CHAPTER 2
RAVEN
The rumble of the number 42 bus was usually a comfort, a wall of white noise that let me decompress after four hours of playing while trying to block out customer chatter and the noise from the kitchen. But tonight, the vibrations against my spine felt agitated and jagged.
I sat with my cane upright between my knees, my grip white-knuckled on the handle and my head spinning.
My mind wouldn't leave the alley.
Logic told me to let it go. It was just a little shortcut to the bus stop I took nearly every night. Nothing weird there. A dirty, damp, rat-infested strip of asphalt behind the restaurant where the dumpsters lived that always smelled like rotting cabbage and stale beer.
But it wasn't nothing. Tonight... tonight the air had been different. And it had nothing to do with the weather.
As I waited for my stop, I replayed the tape of memories in my head, rewinding the sensory input I'd recorded to analyze later.
The door latch clicking behind me. The sudden change in temperature from the restaurant. Two steps forward. Cane sweep left. Cane sweep right.
There'd been a smell that wasn't the usual garbage decay. It was sharp and metallic, like copper pennies and salt. The smell sat high in the throat, coating the back of my tongue.
And then there was the silence.
Alleys aren’t quiet. They hiss with steam pipes, scuttle with vermin, hum with distant traffic. But back there, the silence had been vacuum-sealed. Like when something dangerous walks through a forest and all of the birds and animals go still and quiet. Or the kind of silence that happens when a room full of people suddenly stops talking because you walked in and you forgot to wear pants. The air felt pregnant. Expectant.
Like someone holding their breath.
I'd faltered, just for a second, and then I kept walking. I remembered the sensation of my sneaker sliding on something slick—not a puddle of water, something else. Oil, maybe? Or grease?
Maybe, I told myself, the bus brakes squealing as we neared my stop.
But the hair on my arms hadn't settled since I walked out that door. My instincts, usually dialed to a frequency most people ignored, were screaming that I wasn't the only one who'd been in that alley.
I'd felt the eyes on the back of my head until I made it out to the main road.
"Third and Elm," the automated voice announced.
I pushed up from the seat, navigating the aisle by the rhythmic sway of the bus. I knew the count—six steps to the door, grab the rail, step down.
"Watch your step, love," the driver mumbled kindly.
"I’ve got it," I said, my voice tighter than intended. I hit the pavement and snapped my cane out, the tip finding the curb instantly. I didn't need help. I didn't need to be watched.
But as I walked the remaining two blocks to my apartment building, weaving through the familiar sidewalk cracks and counting my steps by muscle memory alone, I couldn't shake the sensation of heat between my shoulder blades. That prickling awareness that someone's eyes were on me, tracking my every movement.
I told myself it was paranoia. Residual adrenaline from whatever the hell I'd walked through in that alley. But my body knew better. My body always knew.
The feeling didn't fade until I reached my building's main entrance and slipped inside, the heavy door closing behind me with a reassuring thunk of metal on metal. I checked my mailbox, and then headed toward the stairs.
My apartment was neat and orderly. Not because I was some kind of clean freak, but because it had to be. My 600 square ft home was the only place where I knew exactly where everything was, down to the millimeter.
Keys in the bowl at the three o'clock position on the console table. Coat on the second hook. Cane collapsed and placed in the ceramic umbrella stand.
I exhaled, the tension in my shoulders finally loosening as I locked the deadbolt into place. Sometimes, this new life of mine was exhausting.
Moving to the kitchen, I counted steps unconsciously. One, two, three, turn left. I reached for the kettle without fumbling, filling it by the weight of the water, knowing the exact heft of a full cup. While the water boiled for tea, I leaned against the counter and rubbed my temples.
My feet throbbed. I’d been wearing my shoes for too long. I kicked off the right one, sighing as my arch released when I placed my bare foot on the floor.
I went to kick off the left one, bracing the heel against my other foot, but it didn't lift cleanly. There was a sound.
