Chapter 15 Neve
Neve
I didn’t want to be alone.
That was the only reason I texted Zelda the moment I left my house the next morning. Just a simple: Coffee?
She answered in less than a minute — I’m out already. Come meet me.
So I did.
By the time I reached the café, she was already waving me over from a small table near the window. She looked annoyed about something, which I knew by now was her default expression, but her eyes softened the moment she saw my face.
“You look like you barely slept,” she remarked.
I hadn’t. I’d spent half the night scrubbing blood off my skin and the other half staring at the ceiling, waiting for another man to step out of another alley and drag me into the dark. My hands still felt shaky hours later. But I didn’t tell her any of that.
I sat down across from her and wrapped my fingers around the coffee cup she pushed toward me. It was warm, solid.
We talked about nothing for a few minutes.
How her day was going. The market. Paolo being dramatic again.
I nodded along, but my mind kept drifting back to yesterday in the alley.
The way the man’s blood pooled. The way his body had stopped moving.
The way I’d walked home afterward like I hadn’t just killed someone.
I didn’t feel guilty. I felt… unsettled. Alert. Too aware of how alone I was in this world.
A silence fell between us, and Zelda tilted her head.
“What happened?” she asked quietly.
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
“You have bruise on your face that wasn’t there yesterday. You look like something’s on your mind. Talk to me.”
I swallowed hard. The words almost rose. I killed a man. But the thought of saying it out loud terrified me more than the act itself. If I told her—if she knew what I was capable of—maybe she’d pull back. Maybe I’d lose the only person in this city who made me feel like I belonged anywhere.
“I’m fine.”
She gave me a long look that said she didn’t believe a word of it.
“Neve,” she sighed, “whatever it is, you know you can talk to me, right?”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat.
“I know you’ve had a hard time adjusting to the city. You don’t have to carry everything alone. I’ve told you that.”
“I know.”
She sat back, studying me. Then, softer, “You know I have a spare room, right? You could move in. You’d save money. And you wouldn’t be by yourself all the time. I’m actually worried about you, Neve.”
I stared at my cup. The idea appealed to me more than I expected. A place where someone else existed. Where someone was nearby if something went wrong. Somewhere I could sleep without counting every creak in the floorboards, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“Dead serious. Move in. I’d love the company.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t have much stuff,” she coaxed. “I’ll help you pack.”
I almost said yes immediately, but something in me hesitated. I’d lived my whole life expecting nothing to last — nothing good, nothing safe.
“What about my job?” I asked. “It’s far from your place.”
“So what? Quit. You’ll find something closer. I’ll help you look.” She nudged my hand. “Come on. It’s not like they pay you enough to stay loyal.”
That made me smile. It was only a small tip of my lips, but it was the first real one in hours.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I’ll move, but not until the weekend. Let me at least give the restaurant notice.”
She grinned like I’d just made her entire week. “Good. That’s settled then.”
I took a sip of my coffee, and for the first time since last night, I felt something close to relief. Someone else was in my corner. Someone who saw me. Someone who cared.
But the comfort didn’t last.
Because even then, sitting in a crowded café, I felt it — that lingering prickle along my spine. The sense of eyes on me. The memory of the man in the alley. The memory of a presence at the market… had he followed me from the market to that alley, only to lose his life there?
“Let’s go,” Zelda said suddenly. “I need to pick up something from my tent.”
We walked back toward the market together. It was quiet that day, not loud and messy the way it was on weekends, and I welcomed the quiet.
When we reached her stall, she paused, her expression shifting. “Come here.” She pulled me into the tent.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. She reached for her deck of cards.
“No,” I whispered automatically.
“Yes.” She cut the deck with practiced ease. “Sit.”
I hesitated. Yesterday was still crawling under my skin, refusing to let go. Part of me wondered if a warning would have changed anything — if seeing danger before it found me would have spared me from what happened in that alley.
But I shut that thought down as quickly as it formed.
The cards had always been wrong for me.
They had never predicted anything real, anything true.
There was no universe where they would have told me what waited for me the second I stepped out of the market. Nothing could have prepared me for that.
So why would today be any different?
And yet, I sat.
She drew the first card. Her mouth tightened. Then the second. Then the third.
When her eyes lifted to mine, the color had drained from her face. She didn’t say a word. And yet her silence said everything.
“What is it?” I asked. Suddenly, I was anxious to know.
“You’re being followed.”
My entire body went still. Could she not have told me that yesterday? Too late, I realised that I’d been the one who wouldn’t let her read my cards.
“What?” I breathed.
She leaned forward, her voice low. “Someone keeps crossing your path. Someone who’s watching you.”
Fear crawled up my throat. Memories of the alley flashed. The man. His hands. The blood. There had to be more of him.
“Is it… bad?” I asked.
She studied the last card again. Then she shook her head, confused.
“I… I don’t know. He’s not your enemy.”
A chill raced through me.
I saw grey eyes. Cold. Familiar in a way I couldn’t explain.
I swallowed hard, my pulse thudding.
I didn’t know whether to feel relieved… or terrified.
“Who is he?” I whispered.
Zelda flipped another card and shook her head.
“I don’t know. But he’s close.”