Chapter 2: The Devil’s Notebook

That night, I was at home working on lesson plans when I got a document.

I sat at my tiny kitchen table, laptop propped up on a stack of textbooks, coffee gone cold beside me. The apartment was silent except for the hum of my laptop. My phone buzzed, jolting me out of my thoughts.

It was from the class president, Madison.

What’s this?

I frowned, opening the message. Madison was always responsible, so if she sent something, it had to be important.

“It’s something Owen wrote… a novel.”

The second I heard it was his work, alarm bells went off in my head.

My stomach dropped. I had a bad feeling about this.

I opened it—page after page of disgusting filth.

The words blurred together at first, but as I read, my face went hot with anger and shame. I had to stop and rub my eyes, hoping I’d misread, but it was all there in black and white.

Over thirty chapters, a hundred thousand words. The most recent chapter was dated today, and at the end it said, ‘to be continued.’

It was sprawling, obsessive, as if he’d poured every twisted thought onto the page. I scrolled, unable to look away.

Every girl in the class was in it—over twenty of them—including me and a few other female teachers.

He hadn’t even bothered to change the names. It was a grotesque roll call, each girl described in stomach-churning detail.

The writing was crude, the language vulgar, the thoughts filthy. I wanted to throw up.

It described a ritual with the Devil. The girls were tied to crosses as sacrifices, traded for his endless pleasure. In those dark, hidden corners, Owen greedily stared at the girls’ skin. He imagined, with the dirtiest intentions, their despair, their escape attempts, their screams, or their obedience.

The descriptions were vivid, almost cinematic. He reveled in the details, painting himself as the center of their humiliation. I felt sick.

…

I’d never felt so disgusted by words before. My skin crawled. God, what was wrong with him?

My hands trembled as I scrolled. I wanted to throw my laptop out the window, to scrub my mind clean. Disgust, anger, and something like fear tangled in my chest.

“Did you show this to Mr. Jennings?” I typed with shaking fingers, trying to keep my tone calm. My heart hammered as I waited for her reply.

“Not yet.”

“Why not?”

After a while, Madison replied,

“He doesn’t like getting involved.”

Of course he didn’t. I sighed, not knowing what to say.

Madison added,

“Actually, the whole class knows about Owen’s writing. Sometimes, he even reads it out loud to the girls during homeroom. Last time, he made Hannah cry.”

Hannah… I pictured a shy, gentle girl with a soft voice.

She always sat in the front row, barely spoke above a whisper. The thought of her being targeted made my chest ache.

“Why mention Hannah specifically?”

I wanted to understand, to help, but the words felt hollow.

“This kid…”

I replied, “Okay, I understand. I’ll warn him not to do this kind of disgusting stuff again.”

My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I knew a warning wouldn’t be enough, but I didn’t know what else to do.

“Warning him won’t work, Ms. Sutton,” she replied. “Owen isn’t afraid of teachers at all. Do you know what he said about you?”

My heart pounded, fingers cold on the keyboard. I braced myself.

“What?”

“He said you’re so angry all the time because… because your personal life isn’t satisfying, and you must be desperate for a man.”

I bit my lip, fighting back tears. The words stung, but I forced myself to keep reading. What a little creep.

“Alright. I’ll figure out how to handle this.”

Honestly, I had experience dealing with this kind of crude talk. Back in middle school, I developed early. A boy in my class gave me a nickname—‘Big Boobs Girl.’ I grabbed my metal pencil case, hid it behind my back, walked right up to him, and told him to say it again. The moment he opened his mouth, I smashed him in the face. Blood everywhere. He was skinny and short, hadn’t even started puberty. I chased him down and kept hitting him. For three years after that, he’d run away whenever he saw me.

I remembered the way his friends had gone silent, the shock on their faces. After that, nobody dared say a word to me. That was the only way they learned.

Decent people respect boundaries; creeps only fear consequences. I learned that a long time ago. For scum, reasoning doesn’t work—you have to use force. Of course, now that I’m a teacher, I can’t use violence. But that doesn’t mean I can’t handle people like him.

I cracked my knuckles, staring at the screen. There were other ways to make a point.

Just then, a multimedia message popped up on my phone. It was from an unknown number. I opened it.

It was a secret photo taken up someone’s skirt. My breath caught. From the pattern and style, I could tell it was the blue skirt I’d worn a few days ago—probably taken when I was leaning over a desk.

My stomach lurched. My hands shook as I realized what I was looking at. The room seemed to tilt.

Disgusting.

I wanted to throw my phone, to scrub the image from my mind. But I forced myself to keep reading, jaw clenched tight.

I was in the classroom, teaching him real math—centuries of hard-won knowledge. He couldn’t even stand on the shoulders of giants—his mind was full of what was under my skirt.

The irony stung. I felt exposed, vulnerable in a way I hadn’t since I was a teenager.

A second message arrived right after:

“Blue doesn’t suit you. Purple is more your style, Ms. Sutton.”

My hands clenched so tight around my phone that my knuckles went white. Rage burned in my chest. No more doubts.

Perfect. This scumbag had just erased my last bit of moral hesitation.

I took a deep breath, letting the anger settle into something cold and sharp. I was done playing nice.