No mention of Simon in the article. Nothing explaining why he was there. Nothing about their relationship beyond the word cousin. My breathing grows tight. I click on another link. Another image. Another.
Simon appears in three separate photos—always in the background, always still, always watching something off-camera.
My pulse becomes something sharp.
I stand abruptly, snapping my laptop shut. I need air. I need space. I need distance from the screen and the truth it’s showing me.
People look up when my chair scrapes the floor. I mumble something about a headache and head for the exit. My hands shake as I swipe my badge at the security door. The building’s fluorescent lights feel too harsh. The hallway seems too long.
When I step outside, the feeling hits instantly. I’m being watched.
It presses between my shoulders like a palm guiding me forward. I turn my head casually, pretending to check thetime, but no one stands close enough to explain the sensation. Students chatter near the bus stop. Cars move down the street. A cyclist weaves between traffic.
Normal. Ordinary.
It doesn’t matter. The tension doesn’t loosen.
I choose a new path. Away from the usual route home. I walk through a busy plaza, weaving between tables and people. Crowded places feel safer. Less vulnerable. I keep my shoulders relaxed, my pace even, but my breath hitches every time someone steps too close.
I take a sharp turn toward a shopping street. Shops glow with warm lights. A group of teenagers laugh near a storefront. A delivery driver unloads boxes. Everything looks harmless.
The anxiety in my stomach grows anyway.
I switch direction again. I change tempo. I pretend to window-shop. I cross the street without waiting for the signal. Anything to break a pattern someone could follow. My heartbeat climbs steadily into something frantic.
When I reach a quieter stretch of sidewalk, the city noise thins. Streetlights cast long shadows across the pavement. The wind shifts, carrying the smell of diesel and distant food carts.
A van rolls up beside me.
At first, I don’t react. Delivery vans pass through here often. But this one slows too much. Moves too close. The rear door slides open.
I freeze for a split second—just long enough to see a pair of gloved hands reach out.
I try to scream.
It barely leaves my throat before someone clamps a hand over my mouth and yanks me sideways. My feet leave theground. The world snaps into motion. My bag falls. My notebook skitters across the sidewalk.
The van door slams shut behind me.
Darkness. Rough hands. Breath hot against my cheek. A sharp smell of leather and sweat. Arms pin my shoulders. Someone grabs my legs, forcing me down against the metal floor.
I thrash, twisting, clawing at anything I can reach. My nails scrape across fabric. A man swears. Another grabs my wrists and wrenches them behind my back. Pain bursts up my arms.
I try to kick again, but they’re too strong. My heel clips someone’s shin. Someone else hits the side of my jaw hard enough to make my head snap.
“Hold her,” a voice growls. “She’s fighting.”
A rough cloth presses against my cheek, trying to muffle any sound I manage to push out. The van lurches forward.
My thoughts spiral.
Human trafficking. Organ harvesting. Revenge. Retaliation.
The man from the alley. Simon. Simon’s world. Clara’s disappearance. The murder. My name on some unknown list.
My chest tightens so violently I can’t breathe. Panic tears at my lungs. Every instinct screams that this is the end, that no one knows where I am, that no one will find me.
I kick again. Someone curses. A cold metal weapon glints near my face; gun, knife, I can’t tell. My heart slams painfully against my ribs.
