The rain hadn't stopped in hours.
Aurelia Vale pulled her coat tighter around her body as she walked the silent alley behind her apartment. The streetlamps flickered, casting long shadows that bent like claws across the wet pavement.
Her boots clicked. One step. Then another.
She wasn't afraid. Not really. Fear had died in her long ago—right around the time her father vanished without a trace and left behind nothing but bloodstained floorboards and a locked briefcase.
A sharp crack echoed behind her.
She froze.
Someone was there.
She turned, slowly.
A man stood under the broken streetlight. Umbrella unopened. Soaked to the bone. Wearing a black suit like death himself.
"Lose something?" he asked, voice calm but sharp as glass.
Aurelia stepped back. "Who are you?"
The man tilted his head. "No one… yet. But I imagine I'll be everything very soon."
She didn't know what scared her more—the threat in his voice or the calm in it.
"I'm not interested," she said.
"But I am," he replied, stepping closer. "In you."
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