Maryanne slung
her pack over her shoulder. "Let's go," she said. Her voice carried the quiet
steel of someone who had faced unimaginable horror and refused to bend.
For the first
time in years, she allowed herself one small, sharp thrill of hope: together,
they might survive.
The mall hummed
with the false comfort of fluorescent lights and rock music. Shoppers drifted
through aisles, weighed down with bags, the air heavy with the smell of
pretzels and perfume. It was the kind of place where teenagers came to feel
normal, to pretend the world was ordinary.
For Marietta and
Anne Faith, the illusion barely held. Their eyes caught on shadows others
ignored, on the stillness behind moving crowds. The veil beneath reality
itself. They walked together, close, a practiced rhythm of watching each
other's backs.
Maryanne had
allowed the trip reluctantly. "One hour," she said, checking their wards and
charms before they left. "And stay together. No exceptions."
Anne Faith
trailed her fingers across the polished railings, murmuring, "So many echoes
here. So much sorrow and jealousy hidden beneath glass."
Marietta rolled
her eyes. "You just read too much into things, Anne Faith." But even she
couldn't ignore the static, like worms crawling across her skin, a cold tide
rising somewhere just beyond sight.
They noticed him
near the bookstore. His shoes gleamed as though polished minutes ago, but his
hands were raw, callused as if he'd been moving body bags all day. Yet there
was something wrong in the symmetry of him, like a painting where the eyes
follow you no matter where you stand. His hair was neat, his smile polite, but
his gaze lingered too long, too steady to be normal.
He stepped
forward as if he'd been waiting, twiddling his thumbs at different paces. "You
must be Maryanne's girls." His voice was calm, cultured even, yet threaded with
something sharp—like a needle disposal.
The sisters
froze. He shouldn't have known their names.
Marietta
swallowed hard. "Do we know you?"
The names Dan...
Dan tilted his head slightly, a predator's subtle amusement flickering in his
eyes. "Names travel. Stories travel. Especially stories about bloodlines and
prophecies." He leaned closer, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial murmur.
"Never trust a man with a pig farm, girls. Pigs... they feast on the dead. And
those who keep them—well, they've made peace with slop."
Anne Faith
stiffened, her knuckles whitening around her satchel of charms. His words
didn't sound like nonsense to her. They carried weight, layered meaning.
Dan straightened,
smiling faintly. "But don't worry. I'm not here to harm you." His smile
sharpened. "Quite the opposite. I've been waiting. Watching. You're more
important than you thought, one might say you're appointed." Remember, do not
mistake me for a God. I am what your silence taught me to be.
Marietta felt the
air shift—the same cold pull she'd sensed in the kitchen. The tension now honed
into a human form, staring deep into their souls. She whispered to her sister,
"It feels like he shouldn't know us, but he does..."
Dan's gaze
snapped to her instantly, as though he'd heard the thought rather than the
words. "Ah. Sensitive, aren't you?" He stepped back, folding his hands behind
him with unsettling composure, every movement deliberate.
Shoppers bustled
around them, oblivious. To everyone else, Dan was just a man standing too
close. But to Marietta and Anne Faith, he was something else entirely. Someone
who was a mystery, who was present but still away.
"I'll be seeing
you again," Dan said softly, almost tenderly. Then his expression hardened,
just for a moment—the mask slipping enough to reveal a flash of fury, of
obsession. "You'll come to me in time. It's in your nature to seek me out."
"Whatever you
say, our mom warned us about creeps like you," Anne Faith said.
Dan stiffens.
Like me... are
you sure? Little girl? Seems to me you're talking about yourself, smug, aren't
you? Marietta and Anne Faith both stiffen into a serious posture. "Weirdo, get
away from us with your constant finger tapping, your fake act is a horror
show." Marietta shoves Dan away slightly.
Dan tenses up,
then releases his body calmly as he is shoved.
Dan said, "Be
that way... me a weirdo? You're kidding... right?" His tone changed, his eyes
flickered a hunger for flesh, as he squares his shoulders. And in a maniacal
tone, he whispered: "Still doesn't change the art of the flesh; knowing that it
squirms."
Dan winked, and
then he was gone. Swallowed into the crowd, like a shark swallowing a baby
whale, leaving only the faintest trace of saltwater in the air.
The sisters stood
frozen in the press of shoppers, both trembling, unable to comprehend what they
witnessed.
Anne Faith
finally whispered, "He knows us. He's tied to the covenant."
Marietta clenched
her fists; her eyes still fixed on where he'd stood. "No. He's worse. He wants
us."
And in that
moment, both of them understood: their safe drills and wards hadn't prepared
them for someone like Dan. Someone who wasn't just an enemy. Someone who was
hungry for them personally.