Chapter 39: In the Shadow of His Name

Ryan hadn’t meant to return to the archives alone.

He told Chris and Daniel he was going to class. He even grabbed his books and smiled like everything was normal.

But the moment he was out the door, his steps carried him not toward the lecture hall but back toward the library’s underbelly a rarely used annex behind the special collections wing. The part of the building that smelled like old paper and forgotten secrets.

He had to know more about Elias.

There was something too deliberate in Adrien’s silence lately. Too calm. Like he was waiting. And Ryan had a sinking feeling that knowing what happened to Elias might reveal what Adrien was planning.

He reached the far cabinet, slid open the top drawer of local incident reports, and flipped quickly to the right year. It took time. Most of the Augustine Street Case had been sealed or redacted.

But Ryan found fragments bits of news stories, mentions of a young man who’d vanished after being linked to “a violent outburst at an unnamed residence.”

And then he found the photo.

It wasn’t the same one Daniel had shown him it was earlier. A younger Elias, maybe seventeen, standing in a school hallway. Sharp jawline, pale skin, dark eyes.

Ryan’s chest tightened.

He looked just like Adrien.

It wasn’t just the resemblance it was the stillness in his eyes, that uncanny calm. A look that didn’t belong on a teenager. It made Ryan feel like the photo was looking at him.

He kept going. Found something else an interview transcript from a former teacher who had described Elias as “brilliant but removed,” and “obsessed with certain students he thought were pure.”

Ryan stared at that line for a long time.

Then something moved.

Not a sound. Just the faint sense of movement in the corner of his eye just enough to make his spine lock up.

He turned sharply. Nothing. Just dim shelves and empty air.

But his phone buzzed a second later.

A message.

Unknown Number:

You always were curious. So was he.

Want to end up like him too?

Ryan’s breath stopped. He backed away from the cabinet, heart slamming in his chest.

Then another message.

Unknown Number:

Check the blue notebook behind the fire alarm on the third floor. 9 p.m. Come alone.

He nearly dropped the phone. It was barely 3 p.m.

Seven hours.

He shouldn’t go.

He should tell Chris. Tell Daniel. Let them figure it out.

But something deep in his gut whispered that Adrien was unraveling something bigger and if Ryan didn’t follow it, someone else might pay the price.

He left the archives with shaking hands and walked out into the cold air. The sunlight felt too bright, too fake.

Chris called him an hour later. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Ryan lied. “Just tired.”

Chris didn’t press, but his voice was warm. “I’ll make dinner. Come home soon, alright?”

“I will.”

But he wouldn’t.

9:01 p.m.

The third floor was quiet. Ryan stood in front of the small, cracked fire alarm between two stacks of forgotten psychology textbooks. He reached behind it, heart pounding.

The notebook was there.

Thin. Blue. Tattered edges.

He flipped it open.

It wasn’t Adrien’s handwriting. It was Elias’s.

Page after page of fragmented thoughts, paranoia, drawings. Sketches of rooms with no doors. Phrases underlined over and over: He sees me. He watches even when I sleep. I have to stay clean. I have to stay worthy.

Then drawings of faces.

One of them looked like Ryan.

No Ryan realized it was someone who looked like him. Same eyes. Same jaw. It was drawn again and again smiling, sleeping, bleeding.

And on the final page, in rough scrawl:

He promised he wouldn’t become me. But he’s already worse.

A shadow moved behind the bookshelf.

Ryan whirled around.

Adrien stood there, smiling gently, hands in the pockets of his coat.

“I was hoping you’d come.”

Ryan’s breath caught.

“Why are you doing this?” he whispered.

Adrien tilted his head. “You’re the one who pulled the thread. You wanted to know the story. Now you’re in it.”

“I’m not him.”

Adrien stepped closer.

“I know,” he said. “That’s what makes you so much more interesting.”