I blinked, and she was gone.
The booth was empty. The coffee sat untouched, steam rising in a thin curl. The door was swinging closed, the bell still ringing.
"Leah." Reyes grabbed my arm. "What just happened?"
"I don't—" I stopped. Swallowed. "Did you see her?"
"See who?"
"The woman. The one who just walked in."
Reyes looked at the booth. At the door. Back at me. "No one walked in, Leah. You've been sitting here staring at that photograph for the past five minutes."
"That's not—" I shook my head. "She was right there. She sat down. She was watching us."
Reyes's expression shifted. Concern. Suspicion. The same look he'd given me four years ago when I'd told him the wife was telling the truth.
"Maybe you should go home," he said carefully. "Get some rest."
"I'm not tired."
"Leah—"
"I'm not crazy either."
I stood up. My legs were shaking, but I forced them to hold me. "Thank you for your time, Detective. I'll be in touch."
I walked out before he could respond.
The parking lot was empty. Ava was waiting in the car, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. She rolled down the window when she saw me.
"Well?"
"Drive," I said.
"Where?"
"Anywhere. Just drive."
We ended up at a park on the north side of the city.
I didn't remember giving Ava directions. I didn't remember getting out of the car. I just remember sitting on a bench, watching children play on swings, and feeling like I was watching everything through a fog.
"Talk to me," Ava said. She was sitting beside me, close enough that our shoulders touched.
"I saw her."
"Who?"
"The killer. In the diner. She was sitting right there, Ava. Ten feet away. And Reyes didn't see her. No one saw her but me."
Ava was quiet for a moment. Then: "Could it have been a hallucination? Stress can do that. You've been through—"
"I know what I saw."
"Okay." She took my hand. "Okay. Then what do we do?"
I looked at the children on the swings. Laughing. Happy. Completely unaware that monsters existed.
"I need to go back to my apartment," I said. "There's something I've been avoiding for sixteen years. And I can't avoid it anymore."
Ava's grip tightened. "The necklace."
"The necklace."
My apartment was still dark when we got back.
Ava flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. The power was still out.
"Great," she muttered. "What now?"
I walked to the bedroom. The window was still open. The dresser was still moved. But something else was different.
The box was gone.
My mother's necklace. The one I'd kept hidden in my closet, wrapped in silk, untouched for sixteen years.
It was gone.
"No." I dropped to my knees. Ripped open the closet door. Threw clothes aside, boxes, old photographs. "No, no, no—"
"Leah, what's wrong?"
"The necklace. It's gone. Someone took it."
Ava was beside me in an instant. "Who? How?"
I didn't answer. Because I already knew.
The killer had been in my apartment. Not just on the fire escape. Inside. While I was at the diner. While Ava was waiting in the car.
They'd been close enough to touch.
And they'd taken the one thing I'd been too afraid to use.
My phone buzzed.
"Looking for this?"
A photograph. My mother's necklace, lying on a surface I didn't recognize. Dark wood. Candlelight. The symbol carved into the table beneath it.
"You should have touched it years ago, Leah. Now I'll show you what your mother saw. When you're ready."
What do you want from me?
"Everything."
The power came back on at 8 PM.
Ava and I spent the evening reinforcing the windows. Boarding up the fire escape. Installing a new lock on the bedroom door. It felt futile—if someone could get in without breaking anything, locks didn't matter—but it made Ava feel better.
It made me feel nothing.
I sat on my couch, staring at the photograph of my mother's necklace, and tried to remember her voice.
I couldn't.
All I could remember was the symbol. The way she'd drawn it over and over. The way she'd whispered to me at night, when my father was asleep, telling me things I was too young to understand.
"There are people in this world, Leah, who aren't people. They wear faces like masks. They walk among us. And they're hungry."
I'd thought she was sick.
I'd thought she was losing her mind.
Now I wondered if she was the only sane one in our family.
I went back to see Ethan the next day.
Ava drove me again. This time, she didn't ask questions. Just squeezed my hand before I got out of the car and said, "Be careful."
