CHAPTER 11 - Lucy
The fluorescent lights of the ambulance station feel far too bright after a night shift, but tonight, they’re practically blinding.
I sit in the breakroom, staring at a cup of lukewarm coffee, my mind racing faster than the siren on my rig. Something is wrong. No, that’s an understatement. Something is catastrophically wrong with Madeline.
I know Mali better than anyone. I know the way she bites her lip when she’s nervous, the way her posture stiffens when she’s hiding something.
Back at the mortuary, she wasn't just scared; she was terrified. And that man... the one I collided with in the hallway? He didn't look like a random intruder. He moved with a terrifying kind of grace, like someone that knew exactly where he belonged.
"You're overthinking it, Lu," my colleague, Mark, says as he walks past me, tossing his keys.
"It’s been a long night. Go home."
"I can't," I mutter, my grip tightening around the paper cup.
"Mali is lying to me. She told me she didn't know him, but the way she looked at her phone... She was protecting him, or worse, being silenced by him."
As soon as I get into my car, I don't go home. I can't. My intuition is screaming. I’m a paramedic. I’m trained to see the small, physical details people try to hide.
I pull out my laptop and log into the restricted police database. Being a first responder has its perks; I have access to certain case files and reports before they ever hit the morning news. I search for the name that’s been haunting the precinct: "The Arbiter."
The screen fills with images of crime scenes I’ve seen in person, but seeing them all archived together makes me shiver. The precision. The messages left in the bodies.
It’s not just murder; it’s a twisted, clinical form of justice. And then I remember the man in the hallway. The absolute stillness in his eyes when I confronted him. He didn't have the eyes of a petty thief. He had the eyes of a God looking down at an ant.
My heart starts to hammer against my ribs. No. It can’t be.
I check the time. It’s been nearly an hour since I left the mortuary. Mali should have been home by now. I reach for my phone and dial her number.
Voice mail.
"Dammit, Mali, pick up," I whisper, my breath hitching.
I wait two minutes and try again. Still nothing. A cold lump forms in my stomach. I start digging deeper into the victim files, specifically the ones Mali has worked on at her private facility. Jake. The masquerade party. The private lounge.
I find a supplementary security log from the night of the party. There’s a gap. Ten minutes of footage missing from the hallway near the VIP rooms. Someone wiped it. Someone with high-level access.
I try to call her one last time, my fingers shaking so hard I almost drop the phone.
While it rings, I notice a small, buried detail in a witness report from an old case.
A bystander mentioned a man with a distinct white strand in his dark hair.
The man in the mortuary. He had that exact same strand.
"Oh God," I gasp, the realization hitting me like a physical blow.
My best friend isn't just being stalked. She’s caught in a game with the most dangerous man in the city, and she’s trying to handle it alone.
I put the car in gear, my eyes scanning the dark, rain-slicked streets. I need to find her. I don't care if she told me to stay away. If that man is who I think he is, Madeline isn't just a pathologist anymore. She’s his next target.
I dial her number again, the persistent ringing sounding like a countdown in the silence of my car.
"Pick up, Mali. Please, just pick up."
An hour.
I’ve been sitting in my car for a full hour, redialing her number until my fingers went numb.
Every silent ring felt like a strike against my chest. I was ready to drive straight to the precinct and trigger a city-wide search when the line finally clicks open.
The silence on the other end is heavy, filled only with a ragged, shallow sound.
ME: "Mali?"
I breathe out, my heart leaping into my throat.
ME: "Madeline, talk to me. Where are you?"
There’s a long pause. When she finally speaks, her voice is a ghost of itself, thin, trembling, and completely hollow.
MADELINE: "I'm... I'm in my car, Lucy," she whispers.
ME: "In your car? Where? You were supposed to be home two hours ago! I’ve been calling you like a lunatic. What happened?"
I’m gripping the steering wheel so hard I can hear the leather groan.
MADELINE: "I just needed to drive. I... I got lost. The mist was too thick."
