The alley looks smaller in daylight. Less threatening. There are officers blocking its mouth, and I recognize the uneasy stance of investigators who don’t have real answers but are pretending they do.
I shouldn’t be here. Every instinct I’ve ever trusted tells me this is reckless.
Yet I stay anyway.
My fingers twitch around my notebook. I flip it open to a blank page, even though I don’t plan to write anything down. I just need something in my hands, something familiar to counter the tightness in my chest.
Voices blend around me: reporters throwing questions, officers muttering instructions, distant traffic humming through the street. The whole scene feels surreal, like I stepped into a world I wasn’t built for.
A part of me imagines walking straight up to the nearest officer and saying,They’re lying. I saw what really happened.But the thought ends with me lying in a different alley, my body covered by the same kind of tarp they used last night.
If someone can erase a murder this easily, how hard would it be to erase a witness?
I wrap my arms around myself and step farther back from the crowd.
I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t want to be here. Except that man’s presence still clings to me, sickening and magnetic at the same time. The memory of him won’t let go. That stillness. That certainty. That way he turned his head like he already knew where I was hiding.
Why does it feel like the moment our eyes almost met changed something I can’t explain?
The questions keep circling in my head, tightening like a net. Answers feel both dangerous and necessary.
I try retracing my steps from yesterday. Not exactly—there are too many people, too many eyes—but close enough. I walk past the deli where I stood first. I glance down the street where I heard the muffled argument. Then I stop halfway down the block and look toward the alley from a much safer angle.
The same cold prickle climbs my spine, the exact sensation I felt when that man turned in the alley.
I freeze. My breath stops.
Someone is behind me. Someone watching. Someone close.
I turn, and he’s already there.
He stands close enough that I have to tip my chin up to meet his gaze. I didn’t hear him approach. Not footsteps, not breath, not the faintest shift of air; yet he’s here, solid and immovable, like the city rearranged itself to make space for him.
His presence hits me all at once. Tall. Broad shoulders. Dark coat framing his body like armor. His face stays unreadable; shadow cuts across the sharp planes of his jaw, keeping half of him hidden.
I still don’t have a full picture of his features, but what I can see is more than enough to make my pulse jump.
His eyes settle on me, pale and unnervingly steady, and my throat tightens.
“You lost?” he asks.
The words are simple, but the tone isn’t. Smooth, low, controlled—like he’s used to people answering him without question. Like he already knows the answer and is only asking to see what I’ll do.
My spine stiffens. My fingers grip my notebook so hard the cardboard cover bends.
“I’m fine,” I manage. My voice betrays the tremor I try to hide.
He tilts his head slightly, studying me the same way he studied the scene last night—precise, unhurried, focused. It feels like he’s peeling back layers without needing to touch me.
“You’ve been standing here a while,” he says. “Most people keep walking.”
I swallow, forcing myself to breathe evenly. “I just… wanted to see what happened.”
“Curiosity.” His gaze drags down to my hands, then back to my eyes. “Dangerous habit.”
The remark lands somewhere between warning and interest. I can’t tell which he intends.
“I live near here,” I lie. “I figured something happened. I was trying to get information.”
