Chapter 5
Rain ran down the brick walls of the market district and collected in the seams of the alley. As she walked to work, drops soaked her shoes and crept up her ankles, the cold settling inside her bones like it intended to stay.
Audrey tripped on a pavement crack. Her shield slipped, letting voices into her skull.
What is she wearing?
I’m late…
Did I…
They never came one at a time. Real thoughts were a jumbled mess, growing until she couldn’t tell where one ended and another began.
She needed a hit—not later, not eventually—now. Three months working at the private sex club Sarai had exhausted her. Add her fear that Alex, the only person she considered family now, hadn’t come back, and the killer stayed in her head.
She was still hiding. Pathetic, but it was easy to pretend she was safe just because no one could see her.
Sarai gave her noise and a cover. Her bosses paid in cash and provided her with names that changed depending on who asked.
Audrey moved often, sleeping in places that weren’t hers. When her head got too loud, she used.
It wasn’t a life—it was maintenance. A way to keep herself functional without getting close to anything that could be taken from her again or anything she might destroy.
Sarai waited at the end of a dead-end street, in yet another warehouse. The paint flaked, and the metal back door rusted at the hinges. No signage; no permanence.
Footsteps splashed behind her. Audrey stopped, turned, and scanned the wet alley—nothing. Only rain and dripping fire escapes reached her ears.
Still, the feeling didn’t leave.
Don’t think about it. Move.
The blue-eyed man in the hoodie remained at large. She’d seen him three times this week, but he never approached. When she tried to confront him, he ran. She didn’t think he was simply following her anymore. It always looked like he was waiting, but she had no idea what that meant.
Forcing herself to stop thinking about the man, Audrey locked the thought away and pushed open the bodega door.
She didn’t look for answers anymore. In her first few weeks after getting out of prison, she’d researched anything she could get her hands on to reconstruct her disjointed memories into something that made sense.
Her confidence hadn’t lasted. A single question had turned into five more she couldn’t answer.
So, she’d stopped altogether. She even stopped believing she would ever be anything other than this.
Deep down, though, she knew hiding had only slowed the inevitable.
“Ms. Sarafian.”
A camera lifted, and a red light shone in Audrey’s face.
“I just need a comment,” the reporter said. “Your case is trending again.”
Audrey kept walking. “Turn it off.”
“Three victims,” the woman continued smoothly. “Your father. Your mother. Your sister.”
The words stopped Audrey in her tracks.
“How does it feel,” the reporter pressed, moving closer, “knowing most people still think you did it?” intrusion.
Audrey froze. Impossible.
The clerk leaned toward the window. Other customers glanced Audrey’s way, their thoughts moving through the space like a current.
That’s her…
She killed…
Look at her…
Every thought made the situation feel like it could get out of hand. “Turn it off,” Audrey snapped.
“Especially now,” the reporter pushed, closing distance, “that sources say someone’s been—”
The woman’s voice grew muffled as a tremble moved down Audrey’s spine. She shot a look over her shoulder. Across the street, the man in the hoodie stood under a rippling awning. She shoved past the reporter, making the woman stagger.
But when she looked back, he was gone.
Of course. Ignoring the thought, she rounded the corner and banged her fist against the club’s back door. “Open up.”
No answer. All she could hear was the pounding bass and voices muted by the walls. She knocked again, but the bouncers still ignored her. Her heart thumped. She hated feeling exposed. If the reporter returned…
“Forget it,” Audrey mumbled, heading for the main entrance. A group of men lingered outside, drunk, watching everything that moved.
She didn’t slow. “Move.”
One of them hesitated, then stepped aside. Inside, it was hot. Noise and sweat crashed into her.
“Look who made it,” Erik said from the bar. He didn’t smile, and Audrey kept walking. A hand caught her sleeve and pulled her back. “Don’t get smart,” Erik said, fingers stroking her cheek. “Later. You’re mine.”
His aura pressed in. It was dark and possessive. Audrey didn’t fight him. “Yeah,” was all she could muster. Erik owned her, and all the girls at Sarai, yet Audrey was the only one he tortured on a regular basis.
He held her a moment longer, then let go. Audrey pulled away.
After she entered the dressing room, Skyler stumbled in after and dropped onto the couch, already half-gone.
“Chloe off?” Audrey asked.
Skyler laughed weakly. “No one’s off.”
Before Audrey could reply, she bent forward and vomited.
Audrey paused for an instant, then dropped next to her friend, turning Skyler onto her side and holding her steady. Foam formed on Skyler’s mouth as her body shook.
“Stay with me,” Audrey said, grabbing the Narcan from her purse. “Come on.”
The medicine went up her nose, and a breath dragged back into Skyler’s lungs. She coughed. Audrey exhaled.
“Shit,” Skyler rasped. “I took too much.”
“Yeah. You did.”
The room teemed with laughing and talking voices, so routine it almost made the overdose feel like a hallucination.
“You should try some of this new stuff,” one of the girls said.
Audrey shook her head, still a bit shaken from Skyler’s brush with death. “I’m good.”
Lie. Her mouth watered for the drug.
She checked on Skyler again. Her friend’s chest rose and fell in an even pattern.
Without drawing attention to herself, Audrey made her way to the bathroom and shut the door. In the dark, she let her head fall against the door, wondering if she was really free—or if she’d just traded one cage for another.
She reached inside her bag and pulled out a tattered textbook. Her dad’s voice filled her mind.
Every language carries a history inside it.
Audrey pressed the book briefly to her cheek, letting the ink and paper scent fill her nose. It reminded her of nights with her father at the kitchen table, as he taught her languages and fed her desire for knowledge.
But the thoughts returned, interrupting the memory. She dropped the book and dug through her bag. From an inside pocket, she pulled a small plastic bag and laid out crystals, leaning over them quickly.
The burn hit hard and fast. That manufactured silence settled around her. It wasn’t enough. It was more like being underwater, not the pure silence she craved.
She took another.
The second hit did it. Her vision softened, and the pressure in her head loosened.
Almost perfect.
She wiped her nose with a piece of toilet paper. This was the trade—distance instead of clarity. Enough to pretend, for a few hours, that nothing was amiss. But it was false. The monster was always there, stalking the perimeters of her thoughts.
She fixed her makeup in the mirror, smoothing the space between her brows until her face went blank. Despite her exhaustion and the drugs, she looked good.
Back in the main room, the music blasted into her.
The crowd had grown, but no one here cared who she was, which was the point. In places like this, identity didn’t stick. Faces all looked the same, and names didn’t matter. People saw what they wanted—and forgot the rest.
She got a drink. The sting of alcohol centered her. Across the room, a man with a simple aura watched.
He smiled. She smiled back; the hook was set. Audrey moved into his space, stoking his emotions. Manipulation was a system she understood.
Den boreís na antistatheís se mia séxi gynaíka.
Every muscle in her body locked up.
The phrase was in ancient Greek, the same frightening words she’d heard from the killer before, although not his native language, which was far more melodic.
After all these months, after all her careful planning, that language could only mean one thing—the killer was close. Closer than he’d ever been before. This wasn’t an overreaction or a mistake. He was here, maybe even just outside.
She scanned the warehouse. Bodies moved as usual, but her gut told her that something was off.
Across the bar, Erik grinned. “Good girl,” he mouthed.
Audrey grimaced, unable to fake a true smile for him but trying to pretend everything was normal.
It wasn’t, though. The feeling didn’t leave. Under the noise, her homeostasis shifted in response to the threat.
There you are, love.
Hearing him again, so close, made her insides twist. He hadn’t just come across her…he’d been looking.
And now, he was close enough to touch.