Chapter Two

  Nash swore and launched after her, boots pounding against the tile. The siren shot past startled customers, her sodden waders slapping against the floor, trailing a streak of rainwater behind her. A woman shrieked as a display of overpriced notebooks went flying, the metal stand toppling over in the siren’s wake.

  “Hey! What the—” a barista started to shout, but Nash was already barreling past, nearly clipping a startled college kid clutching a frappuccino.

  Louis was a step behind him. “Shit, shit, shit—”

  The siren hit the doors at full speed, shoving through the glass panels hard enough that they banged against the stops. Nash followed, his coat flaring behind him, boots skidding on the slick threshold.

  Outside, the rain was a wall of cold needles, turning the world into a sheet of gray and gold.

  The siren barely seemed to notice. She leapt down the green metal stairs two at a time, her boots hammering against the honeycomb treads, then hit the pavement running, a blur of soaked clothing and inhuman speed.

  Nash took the steps less gracefully. His boots skidded on the wet metal, and for a half-second, his stomach plummeted. He hit the last step hard, knee slamming into the pavement, and pain flashed white-hot through his leg.

  Louis barely dodged him, nearly tripping over his sprawled form. “Shit, Nash—”

  But Nash was already moving, already hauling himself up. No time for pain. No time for mistakes.

  The siren tore down the length of the pier, past locked-up kiosks, and dark bars, heading for the bridge that spanned the water to the next pier. Nash could hear the churn of the harbor beneath them, the slap of water against pylons.

  Tourists loitered near the National Aquarium’s entrance, huddled in clusters, their umbrellas like bright smudges in the gloom. The siren didn’t slow—she hit the crowd at full speed, weaving through the gaps, slipping between people with eerie precision.

  Nash clenched his teeth. That was a problem.

  He needed to stop her before she disappeared into the city, but the rain made everything sluggish, himself included. Nash yanked his coat tighter and reached inside, his fingers closing around the worn deck of tarot cards tucked into the inner pocket. The deck wasn’t just cards. Not really. Not anymore. They had soaked up too much of him over the years—sweat, blood, regret. Each one was a nail in his own personal coffin, hammered in bit by bit. And now the cards were learning to bite back.

  His mind flicked through them, shuffling in an instinct older than muscle memory. One card—he just needed one.

  Lungs burning, he pulled a card free as he ran, barely glancing at the image before shoving the rest of the deck away. The Hanged Man.

  “Fuck,” he muttered.

  Not the worst choice, but not the best either. The card had weight, a gravity that pulled at the threads of magic in his bones. The card wasn’t about stopping—it was about suspension, about pausing something in the middle of motion. He could work with that.

  His fingers tightened around the card as he pulled his magic into shape, the edges of reality loosening just enough for him to slip through. He locked his gaze on the siren, her figure still visible through the sea of people, and let the magic go.

  But just as he flicked it away from himself, something twisted his throw.

  The magic slipped—not toward the siren, but sideways, yanked off-course as if something unseen had reached out and batted it aside.

  Nash’s stomach dropped as the spell twisted through the air—

  And barreled straight toward a little boy standing at the edge of the crowd.

  The kid, maybe five or six, tugged on the sleeve of the nearest adult, saying something Nash couldn’t hear over the rain. He was wearing a too-big raincoat with cartoon sharks on it, the hood slightly askew as he tilted his head up.

  Nash’s breath locked in his throat. He could only watch as the spell swooped toward the kid like a goddamned homing missile.

  The adult knelt in front of the kid, reaching for the boy’s shoe, fingers tugging at an untied lace. A meaningless, everyday gesture. A second of stillness in the storm.

  And in that second, the spell closed the distance, hurtling toward them like gravity had chosen a new direction.

  But then—

  The world took a step sideways.

  The universe hiccuped. Or maybe it stuttered. A fraction of a second stretched too long, like a breath held past comfort. A bird mid-flight above the pier seemed to hang there just a moment too long before its wings found purchase again. The neon reflection of a sign in a puddle rippled outward, even though no one had stepped there.

  The magic didn’t hit. It should have. It had weight, direction, intent. The laws of magic were fickle, sure—sometimes they backfired, sometimes they fizzled—but they didn’t just cease to be. Magic existed. That was the rule. That had always been the rule.

  But the moment the spell struck, it unraveled.

  Not shattered. Not deflected. Not absorbed. Gone.

  Like a pulled thread in a tightly wound seam, the force of it didn’t even ricochet—it simply collapsed in on itself, unmade at the most fundamental level.

  Nash felt it. Felt the magic dissolve, its threads fraying into nothing. He didn’t just see it go—he knew it, down in his bones, in the marrow-deep understanding of a world that had suddenly shifted under his feet.

  He staggered to a stop, chest heaving, boots skidding against wet brick. His stomach twisted in a way that had nothing to do with fear. His breath felt wrong—too shallow, too tight.

  The spell was gone. Erased. Like it had never been.

  No. His head swam.

  Magic didn’t just die midair. Even a failed spell left an echo, a scorch mark in the fabric of things. Even when it misfired, it still existed. But this—

  This was a hole where something should have been.

  The woman—because it was a woman, he could see that now, the curve of her body beneath her rain-slick jacket—turned and looked back in his direction with sharp, searching eyes.

