Ilaria woke up in a cold sweat, her body shook but not just because it was cold. She blinked her eyes against the pressing darkness of her room and allowed them to adjust before slumping against her headboard.

They were becoming more and more common. The nightmares. They wouldn't go away, Ilaria, despite her pride, started taking her medications but it seemed it wasn't working.

She reached for her phone under her pillow to check the time, it read 3:45am.

Her eyes pricked with tears, she was exhausted. She couldn't remember the last time she got a good night's rest and maybe she was being dramatic but it was frustrating.

She threw her blankets off her, ignoring the icy chill that bit into her skin right through her fluffy pajamas and moved over to her window. Staring out at the garden and the woods that stretched after it.

She stood there for a while, staring at the trees with a dusting of snow over the top. The snow fell harder with each passing day, she was sure that by the end of the month it would be up to her knees.

Below, in her yard, she thought she caught a movement. She blinked and moved closer to her window, she'd thought her mind was playing tricks on her but there was someone down there.

Ilaria grabbed her phone and made her way downstairs, quietly so as to not wake up her family. She quietly pushed open her front door. Her heart beat so fast she thought it might just stop from fatigue.

She squinted against the falling snow and stepped out, quietly though the urge to call out was strong she knew it would be stupid to do so.

The cold begun seeping through her slippers as she made her way to the back of her house quietly.

When she got there she found a box on the floor, right in the center of it. With a bow, in her favorite color. She noted.

The hair at the back of her neck stood up and she glanced behind her but no one was there, Atleast no one she could see.

She bent down to pick it up with shaky hands and ran back to her room, almost slipping twice on the icy ground before actually getting inside her house.

Once in her room she put the box down on her bed, chewing on her lips, she moved to shut her curtains - unable to shake the feeling that someone was watching her. Hiding somewhere in the woods, possibly.

She didn't bother taking off the bow nicely and tossed it on the bed, then she opened up the lid.

Ilaria didn't know what she was expecting but she wasn't expecting pictures.

Of her brother going to college, of her mother on lunch at work, of her working in her room, of Kai reading a book in his lounge or of the two of them stringing information across the bored.

She felt numb with fear, eventually she set the pictures down and reached for the letter that was tucked underneath all of it.

You couldn't save them and you won't find me.

Ilaria blinked and let out a manic sort of laugh, she wasn't sure why she was laughing but she couldn't stop it from clawing up her throat. She felt so so much fear, so much of it and yet she laughed.

When does the line between smart and insane, start blurring? She felt like she'd crossed that line.

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When Ilaria finally calmed down, she called Kai. It was instinct that she called him, no matter how small of a matter it was.

He was there in less than 30 minutes, staring down at the pictures with Ilaria.

"so they're watching us" Ilaria blew out a breath.

"They wouldn't do anything though, Atleast not to you" Kai replied "this is just to scare you, to make you believe they would. It's to make you back off, we're closing in on them and they're panicking."

Ilaria let those words sink in, let it wrap around her and tame her fear "they would be breaking their pattern if they did anything to me." she concluded and Kai nodded to show her she was correct.

Kai arranged the pictures in order "This team,they're trying to throw us off because we already ruled out that they didn't stalk their victims, this is to make us think they did." he tapped the ones of them together "there's only three of us together but that's what they're most interested in, how we're piecing all of this together."

Ilaria remained silent and focused on breathing, remaining calm. She kept telling herself there was no reason to panic, she needed her head in the right place and that was here, with Kai.

"these guys, they're maticulous. Controlled. They plan everything perfectly right up to the very last detail and maybe this is one of those things but I know it was done out of panic. They're scared of us finding them. This was done suddenly, he didn't have time to think it through." Kai went on, he shrugged "what I'm saying is, don't let it get to you. You might get a few more of these 'gifts' but focus on finding them, nothing is going to happen to you. "

Ilaria swallowed and shifted closer to Kai, a thing she did though she didn't realize or more, didn't want to admit- for comfort. To know that someone was there and real.

"so what do we do now?" she asked, the words felt strange in her mouth. She always knew what to do, somehow. She never thought she'd find herself not knowing. It scared her, more than she'd like to admit.

Kai turned to her, let out a breath and shook his head." you worry too much, you know that?" he asked her as he brushed a stray strand of hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear "now, we go on and we don't stop till we find them. Sound good?"

She smiled softly "sounds good."
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Hey heyyy :)

Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, also the chapters are going to get progressively longer.

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Thanks for reading!🤍