She’s lying. I’ve heard her lie before, but this is different. This sounds like she’s reciting words from a dream she’s trying to wake up from. And then I hear it. A soft, wet hitch in her breath. She’s been crying. Or worse.
ME: "Mali, listen to me," I say, my voice dropping into my professional, 'emergency-mode' tone.
ME: "The man who’s been stalking you, he might be the—“
MADELINE: "No," she says too quickly. It’s a reflex.
MADELINE: "No, Lucy. It’s not... it’s not what you think."
ME: "Then what is it? Because you sound like you’re falling apart! I’m looking at the files, Mali. The white strand in his hair, he’s been linked to The Arbiter’s cases. Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?"
A sharp, jagged gasp escapes her on the other end. For a second, I think the call dropped, but then I hear the sound of a car door locking. Click. The sound of someone trying to build a wall between themselves and the rest of the world.
MADELINE: "He has a name, Lucy," she whispers, and the way she says it, with a mix of terror and something I can't quite identify, makes the hair on my arms stand up.
ME: "A name? What name?"
MADELINE: "It doesn't matter," she cracks, her voice rising into a sob she can't suppress anymore.
MADELINE: "Nothing matters. Just... Please, go home. Don't look into this anymore. If you love me, just stop. You’re going to get yourself killed, and I can’t. I can’t have your blood on my hands too."
ME: "Too? Mali, what’s going on?"
I’m shouting now, the panic finally overflowing.
ME: "I'm coming to your apartment. Right now. We are calling the detective, and we are ending this."
MADELINE: "NO!"
She screams, and the raw agony in her voice freezes me in place.
MADELINE: "Don't you dare come here. Don't call anyone. He’s... he’s everywhere, Lucy. He sees everything. If you move against him, I won't be able to protect you."
The line goes dead.
I stare at the screen of my phone, my breath coming in short, panicked bursts. Protect me? She’s the one in the middle of a forest or a dark parking lot, half-broken and terrified, and she’s talking about protecting me?
She didn't sound like a victim who wanted to be rescued. She sounded like someone who had just looked into the sun and realized they were already blind.
I look back at my laptop, at the blurred image of the man with the white strand of hair. I have my hand on the gear shift, ready to floor it toward the mortuary, but my foot lingers on the brake.
Mali’s scream, that raw, visceral plea for me to stay away is echoing in my ears. But as the initial shock wears off, the fear starts to turn into a familiar spark of anger.
If you move against him, I won't be able to protect you.
"The hell you won't, Mali," I hiss to the empty car.
If she thinks I'm just going to go home, tuck myself into bed, and wait for her to be the next 'art piece' on a cold table, she clearly doesn't know me as well as I thought.
I turn the car around and drive home, but I’m not running. I’m strategizing. I spend the entire drive watching my mirrors, not out of fear, but to see if I can spot him. I want to see if he's as good as the cases say.
By the time I get into my apartment, I’ve locked the bolts, but I don't hide in the dark. I flip on every single light. I want him to see me. I want him to know I’m wide awake and looking for him.
I grab my laptop and set it down on the kitchen table. My intuition isn't just screaming; it's demanding blood. I start digging. I don't just search "The Arbiter.” I start cross-referencing encrypted police frequencies and back-channel medical logs.
The name is a ghost, a myth of a "cleaner" or a vigilante for the city’s untouchables. There are no photos, just descriptions of a man with eyes like a void and a streak of white hair.
I’m halfway through a lead on a syndicate hit when the cursor suddenly moves on its own. I don't freeze. I scowl. I grab the mouse, trying to fight for control, but the trackpad is dead. The cursor slides across the screen, closing my open tabs one by one. It’s an arrogant display of power.
"Is that the best you've got?" I mutter, even as my heart hammers against my ribs.
A single window pops up in the center of the screen. A chat box.
UNKNOWN: “Curiosity is a terminal illness, Lucy. Most people die from it.”
"Then I guess I'm already terminal," I whisper, staring at the screen with a stubborn set to my jaw.
I don't back away. I lean in.