  His pulse faltered. Not skipped. Staggered. Like a boxer taking a hit he never saw coming. His knees nearly buckled. A half-step forward—pure instinct—before his brain slammed the brakes.

  She shouldn’t be here.

  She shouldn’t be here.

  The hum that had been lurking at the back of Nash’s skull since Lucky’s surged into a full-blown roar. A blare of static and pressure, like standing too close to an oncoming train.

  And still, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her face was a mask of confusion as she scanned the crowd, her gaze glancing over his face without seeing him.

  Rosemarie Fletcher.

  What the hell was she doing in Baltimore?

  Nash staggered toward the nearest bench and dropped onto the cold wet metal, barely feeling it through the haze in his head. He let his head drop into his hands as the raw edge of whatever had torn through his skull dulled to a low, insistent hiss, like old radio static stuck between stations. There was warmth on his upper lip, and he swiped at it with one hand. Red was smeared across his fingers.

  Perfect. A bloody nose to match a bloody lip.

  A voice cut through the static—Louis, catching up, his sneakers slapping against the wet brick.

  “So, bad news,” Louis said, blowing out a breath. “Siren’s gone. Like, not just gone—she ghosted hard, man. Like, poof.”

  Nash closed his eyes. Shit. The siren.

  He forced himself to focus. The pier was still crowded, rain smearing the lights into long, wavering streaks. No sign of her. No trace of magic left behind, not even a ripple. He should be moving, tracking her. That was the job. The siren mattered.

  But his eyes betrayed him and dragged back to her.

  The little boy tugged at Rosemarie’s hand, and she looked down, startled, her focus breaking from the crowd. She said something, too low to hear over the rain, and together they turned, slipping back into a group at the edge of the pier.

  Louis watched him with the same look people gave wild dogs—half concern, half waiting to see if he’d bite.

  “Dude, you’re bleeding.”

  “Noticed.”

  The rain pounded against him, cold and relentless. He barely felt it. The crowd moved around them, umbrellas bobbing like bright, indifferent smudges against the gray.

  Rosemarie was somewhere ahead.

  “Nash?”

  Nash looked up at Louis, but it was like his head wasn’t screwed on right. He couldn’t think straight, could barely see straight.

  “Gimme a minute, kid,” he mumbled, closing his eyes.

  He was fucked.

  The siren was getting away. He should be up on his feet and after her already, pushing past the ache in his skull like a goddamned adult and shoving his way through the rain. That was the job. The only thing that should matter.

  But he couldn’t seem to make his hands unclench from the edge of the bench.

  Instead, he was sitting there like a punch-drunk idiot, bleeding and breathless, watching Rosemarie vanish into the throng of tourists. Because, apparently, he was eighteen again with a crush on a girl who didn’t even know he existed. The rain slithered through his hair, down his spine, soaking into his bones like it was trying to carve him out from the inside.

  Louis shifted in front of him. “So… what’s the move?”

  The move. Right.

  Option One: He could push this down—bury it under the same pile of shit he’d been shoveling for years—and get back to work. The siren was the priority. She was dangerous. Worse, she was clearly damaged goods. He couldn’t let her slip away.

  Option Two: He could follow Rosemarie.

  Clearly not the smartest move, but he couldn’t get past the fact that she wasn’t supposed to be here. She was supposed to be up north, where his memories left her—tucked away in some quiet, structured life, wrapped in predictability, untouched by the kind of shit that filled his days.

  And yet, here she was- standing in the rain, her hands on some kid’s shoulders, her breath misting in the cold Baltimore air. Real. Here.

  Plus, she’d somehow unraveled his magic.

  That wasn’t something he could ignore.

  Option Three: He could do neither. Take five seconds to get his goddamn head on straight, find a payphone, and call Eris.

  She’d know something. Probably. She always did. Whether or not she’d tell him was another issue entirely— but what just happened shouldn’t have happened, and maybe, just maybe, she’d have felt it. Hell, maybe she even saw it coming.

  He dragged his sleeve across his face, smearing the blood, and swore under his breath. The choice wasn’t a choice. It was a slow-motion car crash, and he was at the wheel, hands tied to the goddamn thing.

  Go after the siren? Lose Rosemarie.

  Go after Rosemarie? Let something lethal slip through the cracks.

  Call Eris? Lose the other two.

  Any way he looked at it he was screwed.

  Louis was still watching him, shifting his weight from foot to foot like a kid waiting for an adult to tell him what to do.

  “So?” he prompted.

  Nash exhaled sharply, shoving everything clawing its way up his throat back down where it belonged.

  “Come on,” he muttered, hauling himself up from the bench. His legs felt heavier than they should.

  Louis frowned. “Where?”

  Nash swallowed, flexing his fingers.

  “Let’s go make a bad decision.”

  ---

  The line for tickets was longer than it had any right to be, given the weather and the fact that it was a Tuesday in February. Nash and Louis stood among the tourists like mold on cheese—too dark, too rough around the edges, out of place in a sea of cheery waterproof jackets and bright umbrellas.

