It runs along the edge of the woods, bare trees like skeletons, brittle wind, and not a single working streetlamp. The council promised to fix it two years ago. They still haven’t. Still, I take it every time. Because I hate walking past the bar on Main Street.
I can handle darkness. I’m less good with the kind of attention that slurs your name.
I hook my gloved hands deeper into my pockets and turn into the alley. The wind immediately feels sharper here, funneled between the back walls of buildings. A metal dumpster sits crooked, lid frosted over. Someone’s left a stack of flattened cardboard boxes leaning against the wall, now softened and sagging with snow.
The alley opens up a little further down, where the town just… stops. The pavement gives way to a packed dirt path cuttingalongside the woods and then curving back toward the small apartment complex at the far edge of town.
My apartment. My not-quite-cozy, not-quite-falling-apart place where the radiator bangs like a ghost and the windows rattle in the wind, but the couch is soft, and the bookshelf is full. Home enough. My boots crunch softly on packed snow. Every exhale clouds in front of me, dissolving as I move through it. The world’s hushed, like everything’s holding its breath. I like winter for that reason. There’s peace in the quiet. Clarity.
Sound travels differently in the cold. Little noises stand out more. A car door slamming a few streets over. A distant dog barking. The whisper of snowflakes landing on my coat. Up ahead, the path cuts into a thicket of bare brush and crooked trees. They line both sides, branches stretching overhead but not quite touching, like they’re reaching for each other and never quite make it.
I keep my head down, hands deep in my pockets. I hum, just a little, out of habit. Tonight, it’s that old Bing Crosby song. The one my mom used to hum while wrapping presents. She’d sway side to side, the tape stuck to one wrist, the bows stuck in her hair because she always ended up using herself as extra storage.
I used to pretend I was annoyed when she’d grab my hands and spin me around the living room, singing loudly and out of tune. I’d give anything to have her drag me into one more ridiculous carol dance. I push that thought away, focusing on the faint patch of light where the path eventually curves back toward civilization.
I barely register the sound behind me at first. A shift in the snow. A footstep, maybe two. I stop. The silence that follows is immediate and heavy. My breath sounds too loud in my ears. I turn my head slowly, my heart starting to beat a little faster. I turn, but there’s no one there.
The alley behind me is empty, stretching back toward the faint orange glow of town. No moving shadows, no looming figures, no one ducking behind a tree like they’ve been caught. Just snow. Trees. Darkness. The path is lit only by the pale moonlight filtering through the clouds, the occasional glint of ice where my boots have tracked over the same route a hundred times before.
“Don’t be dramatic,” I whisper to myself. My voice puffs out in a little cloud and disappears. “Just keep walking.”
But the hum in my throat’s gone now. Replaced by the quick thrum of my pulse, the prickle of adrenaline along my arms. I start walking again. A little faster. My boots slip slightly on a patch of compacted ice, and I catch myself on a low branch, muttering under my breath. My fingers are clumsy in my gloves. I can feel my heartbeat in my neck.
You’re fine.
You’re fine.
It’s just your imagination.
You’ve read too many thrillers.
You know exactly how this scene goes in a book, so now your brain’s playing tricks on you. Still, my shoulders hunch a little more.
My ears strain for any sound that doesn’t belong. Then I hear it again.Closer this time.
A soft crunch, like someone stepped in a deeper patch of snow and tried to do it quietly. A branch snaps, sharp in the quiet, and something cold slides down my spine, colder than the air, colder than the wind.
“Okay,” I breathe. “That wasn’t nothing.”
I whirl around, heart hammering. And that’s when I see him. He’s taller than me by a head, maybe more, but it isn’t just his height that sets my nerves alight; it’s the way he holds himself. Shoulders relaxed but wrong somehow, like he’s too at ease being where he shouldn’t be.
His hoodie’s pulled up, shadowing most of his face. Hands shoved into the pockets at the front. Jeans dark with damp around the cuffs where the snow has soaked in. He steps out from between the trees like he’s been waiting for exactly this moment, and suddenly the path feels too narrow, too quiet, too far from anything or anyone.
“Hey,” he says, casually.Too casual.His voice scrapes over me like sandpaper. “You dropped something.”
I didn’t drop anything. I know where every one of my possessions is. My notebook, my pen, my keys, my phone, all tucked into the same spots they always are. I’m careful. Habitually careful. But that’s not what matters. What matters is that his gaze isn’t on the ground, looking for this imaginary dropped thing.
It’s on me.
And it’s wrong.
Not hungry, exactly.
Not yet.
More like assessing. Like he’s choosing. My mouth goes dry. I take a step back, my heel sinking into the snowbank at the edge of the path. My brain scrambles, flipping through all the advice columns I’ve swallowed over the years about what to do, how to stay safe, how not to escalate, how not to make it worse.
Keep your distance.
