The bus doors hiss open, releasing me into the cold night air of Brickwell. Streetlights cast yellow pools on the cracked sidewalks, and fallen leaves skitter across my path as I adjust my backpack and check my watch.
Eleven forty. Later than I wanted to be out, but my shift ran long when Manny cut his hand and couldn’t finish closing. I pull my jacket tighter around me, scanning the empty street before I start walking. Four blocks to the apartment.
The wind picks up, sending a plastic bag tumbling down the gutter. My fingers curl around the knife in my pocket, thumb resting on the fold where I can flick it open in under a second. I started carryingit years ago when I first began walking these streets alone, and I’ve had to use it more than once.
Two steps from the bus stop, a familiar prickle starts at the base of my neck. Someone is watching me.
I keep walking at the same pace, but check the reflective windows of the closed pawn shop on my right. The glass throws back a distorted image of the empty street behind me. No shadows moving against building walls, no figures ducking into doorways.
But the prickle between my shoulders persists.
I turn the corner, boots crunching on broken glass from a shattered beer bottle. The sound echoes between brick buildings, bouncing back at me like a second set of footsteps.
I freeze, listening.
Nothing but the distant wail of a siren and the hum of traffic from the main road two blocks over.
“You need sleep,” I mutter to myself, resuming my pace, but faster now.
This has been happening for days. Ever since I saw that Alpha at the diner earlier in the week, I’ve had the feeling that I’m being watched. The prickle of an unseen stare on my back while I wait for the bus after work. The sensation of being followed as I walkLena to school. The constant need to check over my shoulder, only to find no one there.
My therapist would call it hypervigilance, if I could afford a therapist.
The streetlight ahead flickers, threatening to plunge this stretch of sidewalk into darkness. I pick up my pace, passing beneath as it stabilizes again. The temporary shadows play tricks on my vision, conjuring movements in my peripheral view that vanish when I turn to check over my shoulder.
A cat yowls from an alley, sending my heart rate spiking. The knife handle grows slick with sweat in my palm.
“Get it together,” I whisper, forcing my breathing to slow.
In through the nose, out through the mouth. The same rhythm I use when working a difficult lock.
The red neon sign of a liquor store casts its glow across the street, illuminating a figure walking toward me. Male, tall, hands in pockets. My entire body tenses, calculating distance and speed, threat and escape routes.
Without breaking stride, I cross the street on a diagonal, putting maximum distance between us. The figure continues past without looking up, shoulders hunched against the cold.
Just another person trying to get home, like I am.
Why can’t I shake this feeling?
My suppressants have never caused paranoia before. The dosage hasn’t changed since I outgrew puberty. But Omegas in the city have been disappearing in the last few years. The news tries to downplay it, but there’s a forum called Vanishing Voices that paints a grim picture for Omegas in Brickwell.
Two blocks to go.
I check behind me again. Still empty.
I inhale through my nose, testing the night air, and catch nothing beyond the usual city blend of exhaust, rotting garbage, and greasy food from the twenty-four-hour chicken place on the corner.
Nothing but Brickwell’s usual funk.
Even so, I pick up my pace. The sidewalk narrows as I pass a construction zone, the chain-link fence funneling pedestrians into a tight corridor only wide enough for two people to pass. It’s a perfect ambush point, and I grip my knife tighter, prepared to run rather than fight in such a confined space.
The hairs on my arms stand up beneath my jacket.
Someone’s there.
I spin around, knife out of my pocket and heart hammering.
Nothing but darkness and the distant glow of streetlights.