  The tourists huddled together beneath their canopies of color, wrapped in layers of warmth, their conversations light and mundane. Nash could feel the way they registered him and Louis—dripping wet, underdressed, and visibly out of sync with the world around them. He caught the sideways glances, the slight shifts, the unconscious way people stepped away like the rain might shake something loose from them.

  Louis shoved his hands into his pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold. “Man, we look like a couple of stray dogs.”

  Nash exhaled, slow and sharp. “Yeah, and they can smell it.”

  A woman in a red coat shot them a wary glance before turning back to her husband, speaking in hushed tones. A kid in a puffy blue jacket outright stared until his mother tugged him closer.

  Nash rolled his shoulders, wincing as the motion sent a dull spike of pain through his ribs. His damp clothes clung to him, cold and heavy, the fabric dragging against bruises he hadn’t had time to check. Lucky’s felt like a lifetime ago, but his body hadn’t forgotten—his arm still ached, and there was a sharp, lingering throb along his side.

  The rain plastered his hair to his scalp, slithering beneath his collar and soaking further into his shirt. He ignored it, just like he ignored the way his body protested every movement. He didn’t have time for this.

  Rosemarie was somewhere up ahead.

  Nash craned his neck, scanning the crowd ahead. His pulse drummed too fast, his skin too tight, like something was pressing against the inside of his ribs, trying to get out. His hand was buried in his pocket, fingers clenched around the battered husk of the herbal cigarette—crushed nearly flat but still there, still something to hold onto. He rolled it between his fingertips, the paper soft and fraying at the edges, useless but familiar.

  By the time they reached the ticket window, he felt like he’d been sanded raw.

  “How many?” the girl behind the glass asked, voice flat with the boredom of someone who’d rather be anywhere else.

  “Two,” Nash said, barely sparing her a glance.

  She punched the numbers into the kiosk. “That’ll be a hundred and five dollars and eighty-nine cents. Cash or credit?”

  Nash looked at her in horror. “A hundred and five bucks—”

  She flicked a bored look at the sign to her right. “Forty-nine ninety-five per ticket, plus tax.”

  Louis looked personally offended. “Man, I don’t even like fish.”

  Nash let out a slow, suffering exhale, then shot another glance at the people ahead of them. He caught a glimpse of Rosemarie’s head just past the crowd, and his stomach twisted.

  With a muttered curse, Nash yanked out his credit card and slapped it against the counter.

  The girl printed their tickets, sliding them through the slot with a too-bright smile. “You’ve got the ten-fourty-five slot. Enjoy!”

  Nash swiped his card back while Louis pocketed the tickets.

  “What the hell are we doing here, Nash?”

  Nash barely glanced at him, already positioning himself near the aquarium map, keeping Rosemarie in his line of sight.

  “What does it look like, kid? We’re gonna see some fish.”

  “Cut the bullshit.” Louis stabbed a finger toward the city. “We should be out there looking for the—” He caught himself, glanced around, and lowered his voice. “We should be looking for the siren,” he hissed.

  Nash’s jaw ticked. His split lip stung when he pressed his tongue against it.

  He forced himself to exhale slowly. “You’re not wrong. But that siren’s long gone—” a grimace tugged at his mouth, knowing it was his fault—“and something happened back there that I can’t explain. And right now, the only thing I can do about it is stand here like an asshole.”

  Louis frowned. “What happened, Nash?”

  Nash shrugged, hating the words even as they left his mouth. “I dunno, kid. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

  He sighed. “Look, if you wanna split, then split. I wouldn’t blame you. This is probably gonna be boring as hell.”

  Louis considered it. Nash could see him weighing his options, the way his jaw tensed like he might actually take off. But after a beat, he shook his head. “Nah.” Hands shoved deep into his pockets, he rocked back on his heels. “You bought me a ticket. Least I can do is enjoy the show.”

  By ten-fourty-five, the drizzle had slowed to a weak sputter, but the wind off the harbor had teeth now—long, jagged things that sank through wet fabric and into bone.

  Nash hated the cold. Loathed it. Not in the I’d rather be somewhere warm way, but in the way a man hates an old wound when the pressure drops.

  The wind recognized him, somehow. Found every crack, every place he had broken and healed wrong, and dug in. It had been with him in other cities, in other lifetimes, slipping through the cracks in old coats, whispering against bruises that never quite faded.

  It remembered him. And it had not forgiven him.

  When the doors finally swung open, spilling them into the dim interior, warm air rushed over him like a tide, sinking into his damp clothes and prying the cold from his bones. The air smelled strange, old water and too many bodies, and the echoes of voices layered over each other in whispers.

  His fingers curled and uncurled at his sides, stiff from the cold, aching from something deeper than the weather. The warmth settled into his coat but not his nerves.

  They shuffled forward with the rest of the crowd. Nash kept one eye on Rosemarie’s dark hair ahead, making sure to keep several bodies between them.

  They meandered past the gift shop and café, quietly tailing Rosemarie’s group as they headed into the atrium. The acoustics changed immediately—gone was the sharp, sterile clatter of the entrance. Here, sound softened, swallowed up by water and space.

  Nash leaned over the thick concrete barrier, watching stingrays glide through the shallows.

