Monday came dressed in bright sun and noisy hallways. Students spilled across the quad with coffee cups and half-awake faces, the air buzzing with lectures, gossip, and deadlines. Kaylee kept her hoodie up and her stride steady, hoping to pass through the morning without being seen.
"Kaylee!"
She didn't have to turn to know the voice. Jackson fell into step beside her, grin loaded like a weapon he trusted too much.
"Morning. Thought we could—"
"No." She didn't slow.
He laughed like she was teasing. "At least let me—"
"I said no." She cut a glance up at him—cool, flat—then looked away. The message landed. He drifted a step back, wounded pride tucked under a shrug.
"Okay. Cool. See you around," he said, trying to keep it light.
She didn't answer. She moved through the doors, her reflection sliding across glass and metal—past bulletin boards, past a vending machine hum—until the campus swallowed her. Jackson stood where she'd left him, hands raking through his hair, telling himself she was just playing hard to get.
From the far end of the corridor, almost hidden by a pillar, a cigarette ember pulsed once and went still. Kayden watched without a word, smoke curling like a quiet warning that never needed sound.
⸻
By lunch, Jackson's resolve had grown legs. He found her again outside the library, sun sharp on the steps.
"Look, I get it," he started, blocking her path just enough to be noticed, not enough to force. "I came off strong. I'm new here, and—"
She stepped to the side. He stepped with her. She stopped. So did he.
"You're not listening," she said, voice low. "Stop following me."
He lifted both hands, half-smile, half-surrender. "Fair. I'll back off. Just… if you ever change your mind—"
"I won't."
That should've been the end. It wasn't. He stayed a second too long, searching her face for something that wasn't there. Then he nodded, swallowed, and let her go.
Across the quad, a figure in a black T-shirt leaned against a tree, someone else watched and smirked. Not the calm smile. The crooked, amused, dangerous one that meant trouble was in the room whether anyone could see it or not. Jackson finally turned away.
Kadeem.
⸻
Dusk dropped early, turning the parking lot into a chessboard of long shadows. Jackson cut across the asphalt, bag slung over his shoulder, keys clenched in one fist. He kept telling himself he wasn't rattled. He kept telling himself that guy with the cigarette—whoever he was—wasn't following anyone. He kept telling himself Kaylee would come around.
"Lost, pretty boy?"
The voice slid out from the dark like a dare. Jackson looked up.
Same jaw. Same eyes. Same height. Same everything as the guy from the quad.
"You again?" Jackson scoffed, masking the twitch in his pulse. "You got a problem?"
Kadeem pushed off the hood of a car and strolled closer, hands empty, smile not. "Two, actually. One: you don't listen. Two: you don't learn."
"From who? You?" Jackson squared up, the thud of his heartbeat loud in his ears. "Back off."
Kadeem's smile tilted, playful flipping to predatory in a breath. "Cute." He landed a heavy punch on his face
The first hit stole Jackson's air and his balance. He tried to swing—he caught his wrist,and twisted his elbow, pain like white fire. The second hit folded him. The third dimmed the world at the edges. He tasted metal. He heard his own breath, ragged and wrong, and somewhere beneath it, a soft laugh that didn't belong in a human throat.
"What—" he gasped, trying to focus. "What do you want?"
"Obedience," Kadeem said, almost kindly. "But I'll settle for silence."
Darkness swept the lot as the night finished closing its fist. A car door groaned open. Leather. Cold metal. The smell of smoke and something sharp. Jackson tried to shout; a hand he didn't see closed the sound down to nothing.
The world vanished.
⸻
When it returned, it was made of rope and fear.
His wrists burned. Ankles too. He was seated—no, tied—to a chair that creaked when he breathed. A blindfold pressed heat into his eyes. The room was cold enough to shiver his bones and thick with the scent of cigarette smoke and concrete.
"Please," he whispered, the word scraping. "Please, God—"
Footsteps answered. Slow. Deliberate. The air shifted like someone dragged night into the room and let it stand behind him.
Fingers reached the cloth. Ripped it away.
Light stabbed. The blur resolved into a face he'd swear he already knew and a smirk he'd never forget.
Kadeem.
"Your knight is here now," he murmured, a devil's purr curving around the words. "Let's play, Jackson."
Jackson shook his head so hard the room shook with him. Sweat crawled down his temple.
"Please—I don't want to play—just let me go, I beg you in the name of God—"
Kadeem's mouth twitched. "Wrong reply, Jackie. God isn't here to save you." He leaned close, voice amused and merciless. "Beg in the name of the devil."
The ropes dropped from Jackson's wrists.
"Run," Kadeem said, stepping back like a gentleman at a ballroom door. "If you play well, maybe you die with ease. Now run for your life, Jackson—and make sure I don't catch you."
Jackson bolted. Instinct over thought. He crashed through a doorway into black corridors that smelled of rust and dust. A laugh followed—low, happy, hunting—and it didn't come from behind or ahead; it came from everywhere like the walls were grinning.
He sprinted left. A shape peeled out of shadow and became a man.
Kaden.
Jackson skidded, slammed shoulder to the wall. "Ho—h—how— you were—"
"Not fast enough," Kaden said, smile bright and wrong in the dark.
Jackson spun and ran the other way, lungs on fire. He didn't look back. He couldn't. A corner, a pipe, a doorway, a breath—then the corridor opened into a wider room and he stumbled to a halt.
He saw him.
Not Kadeem. Not exactly.
A figure leaned against a pillar like he'd been there forever, cigarette a small star in the dark, eyes colder than the concrete. He didn't speak. He didn't need to.
Kayden.
Jackson's stomach fell through him. He staggered backward and almost collided with a third shadow stepping out of the gloom—calm, watchful, stare sharp as winter.
Kadin.
He turned again, desperate, and there—closing the circle with a smile that made every prayer in him go quiet—stood the one he'd met on campus before, the grin that warned and welcomed like a blade.
Kaden.
One face. Four bodies. The same and not the same. Sanity slipped like sweat.
"What the— what the fuck is this?" Jackson choked. "Who are you people?"
They laughed—not loud, not crude—just a shared sound like a private joke they didn't mind letting him hear.
Kadeem tilted his head. "We told you not to follow what wasn't yours."
Kaden's grin didn't reach his eyes.
Kayden took one drag, ash falling like snow, eyes never leaving Jackson's.
Kadin's voice was the only soft thing in the room, and even that felt like a verdict. "The game is boring for tonight."
Rope bit his skin again before he felt hands. The chair took him back like it had been waiting. The room seemed to step away as they stepped back, four silhouettes fitting into the edges of the dark like they owned it.
Jackson thrashed. It didn't matter. He screamed. The walls ate the sound.
Kadeem leaned in one last time, his smile close enough to steal breath. "Sleep tight, Jackie. We'll come back for more."
The blindfold fell like a curtain. The world blinked out.
⸻
Outside the room, footsteps faded—four sets, perfectly out of sync, a harmony of danger. Somewhere far above, Monday night kept pretending to be ordinary: streetlights humming, dorm windows glowing, Kaylee lying awake and not knowing that the warning she ignored had turned into a hunt with her name written underneath it.
And in the dark, bound to the chair where the devil liked to play, Jackson finally understood:
It had never been one man.
It was four.