Nor can I control my movements as I stride toward him, stomping the fragile ashes of civility, erasing the echo of sanity with each step.
Barcelona, Spain
“No loud music after six p.m., no pets,” my realtor says, his thick Spanish accent slicing through the air. I told him I speak Spanish, but for some reason, he keeps talking to me in English, wrestling with every word like it weighs a hundred kilos. “Next rent on time, two months after today’s…” He drags the sound out as he checks his phone. “Twelfth.¿Comprendido?”
“Yes,” I say, the word clipped, flat. I nudge one of my suitcases with my foot, pushing it out of his way. It sounds like I have an army’s worth of luggage, but it is only three smallsuitcases. Strange how such a tiny collection can hold an entire life.
“Okay, good. Call me if something happens, but I may not be available during the day. I juggle this job with being a barista at a local bar.Deberías visitarnos alguna vez.You should visit sometime.” His round face breaks into a grin, and a rough laugh shakes his chest before he slaps my shoulder. “I’ll give you a discount.”
The urge to break his nose for touching me flares like a spark, sharp and immediate. The imprint of his hand burns against my clothes, a temptation I fight down with effort.
“Okay, got it,” I reply through clenched teeth. The trip back from London still roars inside me, my rage simmering just beneath the surface. “No loud music, no causing trouble, and call you only at night or in the evening.”
He shakes his head and steps farther into the apartment. I draw in a sharp breath, bracing myself for whatever stupidity he is about to unleash.
Don’t kill him. Don’t kill him. Don’t kill him.
“No, I’m busy during those hours too,” he says.
A shrug rolls through my shoulders. “So when am I supposed to reach you if something happens?”
He scratches his head and tilts it like he is trying to think. I can tell there is not a single thought moving behind his eyes.
“I think it’s better if nothing happens,” he says quietly, before slapping the same spot on my shoulder again. I catch my bottom lip between my teeth, but the bite does nothing to calm the heat building inside me. “Take care, man.”
Finally, he turns, walks out, and shuts the door behind him. I exhale, the tension unraveling from my shoulders in a slow, shuddering release.
His name is Alejandro, I think. The only one who agreed to meet with me today.
After I left Bennett’s apartment, I had no destination, no plan. I was a storm of sensation, every emotion crashing into the next so violently that I couldn’t even trace the edges of one before another tore through me. My body still burned from the kill, blood thrumming with a raw, electric heat so vivid that I could almost see the steam rising from my pores.
For the first time in my life, I felt a hunger I had never known before—a thirst formoremurder. That first act hadn’t satisfied me. It had only ignited something deeper, darker, sharper.
I took his ring as a souvenir, but I couldn’t stop feeling like that wasn’t enough, like I needed to do more.
I wandered through the streets like a lunatic, the stares of strangers digging into my back, my face, my chest. Every glance pressed against me, yet I barely noticed. London’s chill, the rain hammering down in a relentless sheet, did nothing to cool the fire inside me.
It wasn’t a fever. It wasn’t sickness. It washerunder my skin—her presence, her past, her touch—all seeming to pulse through me, breaking down the layers that separated me from everything I had once considered control. The addictive effect tore at my nerves, like molten metal running through my veins.
I’ve never felt anything more intoxicating.
Her past turned out to be the most compelling, the most brutal, the most intimately familiar thing I’ve ever encountered. Every story, every fragment, resonated in ways I couldn’t name, couldn’t suppress.
I hate the roots of this feeling. I hate that I can’t rememberwhereit begins, only that it grows, rising in my chest like a storm that refuses to be quieted. Each attempt to trace it, to grasp it, brings a vivid headache, a pressure that no pill, no distraction, can mute. It comes from somewhere deep inside.
And yet I know it exists for a reason. Sooner or later, I will find it. If it doesn’t come to me on its own, I will carve it out frommyself, expose it, and face whatever lies buried there. I will stare it down, whatever it is, because Ineedto know. Because I cannot let it remain hidden.
Running a hand through my hair, I take in the apartment with a slow sweep of my gaze. It is small but untouched, the air still carrying the faint bite of fresh paint and the clean, crisp scent of new wood. The walls gleam in a soft off-white, smooth and unmarked, waiting for a life to settle into them. Sunlight pours through the balcony doors in warm, golden sheets, sliding across the polished floorboards and breathing warmth into the stillness of the room.
Outside, Barcelona murmurs softly. Scooters buzz like distant insects, laughter drifts up from the street, and the clatter of plates rises from the café below, the sound weaving itself into a steady, comforting pulse of life.
Among all those voices, all those strangers living their days, my mind refuses to stay here. It keeps circling the same orbit, pulling me back to one point.
Estella.
What is she doing now? How is she feeling? What thoughts are running through her mind?
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and a smirk curls at the corner of my lips, sharp and anticipatory. I pull it out, already bracing for the rush of her name lighting up the screen.