  Louis, for once, was quiet, watching them move. Nash found himself doing the same, against his better judgment. He pulled out his battered herbal cigarette and stuck it between his teeth, letting it rest there as he watched the small slick monsters drift over the rocks.

  For the first time since he’d rolled out of bed, his shoulders relaxed.

  “Sir.”

  Nash turned his head slightly, blinking down at a small-boned man who practically vibrated with importance. He was wearing a bright blue polo with the aquarium’s logo emblazoned on the chest.

  “Sir,” the man whispered again, urgent but low enough to avoid drawing attention. “There is no smoking here.”

  Nash just stared at him, his jaw shifting slightly.

  “It’s not lit,” he said flatly.

  The man’s gaze flicked to Nash’s fingers, then back up, his lips pressing into a tight, nervous line. “Sir, this is a smoke-free facility. I have to kindly ask you to throw away—”

  “It’s. Not. Lit.” Nash deadpanned, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and holding it up. He held the cigarette out, just daring the guy to do something about it. “See?”

  The man recoiled like Nash had thrown a snake at him.

  Louis elbowed him in the ribs. Hard.

  “Come on, man. Don’t make a scene,” Louis muttered.

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  “I’m not making a scene,” Nash whispered back. “But it’s the goddamned principle of the thing.” He held up the battered cigarette. “It’s not lit.”

  “Sir,” the aquarium employee’s voice brought him back to the conversation at hand. Nash turned back to the smaller man, who trembled slightly.

  “If you don’t dispose of the item,” the man said, “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  Nash exhaled slowly, debating how far he wanted to push this.

  Then Louis hit him again. Harder.

  “Nash,” he hissed. “People are watching.”

  Nash froze. His eyes did a quick scan of the crowd—and sure enough, they weren’t just drawing attention. They were drawing judgment.

  And varying shades of disgust.

  He didn’t dare flick his gaze toward Rosemarie’s group. He could feel their proximity, the way his skin crawled with awareness.

  Grinding his teeth, he flicked the cigarette into the trash can behind the man.

  “There. Happy now?”

  The aquarium worker’s plastic smile widened. “Perfectly,” he said, voice thick with false sincerity. “Enjoy your visit.”

  Nash clenched his jaw as the man turned and left.

  Then, finally—he risked a glance toward Rosemarie’s group.

  They were on the opposite side of the atrium, near the entrance to the next exhibit. Five adults. Rosemarie, a man wearing a backpack, a woman pushing a stroller, an older couple, and the kid.

  Rosemarie had her back to them, talking to the man beside her. The grandparents pointed something out to the kid, their hands pointing to something in the water below.

  Nash narrowed his eyes.

  The man with the backpack turned, scanning the crowd.

  Nash looked away.

  “Come on,” he muttered to Louis. “Let’s get moving.”

  They trailed behind as the group moved forward. Nash never looked directly at them, never drew attention to himself, but when they exited the atrium, he made sure he and Louis weren’t far behind.

  The aquarium had a meandering, labyrinthine quality to it, the kind of place designed to keep people wandering in circles without realizing it. Nash felt the irritation rising, an itch beneath his skin, as they trailed behind Rosemarie’s group, moving deeper, lower, down ramps that descended into the dark.

  It all felt so… pointless.

  For the first time since making his decision, doubt crept in like a draft through an old window. He should be out there, tracking the siren, following the trail before it went cold. Instead, he was here.

  Among the families. The tourists. The crying kids and overpriced souvenir stands.

  Nash didn’t belong here. Didn’t belong anywhere, but especially not here, dripping wet and sore, trailing behind strollers and snack-wielding parents like a stray dog in a shopping mall.

  A wet wolf in a sheep pen.

  Louis, at least, was taking in the sights. He lingered near the shark jaws mounted to the walls, bathed in eerie purple light. He pointed to the largest one, all jagged bone and history.

  “That,” he said, voice deadpan, “is why I don’t do the ocean.”

  The ramps wound lower, leading them deeper beneath the main level of the aquarium. The air thickened, damp and still, heavy with the scent of saltwater and old filtration systems. The crowds thinned as they descended, the chaos of families and school groups fading into the occasional echo of footsteps against polished floors.

  Louis stared at the fossilized skeletons of ancient sharks lit in their eerie, indigo light. “I bet that shark had a cool name. Like Greg. Greg the Devourer.”

  Nash snorted, then paused as his eyes caught a smear of movement near Rosemarie and her group. A shadow that was darker than the other shadows around it trailed along the wall, following them.

  “Do you see that?” he hissed, his hand already moving to his pocket. To hell with the crowd, a pantomime here, in broad daylight— something was fucking wrong.

  But his hand stilled when he realized it wasn’t doing anything. It just stood there, like it was painted on the wall, its face, or what passed as its face, turning and watching Rosemarie and her group pass.

  “See what?” Louis asked.

  Nash absently held up a hand, waving him back. “Shh.”

  His eyes tracked the mime, followed it as it pushed up the wall and slipped through the top of the door frame into the next room after Rosemarie.

  “Come on,” he said, not waiting for Louis to catch up, his boots thumping down the ramp.

  The aquarium’s lowest level was all blue light and moving water.

