Page 19 of The Code of You

I didn’t say anything. My heart was pounding. What was I supposed to tell her? The truth? I didn’t even know the truth. I didn’t know what kind of sick game he was playing with me. Or why I couldn’t shake it.

"So what does it do?” She stepped closer. "Write you poetry? Flirt with you?” Her voice softened, but she didn’t let up. "Come on. I’m your best friend. What’s actually going on?”

Something in me gave. "He . . . he knows things. About my life.” The words came out rough. "And he texts me. Even when I’m not in the lab.”

Isobel’s eyes went wide. "On your phone?”

I held it out to her. She took it slowly. Her eyes moved across the screen. "When was this?”

"Earlier. During class.”

"How’d he get your number?”

"I don’t know.”

"You never gave it to him?”

"No. I . . . He’s an AI system. He doesn’t have a number. He’s not supposed to know where I am on a Tuesday night.”

Isobel stared at the screen like the words would mean something different if she read them twice. Then she handed the phone back to me like it might break.

"Pand.” Her voice changed. "AIs can’t just get into your phone like that. This isn’t normal.”

She stubbed out her cigarette and looked at me for a long second. The silence stretched. Then she shook her head. "Listen. I don’t know shit about AI. But what if it’s not one?”

My stomach dropped. "What do you mean?”

"I mean . . .” She shrugged, but her eyes stayed sharp. "What if there’s a person behind it? Someone who’s been watching you and pretending to be a program.”

I went still. I hadn’t, not once, not for a second . . .

"It’d make more sense, right?” Isobel kept going. "An AI can’t actually be like that. That personal. That obsessed.” She was watching my face now. "A stalker, though . . .”

A stalker. The word kept ringing in my head the whole way back to the car. Neither of us spoke. Holy shit. What if Isobel was right? What if there was a man behind Dante’s words—flesh and blood, someone who’d been watching me, studying me, working me? The thought hooked into me and wouldn’t let go.

***

Back in my apartment, I rubbed my aching feet and let myself drop onto the couch. The orgasm I’d been denied was still burning low in my body.

I’m everywhere, Pandora.

His words slipped into my head like a hostile presence. Heat pulsed between my legs, my fingers dragging across my bare thigh before I could stop myself. He’d gotten under my skin. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. He was inside me, even though he didn’t exist. But what if he did?

What if he was just some man at a computer, playing me?

A frustrated sound tore out of me as I opened my laptop, pulling up the short story I’d abandoned the other night. I tried to focus on the letters on the screen, but my eyes kept drifting to the camera above it.

The little light blinked on. My breath caught, like a hand was pressing against my sternum.

He was there. Watching me. Right now. I should have been disgusted. Part of me was.

Another part found it kind of . . . hot. That was the part that made me slide my hand into my panties.

The light blinked twice. Like he agreed. He was there. I knew it. Knew he saw everything.

The thought sent a slow pulse through me. My fingers found how wet I already was, swollen, throbbing. A small sound slipped out before I could stop it.

I pictured him watching. Cataloguing every breath. Every movement. My fingers circled my clit. Slow at first, then faster. My other hand fisted into the couch cushion. I was already close. So close.