Stacy woke with the sound of Rafael’s voice lingering in her ears. It was not real of course, just the echo of his confessions seeping into her dreams, but it felt as though he had whispered directly into her skin. She sat up in her bed, her heart beating wildly, her sheets tangled as though she had been fighting invisible hands all night.
She rubbed her temples and looked at the notebook on her nightstand. It was filled with words that belonged to him, yet she had been the one to write them down. Lines of his stories were etched in her own handwriting. The thought unsettled her.
“Get it together,” she muttered to herself. “You are in control. You are the one asking questions. You are not the subject here.”
Yet when she tried to go back to sleep, his eyes surfaced again. Those dark, haunted eyes that flickered between tenderness and cruelty. The eyes of a man who could slit a throat and then speak of love in the same breath.
She rose from her bed and went to her desk where her drafts were scattered. The room was dimly lit by the lamp on the corner, and her laptop screen glowed faintly, filled with unfinished paragraphs. She read a line aloud, her voice trembling.
“He confessed that he killed the one who trusted him most, and yet when he spoke, his voice trembled like a child abandoned.”
Stacy froze. She had written that. It was not objective reporting. It was not detached journalism. It was personal. Too personal.
She dropped into the chair and buried her face in her hands. “What are you doing, Stacy? You are supposed to be documenting, not feeling.”
The sound of her phone vibrating broke the silence. She picked it up and saw her father’s name flashing on the screen. She hesitated before answering.
“Hello?”
Filemon Bendoy’s voice came sharp and commanding. “You are avoiding me again.”
“I am busy, Papa. I told you already. I am working on something important.”
“Important? Do you think writing about a murderer is important? Do you understand what this is doing to our family name? People are whispering. They are asking why my daughter insists on playing in the mud with criminals.”
“Because no one else will,” Stacy shot back. “Because people like Rafael Manuel expose truths that men like you bury.”
There was a pause, long and heavy. “Careful, Stacy. You do not know what you are saying.”
“I know exactly what I am saying. Goodbye, Papa.” She ended the call and threw the phone onto the bed. Her chest rose and fell quickly, her breath uneven.
She stared back at her notes, Rafael’s words mingling with her own emotions. She told herself she hated him, that she was only there to extract truth. But the more she wrote, the more she realized that her sentences carried warmth, sympathy even, as though she were trying to understand him rather than condemn him.
The next day she returned to the prison, her recorder and notebook ready. The guard opened the door and she stepped into the room where Rafael was waiting. He sat calmly, hands folded, eyes trained on her like he had been expecting her thoughts all along.
“You look restless,” he said smoothly. “Did I haunt your dreams again?”
Stacy did not answer. She sat down and clicked her recorder. “We are not here to talk about my dreams. We are here for clarity.”
Rafael chuckled. “Clarity. Interesting word. But clarity is a mirror, and sometimes mirrors show more than we want to see. Tell me, Stacy, what did you see when you closed your eyes last night?”
“Stop,” she snapped. “This is not about me.”
“Everything is about you now,” he replied softly. “You are not just recording my confessions. You are becoming part of them.”
Stacy’s grip on her pen tightened. “That is not true.”
“Is it not? Look at your notes. I bet your sentences are no longer neutral. I bet you describe me with words that taste like curiosity, maybe even longing. You write me as though you want to save me.”
Her throat dried, but she forced her voice steady. “You are trying to manipulate me.”
“I am telling you what is already happening,” Rafael said. His eyes narrowed slightly. “You think you can stand at a distance, but you are already close enough to burn.”
Stacy took a deep breath and leaned forward. “Then tell me this. Why do you want me to know so much about you? Why me and not anyone else?”
Rafael smiled, a dangerous, knowing smile. “Because you listen. You hear the spaces between my words. You see the shadow, not just the man. And maybe because I know you are not as different from me as you pretend.”
“I am nothing like you,” she said quickly.
“Then why are your dreams filled with me?” Rafael whispered.
Her pulse hammered in her ears. She hated the way he cut through her defenses, how he made her feel exposed. She tried to steer the conversation back. “This interview is about your crimes, Rafael. Not me. Not my life. Stay with your confessions.”
He leaned closer, his voice lowering. “Confessions are never about crimes alone. They are about desire, weakness, and the ways we betray ourselves. That is what fascinates you, Stacy. Not the blood I spilled, but the why behind it. And that why connects to you.”
She shook her head. “You are twisting this.”
“Am I?” Rafael asked calmly. “Or are you afraid that I am right?”
Stacy felt the heat rise in her chest. She slammed her notebook shut and stood. “This session is over.”
But before she could walk away, Rafael’s voice chased after her. “Remember, Stacy. Weakness is not always a wound. Sometimes it is the doorway to truth. And your weakness is me.”
She froze in her steps, trembling, before forcing herself out the door.
That night, Stacy sat in her apartment again, staring at her blank screen. She could not bring herself to type. Every time she tried, she saw Rafael’s smile, his voice replaying in her mind.
Trisha’s name appeared in her notes. The shadow of the woman who had been Rafael’s lover, his accomplice. Stacy wondered if Trisha had once felt this same pull, this same dangerous fascination that blurred love and destruction.
She closed her eyes and whispered, “I will not let you take me the way you took her.”
But when she opened her eyes again, her fingers began to type. Words flowed, words that were not objective but intimate.
“He looks at me as though I am already part of his story, as though my presence validates his existence. And I fear that he is right.”
Stacy stared at the sentence she had just written, horrified by her own admission. She shut the laptop quickly and pushed it aside.
She rose and went to the window, staring out at the dark city below. Lights flickered, cars moved, lives went on. Yet here she was, caught in a storm created by a man locked behind bars.
Her phone buzzed again. A message this time. From an unknown number.
“You are losing yourself, Stacy. He is pulling you in.”
The message made her blood run cold. She typed quickly. “Who is this?”
No reply came. She tried again, but the silence was deafening. She dropped the phone onto the couch and pressed her hands to her face.
Somewhere deep inside, she knew it was true. She was losing control. And her weakness was not just curiosity anymore. It was him.
ns216.73.216.46da2
and then Add to home screen.