She glanced over her shoulder.
A shadow trailed her.
Too tall.
Too close.
Face obscured beneath a hood. Their gait matched hers, barely a step behind.
A cold jolt shot through her. She turned sharply down a side street, her boots slipping slightly on the slick pavement.
The alley stretched out before her, narrow and dark. The city noise faded, swallowed by the kind of quiet that lived between buildings.
She darted behind a dumpster, crouching low. The chill of the metal bled through her coat. Her breaths came fast and shallow, but her mind snapped into place.
Control the space.
Control the outcome.
She listened. Waited.
Footsteps approached. Even. Measured. One scrape of rubber on concrete. Then another.
A tall figure stepped to the mouth of the alley and stopped, head tilted, as if listening.
Arden didn’t move.
She could strike if she had to. Run, if she timed it right. But the figure only lingered, shifting slightly. A beat passed. Then another. And then they turned and disappeared. Like they were never there.
She waited five seconds. Then ten.
Slow. Calculated. Every nerve firing. She slipped from her hiding place and back toward the main street. Her breathing was ragged. Her muscles trembled with held tension.
They were gone.
But the dread clung to her skin like smoke.
And she knew for certain; she wasn’t imagining it anymore.
Sebastian lingered in the shadows,alive in the city’s pulse. Invisible. Intent.
Each flicker of movement or distant sound fed his focus.
Arden walked ahead of him, head high, steps clipped, carving through the night like she didn’t have a care in the world. But he could see it—the strain in her shoulders, the too-quick glances, the tension simmering beneath.
She moved like a woman in control.
But he knew better.
She had no idea.
No idea how magnetic she was. No idea that each step, every stubborn breath, only pulled him in deeper.
That was the thing about her—she didn’t just stand out.
She burned.
Too bright.
