The town was the kind of place where nothing happened fast enough to cause whiplash. Even the wind had a lazy quality to it, sighing through the narrow streets like it had nowhere better to be. Morning light filtered through the blinds of the small second-floor apartment Smitty currently called "not prison."
He stared at the ceiling fan as it turned slowly, each rotation creaking like an arthritic old man. He'd counted the turns for the past ten minutes. Somewhere around one hundred, he lost interest. Again.
Smitty was hiding. Not the kind of hiding that involved secret bunkers and retinal scanners. No, he was hiding in plain sight, with his feet on a duct-taped ottoman and a half-eaten bowl of cereal slowly turning into glue on the coffee table.
Jake's apartment smelled like laundry detergent and artificial bacon. It had been three weeks since he'd shown up, broken and burnt, on his old friend's doorstep. Jake, being the kind of guy who once forged detention slips for fun and once tried to convince a vice-principal that aliens were real by staging crop circles with weed whackers, hadn't asked many questions.
"You look like someone poured fear into a hoodie," Jake had said.
Smitty had grunted in reply. That had been the extent of their emotional exchange.
Now he worked at a nearby auto shop—simple work, under the table, cash in hand. Nothing that required too much thought, or that would land him on any databases. It was the kind of job where people didn't look at you too hard.
Perfect.
Every night, he smoked a little. Not because it was cool, but because the dreams wouldn't shut up otherwise. Sam's voice, Sam's blood, Sam's last breath echoing in his skull like a scratched vinyl record. He had found one of Jake's ancient stashes in the closet—rolled joints hidden inside a box of Uno cards labeled "Taxes 2019."
Smitty didn't even like weed. It made him paranoid. But sometimes, paranoid was better than broken.
This morning was like all the others. He got up. Showered. Ate something that might've been oatmeal. Then sat on the tiny balcony staring at a tree.
The tree, to its credit, was interesting. A squirrel had claimed dominance over it and spent every day aggressively taunting every bird that came near it. Today, the squirrel had upped its game by peeing on a pigeon.
Smitty gave it a slow nod of approval.
"You and me both, buddy," he muttered.
Then he checked the dead-drop.
It was under a loose brick in the alley two blocks away. Sam had mentioned it once, offhandedly. "If things go bad, and I'm not there, look for the red X behind the dumpster. Brick to the left. Don't be late. Don't be dumb."
He hadn't been late.
He definitely felt dumb.
His fingers closed around a weatherproof pouch, wrapped in what looked like an old socks-and-vinyl hybrid. Inside: a second go-bag.
It had Sam's touch all over it.
Burner phones (one with only three numbers preloaded), three rolls of untraceable cash, a worn thumb drive, and another notebook. Smaller than the last, but heavier with dread.
He didn't open it right away.
Instead, he sat on the curb, lit a joint with shaking fingers, and stared out at the traffic rolling by. It was too normal. Like the world hadn't noticed her death. Like people weren't dying in the shadows while these SUVs lined up for lattes.
"You'd hate this town," he whispered, watching a guy in tennis whites complain about his pumpkin spice order.
Then he opened the notebook.
The first page read: If you're reading this, I'm probably dead. If you're not… well, that's a whole other problem. Either way, this book wasn't meant to be opened lightly. There are things in here that can't be unread. So take a breath, Smitty. And for once in your life, read slow.
Classic Sam. Her humor had always been dryer than the desert, and twice as sharp.
Below it were names. Coordinates. A list of aliases with notes like "Probably dead" and "Last seen selling IDs in Detroit."
And at the bottom of the page: Ferryman. Don't trust his rates.
Smitty let the smoke curl from his lips and stared into the gray sky. The joint was almost out.
So was his luck.
That night, he had a dream.
Not a memory. A full hallucination, vivid and cruel.
He was back in the hotel. The fire danced like it was choreographed. Sam stood there, untouched by the flames, shaking her head.
"You still don't get it," she said.
"What?"
"You're not the weapon yet. But you're close."
Then the ceiling collapsed.
He woke up with his heart slamming into his ribs like a battering ram.
Jake stumbled in, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "Dude, you screamed like Netflix canceled oxygen."
Smitty rubbed his temples. "Bad dream."
"You say that every night."
"Then maybe it's a bad life."
Jake paused. "Wanna split a waffle?"
