Page 5 of The Monster You Made
I cut through alleys instead of boulevards, keeping my profile low. The city is a carcass picked clean by commerce, billboards shouting in neon, doorways stuffed with the desperate. Somewhere behind the noise, I hear footsteps that match mine. Not too close. Not too far. Professional. My pulse quickens.
I duck into a side street and stop beneath a broken sign, pretending to check my phone. The footsteps pause too. Not amateurs. I keep moving. One block. Two. Three. The rhythm stays. My fingers brush the pepper spray in my pocket, but it’s a child’s toy against wolves. I need space. Light. Witnesses.
The square opens ahead, bright with food stalls and market chatter. I slip into the crowd, weaving between vendors selling roasted chestnuts and cheap electronics. Laughter crackles, music spills from a speaker, and a drunk man sings off-key. I let the noise swallow me, but the weight of pursuit doesn’t lift. Whoever follows knows how to hunt in daylight.
At the far edge of the square, I catch a reflection in the window of a shuttered shop: a man in a dark coat, jaw sharp, hair cropped military-short. His gaze never leaves me. Crown? Cadmus? It doesn’t matter. My satchel screams louder than my heartbeat. If he takes it, if I fall here, everything I’ve carried dies with me.
I veer into a church, doors heavy with rain-swollen wood. Inside, the air is cool, candles flickering in shallow pools of wax. The hush is immediate, a pressure on my chest. I slide into apew, lowering my head as if in prayer. The man enters seconds later. His steps are quiet but purposeful. He doesn’t sit. He doesn’t kneel. He scans. Searching.
The priest at the altar clears his throat. “Can I help you, son?”
The man shakes his head, lips pressed thin. He lingers by the holy water font, fingers brushing the surface as if testing it. Then he leaves. The doors close behind him with a hollow thud.
I sit frozen, muscles trembling, until the candles blur through my tears. Relief is dangerous. It weakens you. But for a moment, I let it wash over me. I’m still here. Still moving.
When I stand, my knees ache. I dip my fingers in the water, trace the sign of the cross without faith, only habit. My reflection stares back at me in the shallow pool. Hollow-eyed, sharp, hunted. A woman unmade and remade by fire. Vera, or what’s left of her.
I leave through the side door. The city waits, restless and vast. Somewhere in its veins, men with cold eyes are circling my name. Somewhere, Lucian is either dead or burning the world in his grief. I can’t think about him now. If I do, I’ll falter. And faltering means chains.
I tighten my grip on the satchel and step back into the night.
***
The streets are slick mirrors, rainwater collecting in potholes and gutters, reflecting the fractured neon of a restless city. My boots splash through shallow rivers, every step too loudin my own ears. I keep to the edges of buildings, the shadows where the lamplight doesn’t quite reach. Invisibility is a craft, one I’ve been forced to perfect.
The satchel presses heavy against my ribs as though it knows the worth of what it carries. Sometimes I imagine burning it all, stuffing the folders into a steel barrel and striking a match, watching ink curl into smoke. The temptation isn’t cowardice; it’s longing. Longing to be free of the weight, to walk without being hunted. But fire doesn’t erase history. It just buries it. Someone has to keep the story alive, and that someone is me.
A tram rattles past, sparks leaping from the overhead cables. The passengers stare out, faces pale and washed by tired light. I catch my reflection in the glass, hair tangled, eyes rimmed red, jaw set hard against the night. I look like every other exile in this city, but I know the difference: none of them are being hunted by men who build empires from blood and silence.
I slip into a café tucked between shuttered shops, its windows fogged from heat. The bell above the door jingles too brightly, but no one looks up. The patrons are ghosts themselves, workers numbing their bones with cheap coffee, students bent over notebooks they’ll abandon by morning. I order nothing. I sit near the back, where I can see both the door and the window.
My hands tremble as I pull a folded sheet from the satchel. It’s a photocopy of a ledger page, smudged where water once bled the ink. Names. Dates. Amounts. Transactions that prove the Crown paid mercenaries under Cadmus’ orders. Proof that the two powers aren’t enemies at all but twin jaws of the same beast. If this page alone reached the right hands, it could ignitea fire. But the right hands don’t exist. Everyone with power is already in someone’s pocket.
The door opens. The bell sings. My body tenses. A man in a gray coat enters, shaking water from his hat. Not my hunter. Not yet. But every new face is a roll of the dice, and I’m running out of luck.
I fold the paper quickly, slide it back into the satchel, and rise. Too long in one place is an invitation. I step out into the wet night again, pulling my hood close. The café vanishes behind me like it was never there.
The market district is louder, brighter. Vendors shout over one another, hawking roasted fish, counterfeit watches, and bootleg DVDs. Smoke and spice sting my throat. The noise should comfort me, chaos is good cover, but the press of bodies makes my skin itch. I keep moving, shoulders angled, slipping through gaps.
That’s when I feel it. A presence. The subtle shift in the air when someone matches your pace. I glance sideways, catch a glimpse: a woman this time, her hair tied back, face plain enough to vanish in a crowd. But her eyes are wrong. They’re too sharp, too focused, tracking me without apology. Crown, I think. Or Cadmus. Either way, death wears the same face.
I quicken. She quickens. My pulse hammers. I cut left into a narrow lane strung with clotheslines. Damp shirts brush my cheeks as I duck beneath them. The woman follows. Her footfalls are steady, patient. A predator who knows the prey is cornered.
The lane spills into an abandoned courtyard, cracked concrete littered with bottles and trash. Dead end. I curse under my breath. My hand closes around the pepper spray, useless but comforting. I turn to face her.
She steps into the courtyard, closing the distance with unhurried grace. Her coat parts enough for me to see the outline of a weapon at her hip. Not a knife. A pistol. My throat tightens.
“You’re far from home, Vera,” she says. Her accent is clipped, Crown training beneath the local disguise.
I don’t answer. Words are weapons, but silence can be sharper. She tilts her head, studying me like I’m a puzzle she intends to solve.
“They’ll find you eventually. Burn you down to ash, like the rest. Hand me the bag, and I’ll make it quick.”
The satchel digs into my ribs as if it knows the danger. I shake my head slowly. “If you kill me, you lose the story. The Crown and Cadmus won’t risk that.”
Her smile is small, humorless. “You think you’re the only one who can carry a secret? Stories are replaceable. Witnesses are not.”
Her hand drifts toward her pistol. My mind races. The courtyard is bare, no cover, no witnesses. If I run, she shoots. If I fight, she wins. Unless….
