By mid-March, every night on the news, there were lists of names given; convicted Mythicals. Being anything other than a mortal was suddenly a crime by default. Hate group posters were on every wall, phone box and lamp post around the city. The atmosphere was getting harder and harder to handle, the air was thick with hatred, and worst of all, my friends were in on it. Theresa had expressed how she hated them out of fear, and Lindsay just did and said what her daddy wanted, as long as she got her juicy allowance every month. Her old man was a rich bigot, so it was no surprise that he was halfway to becoming a full-blown fascist.

In the back of my mind, I had always known my parent’s death was suspicious. I’d half made up my mind that their car accident had happened on purpose. That was about to be confirmed to me most disturbingly.

The first day I spotted the blue Peugeot, I paid it no mind, and when it appeared parked in the same place three day’s in a row, outside my university building, I assumed that my schedule must have coincidentally coincided with whoever it belonged to. When the weekend came, I noticed it again; parked up on the high street in town, as I sat across the road having breakfast in a greasy spoon with Theresa. I got a taxi home that day, and sure enough, it followed my cab to the street my block of flats was on. To say it put me on edge was to understate my panic, but I told myself it was all just coincidental. That was until it not only started to show up everywhere I went during the day, consistently for a fortnight, but the first night I spotted it in the distance as I walked from Lindsay and Theresa’s dorm, I ran home panicked and in a cold sweat.

I had been putting up with constant surveillance for almost four weeks, and the lack of sleep was starting to take its toll. I was alone with no one to confide in, I couldn’t tell either Lindsay or Theresa about it. I knew I could’ve upped sticks and left for Germany to live with my uncle at the drop of a hat, but I didn’t want to bring trouble to his door.

Friday night, April fifteenth, I exited the Omen to find the blue Peugeot parked directly across the street. The driver had the window down, and from under their hood, they stared right at me. We made vague eye contact for a second that felt like forever before they started their engine and pulled off into the traffic. I stood there, frozen in a blind panic. I was on my own; Lindsay and Theresa had already driven off in a taxi back to their dormitory. Anything could have happened to me!

While I was still stood there trying to calm myself down, catch my breath to stop myself panting in fear, another familiar vehicle passed by. It had pulled out of the side street that led around the back of the nightclub to my right. The black saloon passed slowly, and through the driver’s side window, I spotted Cole looking at me. Had he seen the whole thing? I wondered. My head turned 180 as I watched him drive off into the distance.

For the rest of that weekend, I avoided leaving my flat. I couldn’t deal with running into my ominous stalker again.

Monday came, and I said a prayer before stepping out of my building and onto the pavement. The Peugeot was not there, but I noticed it parked up on the street from a university library window at five pm. I was running short on cash as my student loan was not going to be deposited into my current account until Thursday that week, but with the last tenner I had in my purse, I called a taxi to come and pick me up from the front of the building and drive me the three minutes to my place.

Tuesday and Wednesday, I called in sick, but when Thursday came around, I didn’t want to worry Lindsay or Theresa and raise any unnecessary questions, so I put on a dress and decided to join them at the Omen.

The music was a welcome release, a distraction and respite from my torment. I spent hours dancing away my anxiety that I almost forgot that I would have to be on alert as soon as I stepped outside.

At the bar, Karl served me, but it had become a habit to notice Cole; even if I had not spoken to him in so long, I could barely remember how his voice sounded.

“See you tomorrow, babe.” Theresa bid me goodbye and kissed my cheek as she packed a very drunk Lindsay into the back of their taxi. "I'll call you in the morning."

"Sure. See you tomorrow T." I said and waved them off.

I was still hot from dancing and the night was relatively mild, so with my jacket slung over my shoulder, I begun my walk home. I looked down the street to find that the blue Peugeot was thankfully nowhere in sight. Taking in a deep breath of smoky urban air, I sighed with a smile. Hopefully the walk home would be a uneventful and a nice change of pace and cheaper.

I was only four hundred yards from the block of flats I called home when I heard a car engine revving angrily from behind me. Instinctively I looked back over my shoulder to find a car speeding straight at me, whether I was on the pavement or not! The street was dead; it was just me and the car.

At the last moment, it swerved from its collision course with me and drove off at speed, beeping its horn erratically. Although I was traumatised, I noticed that the car was none other than the blue Peugeot as it drove away.

Somewhere amid the assault, I had screamed and stepped back only to lose my footing and found myself in a pile on the tarmac with a bloody knee and grazed palms, and my bum smarted from my awkward landing. There was no point remaining on the ground so I quickly clambered to my feet and ran as fast as I could to safety to my flat.

The minute the front door was locked, I collapsed, consumed by a fit of hysterical crying. The panic attack that ensued was like no other I had ever had before. There was no calm to be had even after it past but somehow I muddled through it. It would take days for me to get over it. The new scare tactic my stalker had used was successful.

Even though it wasn’t all in my head, I was losing my mind; my esteem had never been so low. I was genuinely starting to fear for my life. It felt like my freedom had been taken from me, I now chose to travel alone very carefully. I was wary of who could be watching me from every blue car I saw.

