from?"
He pulled his phone from his pocket, unlocked it, and turned the screen toward her. The message was from an unsaved number. The preview line read:
Tell PixelFish I liked the show last night. Tell her I'm looking forward to the next one.
The words blurred for a second. Alexa blinked, and they sharpened again. The same pattern. The same knowing. The same chill that crawled up her spine.
"When did you get this?" she asked. Her voice was steady. She didn't know how.
"This morning. Before you came over for coffee. I didn't want to — I didn't know how to tell you in front of everyone." Liam's grip on the phone was tight. "I'm sorry I lied about it. I just needed a minute to think."
"Have you responded?" Marleny asked, her voice low.
"No. I didn't want to engage."
"Show me the full number."
Liam turned the phone toward her. Marleny studied it, then pulled out her own phone, typing quickly. "It's a burner app number. Disposable. Can't trace it."
Alexa stared at the screen. She could feel her heartbeat in her throat.
"They know I was with you last night," she said.
"Yeah." Liam's voice was rough. "And they're letting us know they know."
Marleny's phone buzzed. She glanced at it. "That's Ben. He says his IT contact can pull the login records for the building network from last night. It'll take a few hours."
"And then what?" Alexa asked. "We have a list of everyone who was online at the same time I was streaming?"
"That narrows it down," Marleny said. "Combined with the IP location from the tip last night, we might be able to identify a specific room."
"Might."
"It's more than we had an hour ago."
Alexa looked at the phone in Liam's hand. The message was still visible, the words glowing against the dark screen. She thought about last night — the camera, the dark, the feeling of being watched by an audience she couldn't see. She thought about the anonymity of it. The safety of not knowing who was on the other end.
This wasn't anonymous anymore.
She reached out, took Liam's phone, and typed a reply before either of them could stop her:
Glad you enjoyed it. Next one's tomorrow at midnight. Don't miss it.
She hit send.
Liam stared at her. "What did you just —"
"I'm not hiding," Alexa said, handing the phone back. "They already know who I am. They already know where I am. If I stop streaming, they win. If I act scared, they win. So I'm going to keep doing what I do, and they can watch like everyone else."
Her hands were shaking. She pressed them flat against her thighs to still them.
"And if they decide to do something with that information?" Marleny asked quietly. "If they show up at your door? If they post your address online?"
"Then I deal with it." Alexa's voice cracked on the last word, and she hated it. "I don't know what else to do."
Marleny's hand found hers on the seat. Warm. Solid. "You don't have to know alone."
Liam's phone buzzed again. He looked down. His face went pale.
"What?" Alexa asked.
He turned the screen toward her. A single line:
I never miss your shows, PixelFish. I'm closer than you think.
Liam's hand was shaking. Alexa's wasn't.
"Okay," she said, her voice quiet but clear. "Then let's find out how close."
She opened the truck door. The morning air hit her face, sharp and cold. She looked back at Marleny, then at Liam, still frozen in the driver's seat with the phone in his hand.
"We need to talk to Ben. And Hayden. And then we need to figure out the rest." She stepped out, the paper bag from the clinic still in her hand. "I'm not running from this."
Liam got out of the truck, his phone in his pocket. He walked around to join her, falling into step beside her. Marleny followed close behind.
The dorm hallway was empty, the fluorescent lights humming their familiar drone. Alexa stopped outside room 212. The whiteboard still had the cat playing guitar. She knocked twice.
The door opened. Hayden stood there, his dark eyes moving from Alexa's face to Liam's, reading something in the silence between them.
"What happened?"
"We need to talk," Alexa said. "Inside."
He stepped aside without another question.