Page 9 of Fierce Hope
She paused on the landing, looking out the window at the cars in the parking lot below. The lot was eerily silent, the kind of quiet that made her skin prickle.
Jade scanned the shadows between the cars. Nothing moved. No one lurked. Just the lazy yellow circles of light from the lamp posts, stretched long across the snowy pavement.
Everything looked normal.
So why did she feel so ... wrong?
She reached her door, keys already in hand. Nothing looked out of place, but something felt off. The air itself felt charged, disturbed.
A door creaked open behind her. “Jade? Oh thank goodness.”
Mrs. Leland from 2B stood in her doorway, wrapped in a floral housecoat, her normally neat gray hair slightly disheveled. “I heard someone in your condo earlier—moving things around. I knew you were at work, so I ...” She twisted her hands together. “I ... I called the police.”
Jade’s heart stopped, but she kept her expression neutral.
“By the time they came, whoever it was had gone. Everything was quiet.” Mrs. Leland’s fingers worried at her housecoat belt. “I didn’t file a report. I thought maybe it was someone you knew. I didn’t want to cause trouble if it was nothing ...”
“You did exactly the right thing.” Jade forced warmth into her voice despite the ice in her veins. “Thank you for looking out for me. It was probably just ... a friend.” The lie tasted bitter.
“Oh good.” The woman’s shoulders relaxed. “I worry, you know. A young woman living alone.” She hesitated. “You’re sure everything’s all right?”
“Everything’s fine.” Jade managed a smile. “I’m sorry they disturbed you.”
She waited until her neighbor’s door clicked shut before turning back to her own condo. Her hand trembled slightly as she unlocked her door. The police had been here. Had whoever broken in known? Had they timed their exit perfectly, or just gotten lucky?
Darkness spilled out as she pushed the door open, carrying the faint scent of her vanilla candle—the one she hadn’t lit today.
Someone was letting her know they could get to her anytime they wanted.
Her fingers found the light switch, flooding her condo with harsh fluorescent light. The living room looked ... wrong. Like someone had shifted everything three inches to the left. Her magazines, normally stacked precisely on the coffee table, were slightly askew. The throw blanket on her couch had been refolded—not the way she always did it.
The air felt cooler. Recently disturbed.
Her DreamBurger bag hit the counter with a dull thud as she moved through the space, cataloging changes. File cabinet drawers pulled out, contents dumped and roughly reshuffled. Her desk ransacked, papers scattered across the floor like fallen leaves. But her laptop sat untouched. Her emergency cash—hidden in an old coffee can in the back of her pantry—was still there.
This wasn’t a robbery.
It was a message.
Her gaze caught on a single sheet of paper centered perfectly on her kitchen counter. White printer paper, ordinary. Except for the words typed in plain black font:
Stay safe. Stay in your lane.
The words pulsed on the page, each letter a heartbeat of threat. Her chest tightened, breaths coming quick and shallow. She knew this feeling—the precursor to a panic attack.
No. Not now. She couldn’t afford to fall apart.
Focus. Breathe. Think.
But thinking was dangerous. Thinking meant acknowledging what this meant. That someone had found her. That all hercareful planning, her years of building this new life brick by precise brick, could crumble at any moment.
They knew where she lived.
They could get to her whenever they wanted.
And they were watching.
The walls of her condo pressed in, the carefully chosen decorations—all meant to project normalcy, stability, belonging—now mocked her. How had she ever thought she could outrun her past?
