The bar was getting crowded, bodies pressing in around us. A group of guys in suits pushed past our booth, one of them jostling my shoulder hard enough to slosh beer onto the table. He didn't apologize. Lisa shot him a dirty look and mopped up the spill with a napkin.
"Assholes," she muttered.
But I barely heard her. The back of my neck prickled with the sudden, unshakable sensation that someone was watching me. I turned, scanning the crowd, but saw nothing unusual. Just the typical after-work crowd: tired professionals drowning their day in alcohol, a few college kids playing darts in the corner, the bartender wiping down glasses.
Still, the feeling persisted. That prey-animal awareness of unseen eyes tracking your every movement.
"You okay?" Lisa asked.
"Yeah, just... do you ever feel like someone's staring at you?"
She glanced around. "In a bar full of drunk people? All the time. Come on, let's get another round. You need to loosen up."
But I couldn't shake the paranoia. Even as Lisa chattered about her latest Tinder disaster, even as the alcohol started to soften the edges of my anxiety, I felt exposed. Vulnerable. Like I was standing under a spotlight in a dark room, unable to see the audience but knowing they were there.
Watching.
Waiting.
"I should probably head home," I said after the third beer. My words came out slightly slurred, and I realized I'd drunk more than I'd intended on an empty stomach.
"You sure? We could go dancing. There's that club—"
"I'm sure." I stood, the room tilting slightly. "Early meeting tomorrow."
Lisa hugged me goodbye, making me promise I'd actually sleep tonight instead of lying awake cataloging my failures. I agreed, knowing I probably wouldn't keep that promise.
The night air hit me like a slap when I stepped outside. October in New York, that liminal space between summer's warmth and winter's bite. I pulled out my phone to call a cab, my fingers clumsy on the screen.
That's when I saw it: a black SUV parked across the street, windows tinted so dark I couldn't see inside. Nothing unusualabout that. Half the cars in Manhattan were black SUVs. But something about it made my skin crawl.
You're being paranoid, I told myself. You're tired and drunk and your anxiety is in overdrive. Nobody's watching you. Nobody cares enough to watch you.
A yellow cab pulled up, and I slid into the backseat gratefully, giving the driver my address. As we pulled away from the curb, I glanced back at the SUV.
It pulled out behind us.
My heart kicked into a higher gear. I watched through the rear window as we turned onto Fifth Avenue. The SUV turned too. We stopped at a red light. It stopped three cars back.
"Everything okay, miss?" the driver asked, catching my eye in the rearview mirror.
"Fine," I lied. "Just tired."
I was being ridiculous. This was New York. Hundreds of cars traveled the same routes. The SUV probably wasn't even following us. Just another vehicle heading in the same direction.
But when we turned onto my street—a quiet residential block in the West Village—the SUV turned too.
I paid the driver with shaking hands and watched the cab pull away. The SUV had parked half a block down, engine still running. Through the tinted windows, I couldn't see if anyone was inside, but I knew. The way prey knows when the predator has marked them.
I hurried to my building, fumbling with my keys. The doorman had gone home hours ago, leaving me alone in the small, dimly lit lobby. I jabbed the elevator button repeatedly, pulse hammering in my throat.
You're safe, I told myself as the elevator lurched upward. You're in your building. You're fine.
But when I reached my fourth-floor apartment and locked the door behind me, I immediately went to the window. Parted the curtains just enough to peer down at the street.
The black SUV was still there.
I let the curtains fall closed and backed away, heart racing. This was insane. I was being insane. I should call someone—but who? Lisa? She'd tell me I was paranoid. My father? He'd tell me I was being weak. The police? And tell them what, exactly? That a car parked on a public street?