Smitty snorted. "Is it real, or one of those freezer bricks?"
"It's... waffle-shaped."
They ate in silence, plastic forks scraping across cheap ceramic. Smitty tried not to think. About Sam. About the Ferryman. About the next name in that notebook.
But as the streetlights flickered on and the shadows grew long, he felt the edge returning.
There were more dead-drops. More messages.
And somewhere out there, someone knew he was still breathing.
He could feel it. Like a pressure in his chest. A countdown with no timer.
He wasn't safe.
And neither was Jake.
Quiet town, outside D.C.
One month later
The town was the kind of place where nothing bad ever happened—at least not loudly. The sort of suburban outskirt where lawns stayed trimmed, porch lights clicked on at the same time each evening, and grocery clerks asked if you needed help finding the dill even if you looked like you hadn't slept since the Obama administration.
Smitty had blended in faster than he expected.
Mostly because he didn't talk.
Jake had vouched for him. Which was generous, considering the last time they'd spoken was a late-night text that said, "Hey, you still got a couch? Also, is arson a dealbreaker?"
Jake's reply had been, "Still got the couch. Don't light it."
Smitty hadn't. Yet.
Now he spent his mornings washing dishes at a diner shaped like a bullet, his afternoons pretending to read novels at the park, and his evenings either walking nowhere or staring at the inside of his skull.
Sometimes, he even laughed.
Once, he snorted into his cereal watching a guy in a Bigfoot costume trip on a sidewalk crack. The memory still carried a small ember of warmth.
But the dreams never left.
They were stitched together from scorched rooms and Sam's voice echoing out of burning walls. Sometimes she spoke. Sometimes she screamed. Other times, she just looked at him, eyes full of disappointment—like a ghost who still expected better.
He tried weed. Jake's stuff. Rolled tight, smelled like citrus and regret. It helped dull the edges, like sanding down a blade until it was just a stick again. Didn't last long, though. The ghosts always found their way back in.
One evening, after half a joint and a gas station burrito he instantly regretted, he found himself standing behind the laundromat, staring at a pile of broken glass.
That's when he noticed the pattern in the shards. They reflected neon from the convenience store across the street—flickering letters that spelled OPEN but, in the broken angles of glass, warped into NOPE.
That felt… honest.
Jake walked up mid-stare and said, "You've been standing here for twenty minutes. Are you okay or just high enough to invent jazz?"
Smitty blinked. "Little of column A. Lot of column… spiraling dread."
Jake handed him a Gatorade. "Stay hydrated. Also, if you're gonna hallucinate music, keep it under 90 decibels. Mrs. Colburn next door called the cops because she thought your breathing was a raccoon mating call."
Smitty smiled despite himself. It was the first one that didn't crack at the edges.
Later that night, he finally opened the notebook again.
The first page greeted him with:
If you're reading this, I'm probably dead. If you're not… well, that's a whole other problem. Either way, this book wasn't meant to be opened lightly. There are things in here that can't be unread. So take a breath, Smitty. And for once in your life, read slow.
He did.
The next page had a list.
Safehouses: Crossed out
Emergency funds: see page 9
Contacts you absolutely should not call (no matter what): all of them.
If you find this, I failed. But you might not have to.
There was a crude sketch of a coffee shop. He recognized it—downtown, next to a tattoo place called Mild Regrets.
She'd circled a pipe grate behind it and written: Dead drop. In case you screw up.
He didn't screw up.
But he went anyway.
The dead drop was, in a word, uninspiring. A soggy Ziploc tucked behind a loose brick. Inside: another burner phone, a folded city map with a red "X," and a familiar item—her black lighter, the one shaped like a koi fish.
He ran his thumb over its body, flicked it open.
Flame. Memory.
The map's "X" was a small motel just off the interstate. One of those "pay by the hour or don't ask questions" places with sun-faded lawn chairs and vending machines that hadn't worked since Nirvana broke up.
When he checked in, the clerk barely looked up. Just handed him a key and said, "Room nine smells like bleach and heartbreak. Don't touch the wallpaper."
Smitty didn't.
The wallpaper did look suspiciously textured. He peeled a corner back and found a patch of writing scrawled behind it:
Stop looking for safety. It doesn't live here anymore.
He slept with one eye open.
And dreamed of the fire again.
Only this time, when Sam turned to ash, she smiled.