The visiting room was the same. Gray. Sterile. Depressing.
Ethan was different.
He looked worse than he had yesterday. Dark circles under his eyes. A tremor in his hands. When he sat down across from me, he looked like a man who hadn't slept in days.
"They're moving up the trial," he said. "Three weeks."
"That's not enough time."
"It's all the time they're giving me." He leaned forward. "Did you find anything? About the woman?"
"Yes." I paused. "And no."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I know she's real. I know she's killed before. And I know she's connected to my family." I met his eyes. "But I don't know who she is. Or what she wants."
Ethan stared at me. "Your family?"
"My mother. She died sixteen years ago. I always thought it was natural causes—a heart attack, maybe. But now..." I shook my head. "Now I think someone killed her. The same person who killed Marcus."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
Ethan was quiet for a long time. Then he reached into his jumpsuit and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
"I found this," he said. "In my cell. Tucked under my pillow."
He slid it through the slot beneath the glass.
I unfolded it.
A drawing. Crude. Childlike. But unmistakable.
The symbol. My mother's symbol. Drawn in what looked like blood.
"When did you find this?"
"This morning."
I felt sick. "Someone has access to your cell. Someone on the inside."
"I know."
"We need to tell the guards. Request protective custody—"
"It won't matter." Ethan's voice was hollow. "Whoever this is, they're everywhere. Inside the prison. Outside. In your apartment. In your dreams." He looked at me. "They told me to give you a message."
My blood ran cold. "What message?"
"The necklace is just the beginning. Next, I'll take something she can't live without."
"Ava," I whispered.
Ethan nodded. "Whoever this is, they know about your sister. They know everything."
I ran.
Out of the visiting room. Past the security checkpoints. Through the parking lot, shoes slipping on the wet pavement, heart pounding so hard I couldn't hear anything except the blood rushing in my ears.
Ava was sitting in the car.
Alive. Unharmed. Scrolling through her phone.
I yanked open the door and pulled her into a hug so tight she squeaked.
"Leah! What the hell—"
"Someone threatened you," I gasped. "In the prison. They left a message for Ethan. They said they were going to take something I can't live without."
Ava went very still.
"Drive," I said. "Don't stop until we're out of the city."
"Where are we going?"
"I don't care. Just drive."
We ended up at a motel two hours north of the city.
The kind of place that rented rooms by the hour and didn't ask questions. The carpet was stained. The sheets were thin. The lock on the door was broken, so Ava pushed a chair against it.
We sat on the bed, side by side, not talking.
My phone was off. I'd turned it off after the tenth text from an unknown number. I couldn't look at the messages anymore. Couldn't read the words that appeared like magic, like the killer was inside my head, whispering secrets I didn't want to hear.
"Leah." Ava's voice was soft. "I need to ask you something."
"Okay."
"The necklace. Mom's necklace. Why didn't you ever touch it?"
I stared at the wall. The wallpaper was peeling, revealing mold beneath. A metaphor, maybe. Or just a cheap motel.
"Because I'm scared," I said.
"Of what?"
"Of what I'll see." I pulled my knees to my chest. "The last time I touched a dead person, it was a stranger. A woman in a car accident. I was seventeen. I was walking home from school, and I saw the crash, and I ran over to help. But she was already gone. And when I touched her skin..."
I closed my eyes.
The memory was still fresh. The white light. The rush of images. The woman's final seconds—her daughter's face, her husband's voice, the screech of tires and the impact and the darkness.
"I saw her whole life flash before my eyes. Not just five seconds. Everything. Her first kiss. Her wedding. Her child being born. All of it, in the space of a heartbeat."
"That's not—" Ava stopped. "I thought you only saw five seconds."
"So did I. Until that moment." I opened my eyes. "Something changed in me that day. My ability... it got stronger. I could feel it expanding. Like a muscle I'd never used."
"And you've been hiding it ever since."
"Yes."
Ava was quiet for a moment. Then: "What if Mom's not like that? What if you touch her necklace and you only see five seconds? What if it's not as bad as you think?"
"What if it's worse?"
