Page 69 of Dark Soul (Tainted #1)

I walk out barefoot into the morning fog.

No coat. No bag. No weapons. Just my name, and even that feels like a lie.

The front gates stand open—not unlocked, not broken, just open. Like Lucian has known this is coming. Like he is waiting for me to prove something.

I don’t expect him to chase me. But I still wait. One minute. Then two. Still, no footsteps. No low voice calling me back.

Maybe he knows he’s already lost.

I walk.

The estate shrinks behind me, swallowed by early fog. The gravel bites into my feet, each stone a small punishment I welcome. I could’ve gone back inside for shoes. A coat. A plan. But I don’t want anything from that place touching me again.

Not when I’m finally peeling him off my skin.

At the edge of the tree line, I slip a phone from the back pocket of the jacket I’d stolen days ago—one of the guards. Basic Android. Burner-level encryption. No tracking.

I tap open a rideshare app and key in the address of Prague’s south terminal. Under the name Elena K., I book a train to Vienna. One way. Cash on arrival.

No luggage. No questions.

The driver says nothing when I get in. Good. My throat doesn’t work anyway.

I keep my eyes forward the entire ride, even when my reflection flickers in the glass and tries to meet me with its ghost-face.

***

The train smells like metal and memory.

I sit by the window, sleeves pulled over my hands. Two rows back, a child giggles over a packet of biscuits. Her mother hushes her gently, smiling in the way mothers do when they believe the world is mostly kind.

I envy her.

Outside, the trees blur past silvered trunks, blackened tips, dying leaves like falling promises.

I lean my head against the cold glass and let my thoughts unwind like a frayed thread.

Lucian’s hands.

The way they can cradle my waist one moment and snap a man’s wrist the next.

How they hold my heart like something breakable until they don’t.

I don’t cry.

I don’t even blink too hard.

I just breathe.

Maybe I was never his. Maybe I’ve always just been the fire he threw himself into.

Maybe he loves the destruction more than he ever loved me.

***

Vienna at night isn’t kind.

It isn’t cruel either. It just watches.

I check into a nameless hotel tucked between two shuttered bakeries. Cash only. No ID. No smiles. The receptionist doesn’t care who I am, which is the closest thing to safety I’ve felt in weeks.

The room has one window and too many shadows. I keep the lights off.

I walk the streets long after the trams stop clanging, past empty cafes and glowing signs that buzz like insects. The churches are locked, the alley cats watching from broken walls.

My breath fogs in the cold. I don’t feel it.

I walk like I’m looking for something. But maybe I’m just trying to outrun the echo of him. Of me. Of everything I’ve become.

***

The first time, I think it is a coincidence.

A man across the street stubs out a cigarette too slowly. Eyes on me.

The second time, I tell myself it is paranoia.

A woman pauses at the edge of a platform as I walk by. Then follows. Too many steps. Not enough space.

By the third time, I know.

The glances aren’t idle.

The pauses aren’t random.

And I’m not walking alone.

I tighten my scarf and change direction three times in two blocks. The last time, I duck into a flower shop and wait.

The person never comes inside.

But they also don’t leave.

I can feel them. Like a breath against the back of my neck.

Like hunger that isn’t mine.

***

That night, I order tea from a vending machine and walk home the long way—past the canal, then through the square where violinists sometimes play. It is empty now. Just pigeons and peeling posters and the kind of wind that sounds like someone whispering your name too far from your ear to be safe.

I round the corner by the pharmacy. Turn down the alley behind the café.

Stop.

Silence.

A click.

My spine locks.

I turn slowly, heart thudding against my ribs like it wants to break out and run without me.

No one.

Just the echo of my breath. The quiet hum of the street behind me. The alley narrow and dark and too still.

I take a step back.

Then another.

“Vera.”

Not Lucian’s voice. Not anyone I recognize.

I spin around.

A figure emerges from the shadows.

Not tall. Not small. Just…wrong.

Face covered in partial light, knife glinting from a sheath at their side. Eyes locked on me like I am a mark.

I open my mouth.

But no sound comes.

Not fear.

Not courage.

Just the quiet before the scream.