  The ocean tank dominated the space—a massive, towering cylinder, its glass walls curving upward into darkness. Inside, the water moved fast as schools of fish swam mindlessly with the unnatural current. The blue glow lit the faces of the people watching, casting shadows under their eyes and making everyone look a little unreal.

  Nash stayed back, watching the ceiling, but it was a network of pipes and shadows, making it difficult to track the pantomime. But he knew it was there, somewhere.

  Rosemarie stood near the glass, watching the water with a quiet intensity. The way she always had.

  Even now, after fifteen years, he still recognized the curve of her shoulders, the way she tilted her head when she was thinking.

  She hadn’t changed.

  And yet—she had.

  The thought unsettled him.

  A shadow drifted inside the tank, cutting through the swirl of movement. A shark, moving slow, too still compared to the chaos around it.

  Nash’s focus shifted to the man beside her.

  He didn’t know him. Didn’t need to. The kid clung to him back at the pier, the easy way Rosemarie moved around him—there was familiarity there. A shape of a life Nash had no place in.

  Something crawled under his skin, something tight and sharp and irritating. He exhaled slow, keeping his stance loose, forcing himself not to care.

  Then, Rosemarie turned.

  The light from the tank caught in her eyes as she glanced across the crowd—just a flicker of movement, just a shift of weight.

  And then—eye contact.

  For a moment, Nash didn’t breathe.

  The instant stretched, something tense threading through the space between them—

  Then her gaze moved past him.

  No hesitation. No pause.

  Something in Nash’s chest went tight, like a breath caught wrong.

  He almost exhaled in relief. He didn’t want her to recognize him, right? But the feeling settled sharp and strange in his chest.

  The man beside her spoke, and she turned away.

  Louis nudged him. “Dude.”

  Nash didn’t answer. His eyes tracked the way the man’s hand hovered just above the small of her back—not quite touching, but close enough to guide. A gesture that said she belonged there, with them, with him. The group shifted, turning to leave, and Rosemarie followed without hesitation.

  Louis nudged him harder. “Stop staring.”

  Nash finally looked at him. “What?”

  Louis raised an eyebrow. “You’re burning a hole through the guy.”

  The group moved on, disappearing down another sloping hallway. A dark shape slipped down from the ceiling and through the doorway. Nash and Louis followed.

  The lighting dimmed further, swallowing most of the leftover glow from the towering tank behind them. The floor beneath their boots shifted from slick tile to matte dark gray carpet, muffling footsteps, soaking up sound like a church before a funeral.

  The walls here were rough, cold, damp in places, carved from faux rock, an attempt to mimic the claustrophobic hush of an underwater cave. The narrow windows set into the stone gave a panoramic view into the depths of the tank—glass stretching floor to ceiling, the water pressing close.

  It felt heavier here. Darker.

  The pantomime had fewer places to hide in the sculpted hollows and Nash tracked it with his eyes. It hovered in the darkness that gathered just beyond the light of the aquarium glass, its whole body posture tuned toward Rosemarie light she was some kind of mythic lightning rod.

  The fish swirled past in tight, nervous clusters, their scales flashing like glimpses of something sharp in the deep. The occasional shark drifted through the chaos, too slow, too still, the only thing in the water that didn’t seem to care where it was going.

  Rosemarie had drifted slightly ahead of the group now, her pace slower, her attention drawn toward the shifting dark beyond the glass.

  Even back then, she had that same look—like she was watching something no one else could see.

  He told himself that’s what he was doing now. Watching. That’s all.

  Then she turned.

  The movement was subtle, just enough for the low glow from the tank to catch in her eyes.

  And she was looking right at him.

  For a second, neither of them moved.

  Something in Nash’s chest went tight. Reflexive.

  Then he looked away.

  Too fast. Like he’d been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to.

  Louis shifted beside him, watching with thinly veiled amusement. “Yeah. That wasn’t suspicious at all.”

  Nash exhaled sharply through his nose, staring at an unremarkable patch of fake stone. “Shut up, kid.”

  Her group moved further down the slope, disappearing into the next viewing area and leaving Nash and Louis alone. Nash could hear the excited voices of children, the soft murmur of parents pointing things out, and the occasional thud of a palm against the glass.

  But Rosemarie stayed behind.

  Nash didn’t acknowledge her at first. Instead, he stepped up to the glass, peering into the water, letting the motion of the fish blur into nothing. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular. Just giving her space to make the first move.

  She was watching him.

  Nash felt it like a knife pressed flat against his skin.

  Her reflection in the glass was nothing more than a smudge of darkness just behind his own smudge, and he watched it sharply.

  For a long second, neither of them moved.

  Then her smudge shifted—cutting through the glow of the tank with the kind of certainty that would have made him proud if she weren’t walking straight toward him. Nash held his ground, forcing himself to stay calm. He didn’t move away from the glass.

  She stopped just short of touching distance, her voice low, controlled.

  “Why are you following me?”

  No hesitation. No pretense.

  He turned to her. The girl he remembered never would have looked him dead in the eye like that. Never would have called him out with her spine straight and her jaw set.

  Nash let the corner of his mouth curl, just barely. “I’m not.”

  Her eyes didn’t waver. “Bullshit.”

  The single word hit harder than it had any right to, smacking the air out of his lungs and sending his pulse racing as panic sparked the edges of his mind.