UNKNOWN: “Don’t bother calling her anymore. She’s occupied. And you... you’re overstepping.”
The webcam light on my laptop flickers on.
That tiny, steady green eye. He’s watching me.
I know I should be scared, I am scared, but the audacity of him invading my home makes my blood boil.
I look directly into the camera lens and raise my middle finger.
I won't let him have the satisfaction of seeing me tremble.
UNKNOWN: “Madeline is trying very hard to keep you breathing. It would be a shame if her efforts were wasted because you couldn’t stay in your lane.”
A final file downloads onto my desktop. A photo. I double-click it. It’s a shot of me from the street, taken through my window just minutes ago. I look small, sitting there with my laptop, but I don't look broken.
UNKNOWN: “Go to sleep. And stay out of my way. This is your only warning.”
The screen goes black. The laptop is dead.
I sit in the silence of my bright apartment, my hands are shaking, but my mind is clearer than ever. He thinks a black screen and a digital threat will make me a coward? He thinks he can just "warn" me away from the only person who matters to me?
He might be The Arbiter. But I’m a paramedic. I deal with life and death every single day. And if he thinks I’m going to leave Mali in his hands without a fight, he’s about to find out exactly how stubborn I can be.
I pull open my bedside drawer and reach into the very back, my fingers brushing against the cold plastic of an old phone I keep for emergencies. It’s disconnected from my main accounts, a clean slate in a world that feels increasingly watched.
As the screen flickers to life, a sharp, familiar ache blooms in my chest.
The wallpaper is a photo I haven't had the heart to delete, though looking at it feels like pressing a thumb into an unhealed wound. It’s a grainy image of a man with a distant, half-turned face. My father.
The sight of him makes my heart heavy with a bitterness that never quite fades.
Memories I’ve tried to bury start flooding back.
The sound of the front door closing for the last time, the long nights spent watching my mother work herself to the bone just to keep us afloat.
She was the one who raised me. She was the one who stayed.
He was just a shadow that walked out when I was barely old enough to understand what a father was supposed to be. He abandoned us before I could even learn his middle name, leaving nothing behind but a void and a mother who had to be twice as strong to make up for his pathetic behavior.
I stare at his face, the resemblance in the shape of his eyes mocking me from the low-resolution screen. I grew up learning the hard way that the men who are supposed to protect you are usually the ones who vanish when things get dark.
Maybe that’s why I became a paramedic. Maybe that’s why I can’t let go of Mali. I’ve spent my whole life trying to fix the wreckage left behind by people who just walk away.
"You won't take her too," I whisper to the quiet apartment, my voice thick with a mix of old sorrow and a new, iron-clad resolve.
I wipe a stray tear away with the back of my hand, refusing to let the ghost of my father make me feel small. Not tonight. Not when Madeline is drowning in something she doesn't think I can see.
I set the phone down on the nightstand, its screen dimming until my father’s face vanishes back into the black glass. I won't let another monster leave me behind. And I won't let one take the only family I have left.
I look back at the blacked-out laptop on the kitchen table. He thinks that he knows me because he can hack a computer? He thinks he can scare me into submission with a digital warning?
He doesn't know the girl who was forgotten by the only man who was supposed to take care of her. He doesn't know that when I love someone, I’m willing to do anything to keep them safe.
He told me to go to sleep. He told me to stay out of it.
I’m not going anywhere tonight. I sit back down in the dark, my eyes fixed on the door, then on the corners of the room. If he’s watching me, let him see this: I’m not hiding. I’m waiting.
Mali thinks she’s protecting me by lying. She thinks she can carry the weight of a man like him alone. But she’s wrong.
From this second on, I’m not just her friend. I’m the shadow behind her shadow. I’ll be watching every move she makes, every person she talks to, and every bruise she tries to hide under her lab coat.
I lean my head back against the sofa, my hand resting on the old burner phone. Sleep won't come tonight, and that’s fine. I’ve spent my life looking out for the people who were supposed to look out for me. Madeline is no different.