Obsession (18+) (FINISHED) (2024)

2

Riley

"Okay, what the hell are we doing here?" Claire, my best friend, questioned. "And why now? It's almost eight and it's kind of dark out here, not gonna lie."

I was in a small friend group in my high school, Manhattan. The group consisted of Claire, Ryan, Bella, and me, and everyone was very close despite previous broken off relationships.

Bella died many months ago, almost a year ago, and Claire as well as Ryan slowly got out of the grieving process after the first eight months, but I never really had closure knowing that my best friend's killer was still out there somewhere.

Claire was the average teen girl, though she never really died her hair blonde like Bella did; she had long, black locks that fell past her shoulders.

Bella—on the other hand—had straight, blonde hair that she curled at the ends every morning, and after the recent pandemic across the entire world, she was one of the select teens who wore pajamas to school.

Ryan was the average jock, though he was silently nerdy. I never really understood how he had straight A's whereas the rest of my classes who played sports their whole lives had B's or below. Ryan had brown hair, though it was pretty dark so some thought it might've been black, and he had those odd brown eyes that also had specks of black in them.

I—on the other hand—was the mixed race teen in the group; I had dark brown curly hair that—for some reason—decided to be wavy some days. I straightened it most of the time, and of course curled it at the ends. I honestly hated how it looked naturally, and I had to buy expensive hair stuff in order to get those coils I really liked. My skin was a very light brown, so light that some considered me tan. I had beautiful silver eyes, as my mother once said; the eyes I got from my ancestors. And my average day-to-day clothes were skirts and a T-shirt, or jeans and a sweatshirt.

If I wore skirts, it was usually worn with leggings. I honestly didn't like showing off my body like other girls did.

"Earth to Riley," Claire said, waving a hand in front of my face. "We've been standing here for ten minutes, and it's getting kind of chilly. What's happening, girl?"

"Ryan was in my bedroom earlier," I explained, "and as I was shoving him out the door, I found a feather in my room."

"So, we looking for a bird, or...."

"No," I answered shortly, "I looked out the window and saw a guy out there."

Claire raised her brows. "Secret boyfriend?"

"No, I don't even know him," I said. "And can you please let me speak? Thanks." I stared off into the distance for a moment. "He was wearing a masquerade mask, and it had like these weird horns and feathers attached to the sides, but when I was going to ask him who he was, he told me to be silent."

"That's creepy."

"He pointed to the roof of my house," I said, pulling out a note from my pocket, "and I found this."

Claire read the lines of the note before pulling back. "Riley, if you get us killed, I swear to God."

"We're going to be fine," I answered. "He told us to meet him here and he mentioned that I could bring a friend if I felt unsafe alone. So that's a good sign, right?"

"Or because he has an entire group of strong ass men with him so they can mug us and dump us in the river." Claire put her thumbs up. "Great job, Riley. We're dying tonight."

I just stared off in the distance for a moment. "I don't know why... but I have a feeling he's going to help us."

"Why do you have this feeling? Did he say something about it?" Claire questioned.