Elena Rivers
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The silence answered her.
A soft, thick kind of stillness that clung to her skin like fog. She left the laptop open, as if expecting a reply to materialize on its screen.
Nothing came.
Elena stood abruptly. The walls of the apartment felt smaller than before. Too familiar. Too observed. Every corner seemed to hum with unseen eyes. Her breath quickened.
She grabbed her coat. Keys. No plan.
She just needed to move.
The city outside was cold, grey, almost too quiet for late afternoon. She walked without destination—just noise in her ears, the scuff of her boots on pavement, the pulse behind her eyes. She didn't look at people. She didn't want to see faces she might recognize. Or worse—ones that recognized her.
At a red light, she stopped and felt it again.
That pull.
Not eyes on her—but him.
Not near. Not far. Just present. Inside her pulse. Like a name you don't remember but can't forget.
She walked faster.
She should've called someone. Should've screamed. Should've taken the flower and torched it and demanded the universe make it stop.
Instead, she walked until she stood in front of a building she hadn't meant to find: the old cathedral. Abandoned. Boarded at the sides but still somehow open—its heavy wooden doors cracked slightly like a secret waiting to be heard.
She didn't remember choosing it.
But she stepped inside.
Dust and candlewax and time hung in the air. The light through the stained glass fractured across her face, painting her in blood-red and ghost-blue.
And then—on the front pew—she saw it.
Another envelope. Black. Her name in white ink. Folded open.
Inside, just one line:
"Even now, you come where I've been."
Her knees gave out. She sank to the floor, laughter choking against the sob in her throat.
She wasn't running anymore.
She was following.
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