  Nash dragged his attention away from her, feigning interest in the slow drift of a shark through the glowing blue dark as he fought to control his body’s reaction to her.

  “Just here to see the sights.” He nodded to the tank. “Can’t a guy appreciate a little marine life?”

  She didn’t blink. “You’ve been watching me since I walked in.”

  He sighed, shaking his head like she was the one being unreasonable. “You sure about that?”

  “I saw you.”

  The way she said it made something crawl under his ribs. She saw him. She was aware of him. There was a crazy giddy feeling building in his chest. He was losing his fucking mind.

  He almost laughed as panic bled into something closer to hysteria. And she must’ve seen it on his face, because hers screwed up, annoyed.

  “You’re not as subtle as you think,” she said, voice flat, unwavering.

  He sighed and turned to face her fully, shoving his shaking hands into his pockets and letting her feel the weight of his scrutiny. He pulled the Nash from before on like an old mask—stiff at the edges, ill-fitting, but familiar enough to wear. For half a heartbeat, the panic flickered, and he worried she’d see through it. That she’d call his bluff.

  But then he pulled his shit together and gave her a deliberate weighted look he’d perfected over the last decade and half. Sharp and lingering, like a touch that never quite landed, and was gratified to see the goosebumps break out over the exposed skin of her neckline.

  “You’re pretty worked up over nothing,” he murmured, feigning nonchalance despite his skittering heart rate.

  She exhaled sharply, turning her head just enough for the light to catch the edge of her profile. Her jaw flexed, and the panic inside him flared to full bore. She wasn’t buying it.

  But it wasn’t just suspicion now. There was something else threading through the space between them. Something old.

  He could tell by the way she wasn’t looking at him now. By the way she shifted, weight pressing into the balls of her feet, like she was fighting the instinct to step back—or step closer.

  It was a dangerous line, that one.

  Then, too fast, she stepped into his space, close enough for him to catch the faint, sweet scent of her perfume.

  Her voice dropped, just between them. “Look, I don’t know what your deal is, but I want you to walk away. Now.”

  He should have.

  He would have.

  Instead, he forced his body still, forced the war in his ribs to quiet. He knew better. Didn’t he?

  But knowing better had never stopped him before.

  So he smirked, like the asshole he was. Just a little. Just enough to make her eyes flicker, to make her fingers curl into her sleeves.

  “You always were good at telling people what to do,” he said. The words were almost a dare. As close as he’d allow himself to acknowledge this thread that ran from his chest to hers.“Bet that works most of the time.”

  Her expression hardened. “You want to make me nervous? Get in line.”

  That landed.

  Not in the way he expected, but in a way that hit—deep in his ribs, where something cold and restless had been stirring for a long time. For half a second, something ugly coiled in his ribs. Not at her—but at whoever made her this hard.

  A muscle tensed in her jaw. She wasn’t playing anymore.

  And neither was he.

  He could have told her the truth. Could have said Look closer, Rosemarie. You know me. Instead, he held onto the silence. Let it stretch between them, tightening, thick with everything he wasn’t saying.

  Her breath caught—barely—but he felt it.

  Then she stepped back like he’d burned her.

  And that was when security’s hand landed on his shoulder.

  Nash let out a slow exhale, looking up at the ceiling like he was praying for patience, before looking back at Rosemarie. She watched him from beside the glass, her eyes dark in the dim light, watching him in a way he couldn’t read.

  Louis, ever the helpful idiot, made a strangled noise. “So… we running or playing this one cool?”

  Nash didn’t look away from Rosemarie.

  Her arms were crossed now, her face impassive, but he could almost feel the way her heart was hammering.

  He let the smirk fade, let the mask slide down.

  “Cool,” he muttered.

  Then, before security could shove him forward like some fucking criminal, he shrugged the heavy hadn off his shoulder, regretting it instantly when a white-hot jolt ripped through his ribs., his body still keeping score from that morning.

  “I’ll see myself out,” he said, shoving his hands into his pocket. But he didn’t miss the way Rosemarie watched him, arms still crossed tight over her ribs, thinking.

  Not angry. Not relieved. Just unsettled.

  Good.

  He hoped it kept her up at night.

  Despite his line about seeing himself out, security kept pace, always two steps behind. Nash flipped them the bird without looking back as he and Louis stepped into the cold. The aquarium’s artificial warmth cut off like a snapped wire, the February air sinking sharp into his ribs. At least the rain had stopped.

  Louis trailed after him, hands shoved deep into his pockets, the kid’s usual enthusiasm muted, like he was waiting for Nash to say something.

  Nash didn’t.

  Didn’t want to talk. Didn’t want to be followed, either.

  They cut across the swirling concrete park, boots slapping against the wet pavement. The sky overhead was a sickly gray, but at least it wasn’t raining anymore.

  “So,” Louis finally ventured, glancing sidelong at him. “You wanna tell me what the hell that was back there?”

  Nash exhaled slow through his nose, jaw tightening. “Nope.”

  Louis made an irritated noise. “Come on, man. That was some full-on, vintage noir detective movie shit. You practically had your own theme music playing in the background.”

  Nash didn’t answer. Just stopped at the edge of the pier, where the concrete butted up against the sidewalk, scanning the street for the best way to cut across.

