Audrey slouched. The drug pulled her under, her eyelids blinking closed as she melted in response to the closest thing to peace she’d felt all day. It wasn’t perfect, though, and shame ateat her when she realized how easily she’d accepted this escape. Every time she let herself go like this, some small, hopeful part of her diminished until resignation won out over guilt.
Freedom had lasted less than twenty-four hours. And she’d already traded it for silence.
For a moment, it worked.
Then that invasive aura touched the edge of her mind again. She tried to push it away, but the drugs made her slow, sluggish.
Unlike the other times, he didn’t fade. He lingered. Like he’d learned where to find her and didn’t need to search anymore.
It was only a matter of time before he closed the distance.
5
Rain ran down the brick walls of the market district and collected in the seams of the alley. As she walked to work, drops soaked her shoes and crept up her ankles, the cold settling inside her bones like it intended to stay.
Audrey tripped on a pavement crack. Her shield slipped, letting voices into her skull.
What is she wearing?
I’m late…
Did I…
They never came one at a time. Real thoughts were a jumbled mess, growing until she couldn’t tell where one ended and another began.
She needed a hit—not later, not eventually—now. Three months working at the private sex clubSaraihad exhausted her. Add her fear that Alex, the only person she considered family now, hadn’t come back, and the killer stayed in her head.
She was still hiding. Pathetic, but it was easy to pretend she was safe just because no one could see her.Saraigave her noise and a cover. Her bosses paid in cash and provided her with names that changed depending on who asked. Audrey movedoften, sleeping in places that weren’t hers. When her head got too loud, she used.
It wasn’t a life—it was maintenance. A way to keep herself functional without getting close to anything that could be taken from her again or anything she might destroy.
Saraiwaited at the end of a dead-end street, in yet another warehouse. The paint flaked, and the metal back door rusted at the hinges. No signage; no permanence.
Footsteps splashed behind her. Audrey stopped, turned, and scanned the wet alley—nothing. Only rain and dripping fire escapes reached her ears.
Still, the feeling didn’t leave.
Don’t think about it. Move.
The blue-eyed man in the hoodie remained at large. She’d seen him three times this week, but he never approached. When she tried to confront him, he ran. She didn’t think he was simply following her anymore. It always looked like he was waiting, but she had no idea what that meant.
Forcing herself to stop thinking about the man, Audrey locked the thought away and pushed open the bodega door.
She didn’t look for answers anymore. In her first few weeks after getting out of prison, she’d researched anything she could get her hands on to reconstruct her disjointed memories into something that made sense. Her confidence hadn’t lasted. A single question had turned into five more she couldn’t answer. So, she’d stopped altogether. She even stopped believing she would ever be anything other than this.
Deep down, though, she knew hiding had only slowed the inevitable.
“Ms. Sarafian.”
A camera lifted, and a red light shone in Audrey’s face.
“I just need a comment,” the reporter said. “Your case is trending again.”
Audrey kept walking. “Turn it off.”
“Three victims,” the woman continued smoothly. “Your father. Your mother. Your sister.”
The words stopped Audrey in her tracks.
