Semua Bab STEP BROTHER DEAREST: Bab 21 - Bab 30

Chapter 22The plan began with a single look.Not a word. Not a whispered scheme in the corner of the cafeteria. Not even one of those late-night calls where voices soften and secrets spill. Just a glance.Ian had leaned back in his chair during class, his gaze finding mine across the aisle. His eyes flickered with something new — not just caution, not just that constant shadow of fear. This was sharper. Intentional.A spark.And I knew then: we weren’t waiting anymore.---It started small. Testing boundaries. Watching patterns.Ian’s stepbrother didn’t stalk like a villain from the movies. He didn’t lurk in alleys or follow us home. He drifted — into our world, through it, vanishing before anyone else even noticed. The cafeteria. The park. The edges of the library. He was a ghost who wanted us to *see* him without ever catching him.So we decided to catch him.Or at least, make him believe we could.---“We can’t play defense forever,” Ian said one evening, his voice tight, measured

Chapter 24: The library was a maze in the dark.Shelves loomed overhead like silent sentinels, towering in every direction. Shadows pooled thick in the corners, twisting into shapes my mind wanted to believe were alive. The faint hum of the emergency lights overhead flickered, barely cutting through the darkness.Ian’s hand was solid in mine, grounding me, but I could feel the tension coiling through his arm. “We stay together,” he whispered.I nodded, though the knot in my stomach tightened with every step. “Always.” *Strength without sight is blindness. Sight without strength is madness. Which will you choose?*The words echoed in my head again. They weren’t just a warning. They were a challenge.And I could feel the first test forming around us.---The first obstacle appeared almost immediately.A low hum vibrated through the floorboards beneath us. Shelves shifted, or maybe it was our imagination — the library had never been so silent, yet so alive. Then came the whispers. Sof

Chapter 26The night air was sharp, biting at my skin as I met Ian outside the library. We hadn’t spoken much since the strategy session. Words felt heavy with anticipation, every breath measured, every glance loaded with unspoken tension.“Tonight’s the night,” Ian whispered, scanning the empty streets around us. “First move. First real offensive. Are you ready?”I nodded, even though my stomach twisted into knots. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”He studied me for a moment, then smiled faintly. “Good. Then let’s not waste it.”---Our plan was simple in theory but deadly in execution. We would bait him, drawing him toward a location where we could observe, record, and predict his reactions. We weren’t going to confront him directly — not yet. This was reconnaissance with a purpose: to force him to reveal a weakness.We split up, taking different streets around the park near the east gate. Each of us carried a small notebook, a pen, and a few signal devices we’d created: small lights that

Chapter 28The morning after the library blackout, the world seemed unnervingly normal. Sunlight streamed through the windows, birds chirped in the trees, and the distant hum of traffic sounded mundane. But we knew better. The calm was a trap — a precursor to the storm we had provoked.Ian, Madison, and I gathered in the small back room of the library, which had become our makeshift command center. The table was cluttered with maps, notebooks, signal devices, and scattered markers. Every inch of paper, every scribble, every mark was a small piece of the puzzle we were trying to complete.“This is it,” Ian said, eyes scanning our plans. “Tonight, we don’t just react. We force him to act. We dictate the rhythm. But we stay safe, coordinated, and invisible until the right moment.”I nodded, feeling a mixture of adrenaline and dread. For weeks, we had moved cautiously, studied patterns, and survived his attacks. But tonight, we would step out of the shadows and test our strategy in the fi

Chapter 30The days following the warehouse encounter were tense, each one stretching longer than the last. Shadows seemed to linger in the corners of my vision, and every unexpected noise felt like a potential threat. The stepbrother hadn’t attacked directly again, but the quiet was no comfort — it was a warning. He was recalibrating, preparing for something larger, and we had to be ready.Ian, Madison, and I spent every waking hour analyzing our previous engagements, mapping patterns, and preparing contingencies. The library had become a war room, its shelves lined with notebooks, maps, and devices, each one a piece of the puzzle we were slowly assembling.“We need a real win,” Ian said one evening, pacing the room. His voice was calm, but his eyes were sharp. “Small victories build confidence, and confidence is everything. We’ve survived, adapted, and learned. Now it’s time to act.”I nodded, my fingers tracing the lines on a map we had drawn of the city’s outskirts. “Where do we s