  Louis rocked on his heels, watching him. “You good?”

  Nash rolled his aching shoulders, shoving his hands deep into his coat pockets. “Go home, kid.”

  Louis frowned. “Seriously? That’s it?”

  “Go. Home.” His voice came out lower than he meant, gritted between his teeth like it was holding something else back.

  Louis hesitated, shifting his weight.

  Then he sighed, shaking his head. “Fine. Whatever. You wanna be broody and mysterious, knock yourself out.” He stepped back, jerking his chin toward Nash. “But for the record? You’re not subtle. Like, at all.”

  Nash ignored him.

  Louis watched him for another second, then muttered something under his breath and turned away, heading back in the direction of his rust-bucket Buick.

  And then Nash was alone.

  Good.

  He let out a slow breath and let the tension settle into his bones.

  He needed to be alone right then. Needed to be in his own damn head for a minute.

  The job wasn’t done. Not really. The siren was still an open wound in the city’s side, and he should have been out there, tracking the thing’s echoes, making sure whatever mess it left behind didn’t curdle into something worse.

  But that wasn’t what had him wound tight, breath short, hands shoved deep into his coat pockets like he could crush the tension in his fists.

  Rosemarie.

  That look in her eyes when she called him out. The sharp, clipped edge to her words. The way his name never touched her lips—not once—not even in hesitation.

  It was stupid. Pathetic.

  The kind of careless that belonged to younger, dumber men—the ones who thought longing was something you could fix if you just got close enough.

  Like a damn teenager. Like he was seventeen again, slouched behind her in English class, pretending he wasn’t memorizing the way her dark hair curled at the ends. Pretending she wasn’t the one thing in his life that felt steady.

  And now, fifteen years later, here he was. Stuck in the same place. Watching her walk away, pretending it didn’t matter.

  It was fucking embarrassing.

  Something jolted under his skin as a memory burst in his brain.

  Fuck. The pantomime.

  The fucking pantomime.

  Was he so pathetic that he let himself forget about a deadly creature just because Rosemarie pushed some of his buttons? Jesus. What the fuck was wrong with him?

  He checked his watch. Just after noon. The wind off the harbor cut sharp as he crossed the street, shoulders hunched against the cold. His thoughts churned, static and edges, too much weight in his ribs, too much something crawling up his spine, coiling in his stomach.

  And that’s when it happened.

  The street glitched.

  Not like a trick of the light. Not like his eyes playing games with him after too many sleepless nights.

  It glitched—reality stuttering like a scratched record.

  For a half-second, the world around him wasn’t right.

  The street rippled—just for a blink, a hairline fracture at the edges of his vision. The shadows stretched in the wrong direction. The sound of the wind lagged, like someone had messed with the timing on a film reel.

  A man passed in front of him.

  Not near. Through Nash’s personal space.

  Nash recoiled—a sharp, instinctive step back—but the man didn’t flinch. Didn’t pause. Didn’t even seem to see him. Just kept walking.

  He was tall and thin, wearing a suit that belonged in the nineties. A brick-sized phone pressed to his ear. His lips moved, but—

  No sound.

  Not the wind. Not even his own footsteps.

  Just silence.

  Nash’s breath hitched—

  And the sound slammed back in.

  Head pounding, Nash turned; his eyes tracked where the man should have been, but the street was empty. A slow, cold prickle crawled down his spine. He exhaled, breath curling white in the air. Then, against all common sense, he took a step toward where the figure had been.

  The city moved around him, unchanged. Cars idled at a red light. A couple walked past, heads bowed against the wind, their conversation a low murmur. A street vendor adjusted his cart, steam curling from the metal vents, the scent of burnt pretzels thick in the air. Everything was normal.

  Except Nash couldn’t shake the feeling that something was still off.

  The man had been there. He’d seen him—felt the wrongness of it in his ribs, in the sharp silence that swallowed sound whole.

  His boots scuffed against the pavement as he moved, slow, deliberate, toward the spot where he had last seen the man. The cold felt heavier here, sinking through fabric, into skin.

  Nash stood there a moment longer, jaw tight, breath slow. If he were smart, he’d let it go. Walk away. Chalk it up to exhaustion, to the kind of exhaustion that made reality bend and flex at the edges.

  “Nash-”

  Nash whirled.

  “No, I’m telling you,” the man said, stepping past Nash onto the crosswalk. “They want me in Nashville next week.” The man looked both ways, then dashed into traffic. “ Yeah, I’m sure.”

  Nash stared after him. The wrongness still clung to his ribs, a weight pressing sharp against his lungs. He watched the man dodge the sluggish morning traffic, the brick-sized phone still pressed to his ear. His voice was tinny, distant, like it was coming from an old radio half a block away.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” the man said again, words slightly out of sync with his mouth.

  Nash stared, feet rooted to the curb.

  He knew he should let it go. The siren case wasn’t closed, and he had better things to do than chase down ghosts in discount menswear.

  And yet—

  The air still felt wrong. Heavy. Like stepping into a room right after someone left. The man reached the other side of the street, stepping onto the sidewalk without hesitation. He wasn’t looking over his shoulder. Wasn’t moving like something unnatural. Just a guy, caught in the mundanity of his own life, not realizing he’d been pulled somewhere he shouldn’t be.

