Chapter 44: A Monster’s Applause

The campus buzzed like a wasp’s nest.

Ryan couldn’t step into the library without someone staring. Whispers followed him down hallways, echoing off lockers and the edges of lecture rooms. Some eyes were filled with sympathy. Others pity. And a few gleamed with something darker.

“Guess you’re famous now,” Chris said under his breath as they crossed the quad.

Ryan adjusted the strap of his bag, keeping his head high. “Good. Let them look. Let them remember.”

But just beneath the surface, he could feel the tremor.

Adrien was silent.

Too silent.

Not a post. Not a cryptic comment. Not a stunt.

And that, more than anything, put Ryan on edge.

Daniel met them outside the administration building.

He looked tired. Pale. He didn’t even bother with hello.

“You need to see this.”

He held out his phone.

On it: a blurry photo taken inside a cafe near campus. Adrien. Sitting alone. Smiling.

But that wasn’t the part that turned Ryan’s stomach.

It was what was written beneath it—graffiti scrawled on the wall behind him in smeared, red ink:

“THE AUTHOR IS ALWAYS RIGHT.”

Chris took a step back. “He’s taunting you.”

Daniel nodded grimly. “And there’s more. Look.”

He swiped to another image this one of a flyer taped around different parts of campus. The same phrase again, in bold type.

Ryan’s name printed underneath.

With a date.

October 14.

“That’s in three days,” Chris murmured. “What is he planning?”

Ryan’s throat was dry. “A finale.”

That night, Ryan sat alone at his desk, scrolling through the responses to his video again.

There were so many. Too many to absorb at once.

Some were anonymous voices thanking him.

Some… were from other people Adrien had manipulated.

One message stood out:

He told me I was his muse. When I tried to walk away, he left a dead bird on my windowsill.

Ryan stared at the screen, hand hovering.

A knock on the door made him jolt.

Chris poked his head in. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Ryan lied. “Just reading.”

Chris stepped inside. “I’ve been thinking. What if we beat him to the ending?”

Ryan turned. “What do you mean?”

“We throw an event,” Chris said. “A panel. A campus-wide awareness day. You speak. I speak. Daniel too. We bring in counselors. Real resources. We take control of the narrative before Adrien can hijack it.”

Ryan blinked.

It was bold.

It was public.

It was dangerous.

“I’m in,” he said quietly.

Chris smiled. “Then let’s make it happen.”

By the next afternoon, flyers for the event were everywhere.

“OWN YOUR STORY: A SURVIVOR SPEAKS”  OCTOBER 14

Ryan stood in the student union lobby, helping tape the last one up when his phone buzzed.

An image.

No caption.

It was his dorm window, taken from outside.

He rushed to the window and flung it open.

Nothing.

No one.

Just wind and the fading echo of laughter.

But not just any laughter.

It was his own.

Distorted.

Recorded.

Played back like a loop.

Chris was beside him in a second. “Ryan?”

Ryan turned, and for a moment, he wasn’t sure what frightened him more

Adrien’s stalking?

Or the fact that no matter what he did…

The man always stayed one step ahead.

Late that night, Ryan opened his notebook.

The one he hadn’t touched in months.

The one Jake used to mock, and Adrien used to praise like scripture.

He flipped to a blank page.

Picked up a pen.

And wrote:

This story doesn’t belong to you, Adrien Wolfe. It never did. It belongs to the boy who survived you. The boy who speaks now. The boy who ends this.