What am I doing?
A telepathic killer had destroyed her family and was back in her head. The city she’d called home appeared unfamiliar and hostile. And the one person she’d trusted to meet her had disappeared.
Think.
If Alex were gone, she needed money. If the killer was following her openly, he wanted movement, not hiding. If the man at the station had recognized her, then whatever had happened the night of her house caught on fire hadn’t ended—it had only gone quiet.
Which meant this wasn’t fallout but contact.
People moved around her. Tolusa was a vibrant but indifferent city. The killer could be anywhere, and she needed to move.
Audrey stood and scanned without looking, letting her awareness stretch just enough to catch anything that didn’t belong. That was when she felt the anomaly. The world seemed to skew for an instant, as if the air had thinned around her. Her skin prickled, and the steady hum of noise in her head dropped off, replaced by a strange, hollow pressure behind her eyes. This was a strong presence that stood stationary while everyone else whirled about it. A chill swept up her spine, as if her body sensed something her mind hadn’t named yet.
She bent over, pretending to adjust her boot while sweeping the block. Kitty-corner, half in shadow, stood a man in a dark hoodie. Her blood turned cold. Nothing about him was overtly threatening, but the absence of an aura around him felt wrong in a crowded street.
His head lifted, and those same blue eyes from the station locked with hers. Audrey got off the curb and crossed the street, steadying her breathing. He didn’t move or look away. She centered her aura and reached out to touch his mind.
The impact against his shield was immediate, and despite his obvious training, a thread of unfamiliar language leaked into her cognition. Then, abruptly, it sealed.
He cocked his head slightly. A voice entered her mind.You shouldn’t do that.His voice was a low murmur in her brain.It’s too obvious.
Before she could respond, his phone vibrated, and he glanced down. He slipped it into his pocket and, without sparing her another look, ran away.
Audrey chased after him, but he changed his pace without looking back, then turned decisively into an alley. Still, she followed. There were brick walls on either side, with a steel door at the end. Nowhere to go.
He slowed and turned to face her. “You’re not the only one,” he said out loud. “Be careful who you do that to.”
Then he moved forward and went straight through the door.
Audrey stood there, staring, waiting for the world to correct itself.
It didn’t.
She studied the door and pushed. It was solid and inflexible. There was no sound, and nothing on the other side. Left alone in the alley, she panted.
The killer had returned, and he was searching for her. The man in the hoodie wasn’t the killer, but he knew things, maybe answers she desperately needed. He hadn’t come to harm her tonight. If anything, it felt like he was delivering a warning, or perhaps testing to see if she was ready for something.
She rubbed her temples, trying to force away the feeling of a noose tightening around her.
But it was no use.
Whatever had happened the night of the murders hadn’t been contained this past decade—and now that she was free, it was surfacing again.
4
With nowhere else to go, Audrey unfolded Skyler’s note and headed for the address.
The neighborhood was nice, but at the edge of a bad area. There was no doorman when she entered the older high-rise. All the city’s minds passed through the thin walls of the building when she walked out of the rickety elevator.
Her shield crumbled at every turn, fatigue taking over. Thoughts crashed from every direction, the mental static building until she was submerged in other people’s lives.
Walls didn’t mute anything. The noise felt closer, as if it had followed her inside. They should’ve created distance and barriers against the barrage, but this place just trapped the noise, letting it echo endlessly. In prison, the noise was loud but predictable, limited to a few hundred minds cycling the same routines.
Here in Tolusa, it was different; there were too many people.
Audrey knocked on the door with the number four engraved into the wood. Her friend opened it and smiled wordlessly before letting her inside. Audrey got the distinct impression Skyler had been expecting her. Inside, it was a shoebox ofrank smoke and bad decisions. Clothes poured out of drawers, and takeout rotted in the sink. Something sour—old grease and moist cloth—lingered in the air.
They sat at a wobbling table beneath a humming bulb. The light kept going in and out, just enough to be annoying. Skyler passed her a cigarette. “You look like you need this more than me.”