Determined to keep up the pretence that my life wasn’t falling to pieces and that my grades weren’t taking a hit due to my non-existent sleep schedule, I arranged to meet Lindsay and Theresa outside my place and walk to the Omen together.

Before leaving, I checked out my outfit in the mirror. The strappy black dress looked good, but it was too plain and missing something. The addition of a baggy checked shirt over the top finished off my look. I rolled the sleeves lazily to my elbows and tied the sides together in a knot before my stomach; it looked more interesting but not too intentionally put together.

The make-up beneath my sleep-deprived eyes was so thick in day-light, I was glad that inside the sparsely lit club, no one would notice. Beneath the flashing dancefloor lights, it didn’t matter how shattered I looked, but I didn’t have the stamina to dance long that night. At the bar, I downed a glass of water. If anyone asked, I would lie and say it was a vodka lemonade.

The few drinks I’d had, had made their course, so I made my way to the dimly light corridor where the club loos were. It was always a busy location and smelled like a piss-stained back alley and used for more-or-less the same thing. It was where clubbing couples went to eat face or have a sneaky shag.

Some of the neon sign lights' fluorescent tubes were broken, which meant that the corridor was darker than usual, but I knew exactly where the door to the ladies was, so that didn’t phase me. I only made it half-way there when someone grabbed me from behind. My heart sped up so quickly I thought it might stop! I had no time to fight and felt an arm wrap the front of my stomach and around my waist; my feet were no longer touching the floor either. It was impossible to get my bearings in the dark. I had already imagined the worst case scenario; I was being abducted from the club to meet my demise. As if my nerves weren’t frayed enough! By that point that I admitted defeat.

A door clunked shut. Suddenly, the small cleaning supplies closet was lit up by a phones torch, and I could finally see where I was. Cole’s face lingered only a few inches from mine. For the first time, I could see that his eyes were a pale hazel shade, the flecks in his iris were grey and a mossy coloured green, making his eye colour rather hard to define - they were neither wholly green, brown or grey, but an ensemble of all three. Still, they were kind and warm and dazzling. Relief hit me hard, and I sighed to show it.

“What’s going on with you lately? You’ve seemed off...”

“What?” I asked quietly at first. I was entirely distracted by his eyes, but then I realised that he had almost scared me to death. The dreamy look disappeared, and in its place, an aggressive scowl set my lips and brow into harsh lines that barely looked feisty on the baby soft edges of my face. “What the fuck are you doing, dragging me in here like that!?” Having come to my senses, I shoved my hands into his chest to show my frustration just in case my snappy tone didn’t.

“I’m worried about you, Ana.” Stood firm; he didn’t budge when I pushed him. Instead, he stepped closer and placed his phone onto the shelf behind my head. The touch light still illuminated us, but now his hands were free to grab my wrists and keep my palms on his chest. I swallowed the lump that rose in my throat, I was trying to stay annoyed at him, but it was hard to when I realised how nice it felt to have my hands on him. “Please, tell me what’s going on?”

“You what? You have no reason to be worried about me.” I whispered and crumpled my fingers into the fabric of the t-shirt he was wearing. My eyes flickered down to notice the details of his attire; a black band tee over another long-sleeved burgundy top that he had pushed to his elbows showed off the tattoos on his forearms. “I’m just grieving and feeling a little run down... if you must know. There, will you leave me alone now?”

“Do you honestly want me to leave you alone?”

“You’re the one who told me to avoid you.”

“I didn’t say I would find it easy.” Cole moved his hands from my wrists and cupped my jaw with his palms. “Come home with me tonight. You said you didn’t care how old I was. Who cares if I’m thirty-two?”

“You said you were thirty-four…” Up until he mentioned his age again, I was inclined to take him up on his offer, but now he had just tripped himself up and revealed he had lied to me again. “Thirty-four or thirty-two, which is it?”

His head dropped, and he sighed. “It’s just a number. Does it matter?”

“No, you're right, it doesn’t.” I yanked his hands from my face and meant to leave that room by any means necessary. “Because I am definitely not going anywhere with you.” Cole didn’t stop me when I pushed him away and made for the door. “Please stay away from me, especially until you’re ready, to be honest.”

“Oh My God, Ana! I’ve been looking everywhere from you. I thought you’d gone to… the… loo…” Lindsay shouted from behind me as I stepped out of the cleaning closet. I turned to see the shocked expression on her face. “What... were you doing in there?” She asked, but she already knew what people used that room and corridor for. As if the moment could have been any more awkward, Cole stuck his head out the door, he was either about to protest my leaving or was just exciting to head back to work, but Lindsay clocked him. “What were you doing in there with him?” Her face changed to a ‘how dare you make a move on someone who fancies me’ kind of look. Her reaction made me bristle, and, in that moment, I wanted to hurt her.

“Checking to see who he’s been staring at, turns out it was me,” I remarked so sweetly it was snide before I walked off down the corridor and back onto the dancefloor.

After everything that had gone on inside the club that night, I did not hesitate to call a taxi to get me home, and I didn’t even entertain the idea of checking if the blue Peugeot was following me.