She didn't have an answer.
Neither did I.
The knock came at 2 AM.
Three sharp raps. Then silence.
Ava and I both sat up, frozen. The chair was still against the door. The window was still locked. The lights were still off.
Another knock.
"Ava," I whispered. "Get behind me."
"What are you going to do?"
"I don't know."
I crept toward the door. The floor creaked under my weight. I pressed my eye to the peephole.
No one was there.
Just the empty hallway. The flickering light. The stained carpet.
I stepped back.
Then the door handle turned.
The chair scraped across the floor as the door pushed open—slowly, deliberately, like whoever was on the other side wanted us to see it coming.
"Leah," Ava breathed. "Run."
I couldn't.
My feet were frozen. My hands were shaking. The door swung open, and—
No one was there.
The hallway was empty. The chair was on the floor. The door was open.
But there was no one.
"Close it," Ava said. "Close the door, Leah."
I reached for the handle.
A hand grabbed my wrist.
Not Ava's hand. Not a hand I recognized.
Cold. Thin. Fingers like bones.
I looked up.
The figure was standing in front of me. Tall. Dark. Face shifting, changing, never settling. Eyes that were blue and brown and green and nothing at all.
"Hello, Leah," they said.
Their voice was wrong. Too many tones. Too many layers. Like a dozen people speaking at once.
"Let go of me."
"In a moment." They squeezed harder. Their fingers burned against my skin. "I've waited a long time to meet you. Your mother spoke of you often."
"Where is she?"
"Gone. But not forgotten." The figure smiled. "She tried to stop me, you know. Tried to warn people. That's why I killed her."
The words hit me like a physical blow.
"You killed my mother."
"Slowly. Painfully. She screamed for you at the end." The figure tilted their head. "Would you like to see? I can show you. I have her necklace. I can make you watch."
"Leah!" Ava was behind me, pulling at my arm, trying to drag me away. "Let her go!"
The figure's eyes shifted to Ava.
Their smile widened.
"Ah. The sister." They released my wrist. "I'll be seeing you both soon."
And then they were gone.
Not walking away. Not disappearing around a corner. Just... gone. Like they'd never been there at all.
Ava slammed the door. Pushed the chair back against it. Grabbed my shoulders.
"We're leaving. Now."
I couldn't argue.
I looked down at my wrist.
Five red marks. Fingerprints. Burned into my skin like a brand.
The killer had touched me.
And for the first time in my life, I'd been too scared to see what they were thinking.
We drove through the night.
Ava behind the wheel, knuckles white, eyes fixed on the road. Me in the passenger seat, staring at my wrist, watching the marks darken into bruises.
"They're not human," I said finally.
"What?"
"The killer. They're not human." I looked at Ava. "I've never been able to read a living person's thoughts. Not once. But when they touched me... I felt something. Fragments. Images. They're old, Ava. So old. Older than this city. Older than this country."
"How old?"
"I don't know. But they've been killing for centuries. And they're not going to stop until they get what they want."
"What do they want?"
I thought about the messages. The threats. The way the killer had smiled when they mentioned my mother.
"Me," I said. "They want me."
Dawn broke over the highway.
Ava pulled into a rest stop. We sat in the car, watching the sun rise, neither of us speaking.
Then Ava turned to me.
"We need help."
"Who?"
"I don't know. Someone who knows about this stuff. Someone who can fight whatever that thing was."
I thought about Reyes. About Jonathan. About Eleanor. None of them could help. They were all human. Fragile. Blind.
But I knew someone who wasn't.
Someone I hadn't seen in ten years.
Someone who might be dead.
"There's a man," I said slowly. "He used to work with my mother. Before she died. He knew about her... abilities. About the killer. He tried to warn her, but she wouldn't listen."
"Where is he now?"
"I don't know. But my mother kept a journal. Hidden somewhere. If we can find it, maybe it has his contact information."
Ava started the engine. "Then let's find it."
We drove back to the city.
Back to the apartment.
Back to the danger.
But this time, I wasn't running.
I was hunting.
TO BE CONTINUED...