"We don't really have to be scared of them anymore."

Roland's words were on a loop in Jordan's head as she got ready for bed that night. We don't really have to be scared of them anymore. 'Them' being Nathan and Erin. 'Them' being the two people who had done everything in their power to make Jordan's life a living hell for the past few months.

'Them' being two people who Jordan was still insanely scared of.

She knew she shouldn't be. They didn't have anything over her anymore; they didn't have power or the element of surprise or any sort of secrecy. Jordan could walk into the police station and tell them that Erin Green was alive and give the sketch artist a description of Nathan's face. They could be caught within days.

She wasn't sure why the group hadn't done that yet. Perhaps they would do that soon.

But deep down, Jordan knew they were all still terrified of what could potentially happen to them if they did anything. The innate fear of Nathan and Erin was still imbedded in their hearts and would be for a while. Sure, she had escaped death at their hands this time. She wasn't so sure that she would have the same luck when another chance came along.

Jordan slowly took off her fake lashes and put them to the side of her vanity as she looked at herself in the mirror. She felt bare without her fake eyelashes. Naked. She had always hated the kind that the girls at school wore: too thick and long to ever be considered as able to pass for real. Hers were just right: long but not too long, thick but not too thick. They didn't stick out in clumps or make her actual eyelashes fall out with too much use. They were just right. They fit her just right.

So, she felt odd without them. She felt odd without her fake lashes, but she felt even stranger with no threatening text message looming on her phone.

She took a makeup wipe out of the package on her vanity and started rubbing off the rest of her makeup. Jordan could see the exhaustion in her face—it seemed to be seeping out from every pore. Months of running from a masked stalker did that to someone; it made makeup the only thing capable of hiding the exhaustion.

Jordan left her vanity and headed for the bathroom to start her skincare routine. Exfoliating cleanser with salicylic acid to combat the stress acne she had begun to develop. Toner, serum, moisturizer. Rose spray.

The house was radio silent as Jordan finished spraying her face. She hated having the house to herself—it was far too large for only one person to be staying in it. Jordan only had one sibling now that Neil was gone: her 15-year-old sister Alexis, who hated Jordan and everything having to do with her family since Neil passed. Neil had been Alexis' protector, and now she felt isolated from the family.

Since Neil's passing, Alexis had done everything she could to be away from the Conrad home. Tonight she was having a sleepover at a friend's house...for the third time that week.

Jordan's parents were not only out of town, but out of the country: they had taken off on a three-week European vacation to celebrate their 26th wedding anniversary. Away from their children and away from Easton, the sole reminder of the fact that they used to have three children who were alive and well.

Jordan sighed to herself before turning off the light and climbing into bed. Her family should have gone to therapy after they lost Neil. But instead they had isolated themselves from each other and tried to pretend nothing traumatic had happened to them.

Just as she was about to drift off to sleep, Jordan heard a loud thud from the floor below her.

She shot straight up in her bed, sitting up and turning on the small lamp on the bedside table. Her heart was racing a million miles a second, convincing her that someone in that house was ready to kill her. Because that's what your mind did after being stalked for months on end. You started to think that everything and everyone was out to get you.

Jordan strained her ears to try and figure out if there was actually anyone in her house, but she couldn't hear anything else. Her hands shook slightly as she reached over to turn off the lamp and settle back under her covers, convincing herself that she was shivering from the cold and not from fear.

Just a few minutes after she had turned the light off and her heartrate had begun to go down, another thud echoed from downstairs.

Jordan shook her head to herself, refusing to turn the light back on.

I'm being paranoid. There's no one in my house. The stalker is done.

Another thud, a softer one, seemed to come from close to Jordan's door.

And another.

And another.

Footsteps, getting closer and closer.

Jordan grabbed her phone off of the bedside table and shakily opened it, dialing 911 slowly and deliberately. She was about to press dial when her phone buzzed with a text message from a blocked number.

Lights out.

Jordan barely had time to scream before a hand clapped a soaking wet cloth over her face and she felt the world go black.

A/N: Surprise! I told you guys that 2023 is my year of finishing series that I haven't finished yet. Next up is Killer Instinct, which means Survival of the Fittest! Chapters will be posted every week, but you can get the chapters a week early on Radish Fiction and Kindle Vella! (that means that Chapter 5 is already up on those sites now!) You can find me on Radish Fiction under the username kathpowell and on Kindle Vella by searching "Survival of the Fittest Katherine Powell."