Chapter 21 Raven
TWENTY-ONE
RAVEN
Reina’s fashion show was in motion. Music pulsed through the room, bass humming low in my chest while spotlights carved sharp arcs of brilliance through the smoky haze.
I stepped onto the runway, the polished wood clicking under my heels. All around me, eyes were glued to my every move. Or so I assumed.
And then I felt it.
A tingle at the back of my neck. It was that subtle, spine-stretching awareness that someone was watching. It was the kind of presence that made the hairs on your arms stand on end, though the source was hidden, obscured by the glare of stage lights.
But the whole sensation felt oddly familiar.
I shook the thought away, focusing on the rhythm, the swing of my hips, the sway of the fabric I was modeling. But the sensation lingered stubbornly.
The crowd applauded at the right moments, the flashes of cameras burning into my vision. I kept walking, kept smiling, kept performing, but the awareness stayed. It was in my chest now, a heartbeat that felt foreign while a weight pressed at the back of my mind.
A familiar warmth twisted with unease. The floorboards beneath my heels seemed too sharp, the air too thick, as if it were charged with expectation.
I tried to shake it off, reminding myself that the eyes watching belonged to my friends’ families and their associates.
But it was precisely that which made me uneasy.
After my experience five years ago, it was quite normal, but it still made me paranoid to be around people I didn’t know.
It was the reason I was always reserved around my friends’ families while hiding in plain sight as my mom said I should.
It’d served me well so far. And yet… there was a pull I couldn’t explain. A feeling that made my pulse hitch, that made my movements slightly sharper, a touch more careful.
With every step I took on the runway, warning crawled up my spine and curled in my stomach. The lights were blinding, but somehow they couldn’t diminish the weight of someone’s gaze on me.
I kept walking. And in the back of my mind, buried under the music and the applause, a question whispered, trembled, begged to be answered:
Who is watching me?