Chapter 5
Please Don't by Santia Lee
1. MILES — Hacker in the Dark
Miles hadn't slept either.
His computer hummed in the dim glow of his basement setup. Three monitors flickered, lines of code dancing across the screen. But it wasn't the code that unsettled him. It was the file he found last.
Subject: N. Simmons | Incident Report | Age 19
Status: Sealed / Lethal Incident
Victim: Declan Ryder – status: deceased.
Witness: E. Simmons (mother).
Official Narrative: Suicide.
Unofficial: Homicide—unprovable.
Miles leaned back, cold sweat rolling down his back.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard.
He clicked "Download."
The file vanished before the progress bar reached 2%.
Remote deletion. Tracked.
His monitor blinked.
Then went black.
And a message appeared:
"You shouldn't have looked."
2. VANESSA — Camille's Games
Vanessa stepped into Camille's penthouse with a purpose. She was done playing polite. Done with pretending Camille's smile wasn't hiding something sharp.
But Camille wasn't home.
The door was unlocked. Champagne was sweating on the counter.
And the hallway was lit by a single red light.
Vanessa's instincts screamed. But she followed the glow.
It led her to a closet door—only it wasn't a closet.
It opened to metal stairs descending underground.
At the bottom?
A surveillance room.
Twenty monitors.
Each one showed her.
Sleeping. Showering. Teaching. Crying.
Every private moment.
Camille's voice came over the speaker.
"Don't hate me for protecting you, Vee. He would've come for you eventually. I just made sure he did it my way."
Vanessa turned slowly.
Negan was behind her.
Watching her. Breathing like a beast starved too long.
"You came to me," he said softly.
She slapped him.
Hard.
He took it. Smiled.
"I missed your fire."
3. NEGAN — Inside the Storm
Negan watched her walk away from the surveillance room. Her slap still tingled.
She didn't understand.
He wasn't stalking her.
He was studying her. Loving her the only way he knew how.
Vanessa was the key. The only tether to what was still real inside him.
Everyone else had lied. Used him. Feared him.
But Vanessa…
She looked at him like he wasn't broken. Or like she knew how broken he really was and still burned for it.
His fingers itched. He remembered the knife. The blood.
Declan screaming.
His mother crying.
Julian whispering, "You'll never speak of this again."
He touched the screen where Vanessa's sleeping form played on loop.
"I'm going to marry you," he said to the glass. "Even if you hate me first."
And his eyes—
wild, glinting, almost childlike with obsession—
flashed like fire.