Chapter 2 Shadows on the Pane (Jasmine's POV)

"What are you doing sneaking up behind me like a ghost, Dad?" I gasped, my hand flying to my chest as my heart rattled violently against my ribs.

"I am not sneaking around in my own house, Jasmine, but you look like you have seen an actual corpse," my father replied, his face pale as he adjusted his wire rimmed glasses.

He reached out to pull the thick, velvet curtains shut, cutting off my view of the dark house across the street.

"You don't need to block the outside world, I was just looking at the neighborhood," I muttered, my voice tight as I gripped the armrests of the chair to steady my shaking hands.

"The neighborhood is fine, but you need to focus on your recovery instead of hyper fixating on the dark," he said.

"Why are you acting so paranoid since I came back from the rehab center?" I asked, looking up at him, demanding an answer that wasn't a scripted medical excuse.

"I am a father who almost lost his only daughter to a drunk driver, Jasmine, so excuse me if I am a little protective," he snapped, though his eyes darted toward the hallway like he was checking if my mother was listening.

"It feels like you are hiding something from me, Dad, it feels like everyone is keeping me in a box," I said, the frustration bubbling up, hot and bitter in my throat.

"Just rest now, your mother is bringing your dinner up on a tray, and I need to review these corporate ledgers before tomorrow morning," he countered, completely shutting down the conversation as he walked away toward his study.

The crutches felt awkward, heavy, and cold under my armpits as I navigated the narrow hallway. Every step up the stairs was a battlefield, a grueling reminder of the blank spaces in my mind that refused to fill with memories. I didn't remember this house, I didn't remember my bedroom, and I certainly didn't remember why the boy across the street was treating me like an obsession.

"Jasmine, I told you I would carry that up for you," my mother exclaimed, meeting me at the top landing with a bowl of steaming chicken broth.

"I have to learn to use my limbs again, Mom, you can't carry me forever," I said, maneuvering past her into my bedroom.

"We are just trying to keep you safe, you have no idea how dangerous things can get when you are fragile," she whispered, her voice shaking with an intense, unprompted emotion that felt completely disproportionate to a simple dinner argument.

"What does that even mean?" I demanded, turning around so fast my weak knee buckled slightly, making me grab the doorframe. "Dangerous how? It was a car accident, not an assassination attempt."

"Just eat your soup, Jasmine, please, don't do this to me tonight," she begged, setting the tray on my nightstand with trembling hands before fleeing the room, slamming the door behind her.

"Unbelievable," I muttered to the empty room.

The house fell into a heavy, suffocating quiet. I didn't touch the food, the smell of chicken and ginger made my stomach turn into knots. Instead, I limped over to my bedroom window, my fingers trembling as I reached for the plastic blinds, twisting the rod just enough to peek through the slats.

The street was bathed in the sickly amber glow of the municipal streetlights, casting long, distorted shadows across the asphalt. Across the way, the second floor window of the Villanueva house was dark, but the glass reflected the eerie street illumination. He was still there. The silhouette hadn't moved an inch, standing right against the pane like a dark, carved statue dedicated to watching my every move.

"What do you want from me?" I whispered, my breath fogging the cold glass.

A sudden vibration in my palm made me jump, my phone buzzing against my thigh. I pulled it out, seeing an unknown number flashing on the screen, a random string of digits that didn't match any of my saved contacts from my restored cloud backup. I swiped the screen, holding the device to my ear, my heart hammering against my ribs.

"Hello?" I murmured, keeping my voice low so my parents wouldn't hear me from downstairs.

"You shouldn't be looking at him, Jasmine," a girl's voice hissed through the line, sharp, erratic, and deeply unsettled.

"Who is this? How do you have my number?" I asked, my grip tightening on the phone until my knuckles turned white.

"It's Kaia, from school, your old crowd, before you forgot everyone and became a victim," she spat, her tone dripping with a toxic mix of jealousy and genuine panic. "Listen to me carefully, you need to stop staring across the street, you are going to ruin everything."

"Ruin what? Kaia, what are you talking about? Do you know who that boy is?" I questioned, leaning closer to the glass, watching the dark silhouette across the street shift slightly, as if he knew I was on the phone.

"He is Ethan Villanueva, and he is a freaking psycho who doesn't belong in our world," Kaia whispered loudly, her breathing ragged over the line. "He spent the last two months acting like a ghost, and the moment you come home, he is back at that window. Stay away from him, Jasmine, he is bad news, his whole family is cursed."

"If he is so dangerous, why is he just standing there?" I asked, my chest tightening with an intoxicating mix of fear and an intense, possessive curiosity I couldn't explain. "He's been watching me since I got out of the car."

"Because he thinks you belong to him, you idiot," Kaia snapped, her voice breaking with an emotional intensity that sounded raw and ugly. "He thinks he owns your tragedy. Just close your blinds before he does something we all regret."

The line went dead, leaving me with the hollow dial tone echoing in my ear. I lowered the phone, my mind spinning into a chaotic mess of unanswered questions and terrifying realizations. Ethan Villanueva. The name tasted strange on my tongue, old yet brand new, a puzzle piece that didn't fit into the sterile narrative my parents spun for me.

I looked back through the blinds, my eyes locking onto the dark figure. As if he could sense the shift in my energy, the silhouette moved. The pale hand pressed against the glass again, the fingers spreading wide, mimicking the exact position from earlier. It felt deeply intimate, a sensual, obsessive claim made in the dead of night, a silent declaration that my life was no longer my own.

I didn't close the blinds. I stood there, trapped in his invisible web, staring back into the darkness until my good leg throbbed with exhaustion.

A sharp knock on my bedroom door shattered the trance, making me pull away from the window as the handle began to turn.

"Jasmine, why is your light still on, and who were you talking to just now?" my father demanded, stepping into the room with an expression that looked entirely terrified.