I was standing in an alley two blocks away, my back against a brick wall, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps. The knife was in my hand. The blade was wet. My palms were slick with something warm that was already starting to cool.
Whose blood?
Whose life?
Whose death had I just made?
I looked down at my hands and didn't recognize them. The woman who owned them was someone I didn't know—someonewho killed without remembering, someone who hunted without knowing why, someone who was falling apart in slow motion and couldn't find the ground.
Gabriel.
Where are you?
Why aren't you here?
Why did you leave me alone with this?
The knife fell from my fingers. It clattered against the asphalt, and the sound echoed through the alley like a gunshot. I stared at it for a long time—the blade still wet, the hilt still warm—and I couldn't make myself pick it up.
"You're ready."
For this?
For becoming this?
For waking up in motel rooms with blood you don't remember spilling?
I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the cold ground, my knees drawn up to my chest, my hands pressed flat against the asphalt. The blood was drying on my palms. It would flake off soon, leaving traces I'd find later, in a motel room I didn't remember checking into, on hands I didn't remember washing.
The phone buzzed in my pocket.
I didn't look at it. I already knew what it would say. Another address. Another name. Another hunt I wouldn't remember until it was over.
Gabriel.
I'm coming.
I don't know where you are. I don't know why you left. I don't know if you're alive or dead or somewhere in between.
But I'm coming.
And I won't stop until I find you.
I pushed myself to my feet. Picked up the knife. Wiped it on my jeans. Walked back toward the street where the sun wasfinally rising, painting the sky in shades of gold and pink and the color of old blood.
The phone buzzed again.
I didn't look.
I already knew where I was going next.
I just didn't know why.
2
The First Lead
The sky was the color of a bruise when I finally stopped walking.
