Chapter 4
Nathan
The man’s still wheezing when I drag him out of the elevator and onto the ground.
His fisherman’s hat hits the floor somewhere between the doors and the hallway, landing beside his keys.
I take a breath. My knuckles throb. My pulse is still hammering.
I pull out my phone, scroll to a number, and press call.
“Hello,” comes the emotionless voice over the line.
“Yeah,” I say, voice low. “It’s me. I just hit a guy.”
A pause. A very. Long. Pause.
“Your place?”
“Yeah, in the building. He’ll be outside my door till you get here. Just… get him out of here.” I don’t recognize the gravelly undertone of my own voice.
“You got it.”
I hang up before the questions start. I don’t want the stress of having to answer them, because honestly, I don’t have the answers. I just reacted.
Inside my apartment, the quiet hits harder than the punch did.
I drop my keys, flex my hand, looking at the cut across my knuckles… I’ll need stitches in the morning.
What the hell was that?
I don’t even really know the girl.
She was already gone before I threw the punch. She didn’t see a thing. Did she hear, though?
I had no choice. The way that guy followed her into the elevator, the way she pressed the wrong floor, the way she froze. I felt it.
That tension, that sick feeling of fear that creeps into your soul. The kind that hums in your chest before something happens.
It was like my body moved before I could think. Like muscle memory. I just reacted.
Like I’ve been here before, and this time I refused to let it happen again.
Maybe it wasn’t about her at all.
Maybe it was about… someone else.
Someone I should’ve protected.
Someone I didn’t.
Someone I failed.
I stare at my reflection in the window… the city lights fractured across the glass. Jaw clenched. Hands still trembling with the aftermath.
Why the hell did I even care?
Why did it matter what happened to her? She was just a stranger I happened to meet in the elevator—a really pretty stranger.
Why did something in me react like she was more familiar than that? Old habits die hard, maybe. Or maybe I’m finally snapping. I sink onto the edge of the bed and press my eyes shut. The city fades away along with its lights, its pressure, its need to constantly be seen and heard.
The noise changes slightly when you close your eyes… cheers, whistles, the chants of the stadium crowd.
And suddenly, I’m not here anymore. I’m back there. On that field.
Lake Stevens High School.
The day that started it all.
The day I first saw her.
Maddison Morgan.
The marching band parted, and with it, my world tilted.
Across the field, a visiting cheer squad fanned out like a sweep of color against the visitor bleachers.
She stood at the center. Auburn ponytail catching the stadium lights, megawatt smile aimed somewhere past me, as if she’d been dropped here by mistake and was about to float away again. My chest hitched.
“Yo, Reign!” Bishop barked, slapping my helmet. “Quit gawking. Coach wants the coin toss.”
I nodded, but my gaze refused to break. Move, Reign!
I scanned the turf for… anything. A gesture, a gift, a reason to stand in front of her, stupid but hormonal high schoolers aren’t known for rocket science.
A cluster of green vines crawled along the chain link near the tunnel exit.
Close enough. I yanked off a handful and ran.
Twenty cheerleaders stopped mid-routine when I stepped into their formation. Helmets turned, whistles shrilled from the refs. Worth it.
I held out the vines. “For you.”
She arched one perfect brow. “You know that’s poison ivy, right?”
Laughter rippled through the squad. My face flamed beneath the face mask. She flashed a quick, almost sympathetic smile, then pivoted back to her squad.
I chucked the cursed greenery, jogged to the huddle, I wasn’t sure if it was in my head, but I felt the itch bloom beneath my gloves. Great. Coach blew the opening whistle; I could still flex my fingers.
Every snap felt a little worse. Poison ivy tingling had already started under the tape at record pace, each grip on the laces a new stab of fire.
Somehow, instinct carried me. Bishop’s post route, the screen to Morris, a last-second QB sneak, each play stitched us downfield.
Finally, it was the final drive: ten seconds, tied score.
I faked left, rolled right, and, despite the irritation, rifled a forty-yard dart Bishop plucked from the corner of the end zone.
The crowd erupted. My hands throbbed, but we’d won.
When the horn faded, I jogged, grimacing, toward the cheer line. She was still there, chatting with friends, ponytail bobbing. I cleared my throat.
“Well… that was rough,” she teased, eyes flicking to my red knuckles.
“Rough? I still won, didn’t I?”
She smiles at me. “Did you, though?”
The stadium noise swells again. The lights burn a little too bright.
“Did you, though?”
Her voice echoes strangely this time, like it didn’t come from her mouth—like it came from everywhere.
“Did you, though?”
She’s still smiling, but something about it is wrong now. Too still. Too frozen.
“Did you, though?”
The words start to stutter. Loop. Skip.
Did you though?
Did you though?
Did you though?
I struggle to breathe. “What does that mean?”
She doesn’t answer.
I blink.
The field is empty.
No crowd.
No band.
No players.
No cheerleaders.
No Maddison.
The stadium lights are still on, humming overhead, but every seat is vacant. The banners hang limp. The scoreboard is dark.
I’m standing alone at the fifty-yard line.
My helmet feels too heavy. My hands hurt again, throbbing, burning—but when I look down, there are no blisters. No bandages. Just clean skin and a tightness in my chest I can’t breathe past.
“Hello?” My voice disappears into the open air.
Something moves in the sky.
I look up.
A single balloon is floating up past the stadium lights.
Red.
Drifting higher. And higher.
I don’t know why, but panic slams into me like a hit I never saw coming.
“Wait!” I shout, breaking into a run. “Hey—wait!”
My cleats pound uselessly against the turf. The balloon keeps rising. Just out of reach. Just far enough away.
I trip.
Fall.
By the time I scramble back to my feet, it’s already gone.
Just empty sky.
Just empty stands.
Just—
I jolt awake in the dark, my heart trying to tear its way out of my chest.
The room’s cold, the city bleeding through the window in blue streaks. For a second, I don’t even know where I am. My pulse is still pounding from the dream, the field, the noise, her face.
I sit up slowly, flex my hand. My knuckles are stiff, crusted with dried blood. The cut across them throbs like it’s reminding me of what I did.
The apartment’s quiet. Too quiet.
I push off the bed and walk to the door.
When I open it, the hallway’s empty… no fisherman’s hat, no body, no sound. Just empty floor and ambient light.
He’s gone.
I pull out my phone and scroll to the same number I called earlier.
When the line clicks, I keep my voice low. “Has it been handled?”
“I scrubbed the security cameras,” the voice says. “Everything’s been handled.”
“So we won’t be seeing him again?”
A short pause. “Like I said. It’s handled.”
I nod to myself. “That’s all I needed to hear.” I hang up.
For a while, I just stand there, staring at my phone like it’s supposed to give me an answer. The adrenaline’s gone. What’s left feels worse.
I close the door, lean against it, and look down at my hand again. The skin’s swollen and split… a reminder of how far I let things go.
I grab a towel and press it against the cut. The sting keeps me grounded.
It’s not just anger. It’s something else. Something I don’t have a name for.
I stare out the window… at my own reflection, ghosted over the city lights. The version of me that keeps losing control.
Maybe it’s time to talk to someone.
Maybe it’s time to stop pretending I’m fine.
But I don’t move. I just stand there, bleeding quietly into a towel, wondering if that’s even possible for someone like me.