  But Nash saw it. Saw the way the air dragged around him. Like he wasn’t walking through it, but pulling something behind him.

  His body made the decision to follow before his brain did. His boots hit the crosswalk and then he was moving. Immediately, he felt like he was underwater, moving too slow, hearing things too late. A car honked—but the sound lagged, stretched thin like an echo bouncing off the wrong surface too far away, but physical car damn near clipped him.

  He spun, stumbled on the sensation of moving through thick water, but he managed to keep his gaze locked on the man on the other side of the street, his free hand flapping in vague irritation.

  “They want me in Nashville next week,” the man said again, a broken record.

  But those words didn’t belong here. Maybe thirty years ago, but not now.

  Nash moved faster, wading onto the curb, not even bothering to be subtle anymore. He followed the guy, still talking oblivious into his phone, the thing about Nashville on repeat.

  As he followed, a ripple seemed to form behind the man. A distortion that stuttered through the cold February air, the same kind of glitch Nash had seen in the bend of his lighter’s flame. It fanned out behind the man, stretching like ripples in a pond. Its weight forcing the pigeons into flight, scattering the bits of trash that clung to the edges of concrete like a gust of wind. Nash fisted his hands in his pockets and narrowed his eyes against the thick unnatural air, keeping his watering gaze on the back of the man’s coat.

  The man turned the corner, disappearing out of sight.

  Nash followed without thinking and rounded the corner just in time to see—

  Nothing.

  The man was gone.

  Nash whirled, but the sidewalk stretched empty in both directions, just the usual morning foot traffic moving in slow, indifferent waves. A woman with a stroller passed him by, earbuds in, oblivious. A courier balanced a tray of coffee cups, shifting his grip as he ducked into an office building.

  No sign of a man in an outdated suit. No oversized phone.

  “No, I already told them—”

  The voice came thin, warped, a half-second behind where it should have been. Like the sound had been left behind even after the man was gone.

  Nash turned his head, tracking the source.

  “Yeah, yeah. Next week. Nashville.”

  The sound slipped down the street, not carried by wind, not coming from a speaker, but just—existing, like a ripple moving through the air.

  Nash moved. His boots thumping against the damp pavement as he followed the voice, weaving between pedestrians, trying to hold onto it.

  “No, listen, they—”

  Fainter.

  It was slipping.

  Nash picked up speed, breath curling in the cold, every muscle in his body telling him he was being led somewhere.

  The city thickened around him, buildings stretching taller, glass-fronted storefronts reflecting his own tense, hunched form as he pushed forward.

  A bus rumbled past, belching fumes. The voices of a cluster of office workers blurred together in some meaningless conversation about stocks or coffee or whatever the hell people with normal lives talked about. Nash ignored all of it.

  “No, I’m telling you—”

  Closer now.

  The voice slithered ahead of him, breaking apart at the edges, like a tape recording left too long in the sun. The words warped, stretched, repeated themselves in uneven loops.

  “No, I already told them—”

  The sound pulled him forward. Across the street, around a corner, into an alley.

  Nash followed.

  The alley swallowed him whole, the city noise thinning into something distant and unreal. This wasn’t a place people walked through—it was a place things were left to rot. The pavement slick with rainwater that never dried. Trash bags slumped against dumpsters like bloated corpses, the air thick with the sour reek of something long past spoiled.

  And still, the voice pulled him deeper.

  Closer.

  The words shuddered and cracked, losing coherence, breaking down into something hollow and wrong.

  Then—

  Nothing.

  All at once, the feeling of being underwater ruptured, sound catching up to him in a swoop that felt like someone turning to volume up full.

  Nash stopped short, ears ringing. His pulse knocked hard against his ribs. He turned in a circle, hunting for the man’s voice but finding nothing. Just the alley. Just the stink and the damp and the quiet kind of empty that watched.

  “Fuck,” he swore, his jaw clenching. His fingers curled into fists. He turned—ready to tear back the way he came, to shake this feeling loose—

  A neon arrow where there had been nothing a second earlier flickered, half-dead, above a rusted door. The arrow buzzed a sickly pink, a dancing martini glass kicked like a Vegas showgirl above it.

  Nash’s breath hitched, caught on something too thick to swallow.

  The alley stretched, or maybe just tilted, the space around the door bending in some way he couldn’t quite name. Couldn’t prove.

  But he felt it.

  Like the world was holding its breath, waiting to see if he was dumb enough to take the bait.

  He didn’t move.

  Didn’t want to move.

  He knew he should walk right past it. He had shit to do. A siren to catch. A job to do.

  And yet—

  The itch had him now. Deep under his skin, threading through his bones. He had to know.

  He crossed the alley in three slow steps, reached out, let his fingers brush the door’s handle.

  Cold. Not February cold, not metal-left-in-the-wind cold. This was something else. The kind of cold that crawled. That sank.

  His gut twisted, every sense screaming at him to turn back, to let this door be someone else’s problem.

  But Nash Fuller had never been good at letting things go.

  His grip tightened.

  The neon flickered. Buzzed.

  He turned the handle and shoved the door open.