Page 47 of Follow Her Down

Heat flares behind my eyes, a familiar rage that tastes like copper on my tongue.I busy my hands by straightening the cigarette display, watching her from the corner of my eye.She selects extra-strength aspirin, gauze bandages, cheap concealer, and an ice pack.

The arsenal of the wounded.

She approaches the counter, and her hands tremble slightly as she sets her items down.

“Will that be all?”I ask.

“Yes,” she whispers.

Her voice has the paper-thin quality of someone who’s screamed too much.

I scan the items slowly, deliberately, keeping one eye on her.“Who did this to you?”

She freezes, her head snapping up.Fear darts across what I can see of her face.“I… I fell.Down the stairs.”

“Stairs don’t leave finger-shaped bruises,” I say.“There’s no one else in here to hear you.Just give me his name.”

Her breath hitches.For a moment, something shifts in her posture—a straightening of her spine, a flash of something raw and honest.Her lips part.

The register spits out the receipt loudly, and the moment breaks.

“Twenty-seven fifty,” I say, not pushing further.

She fumbles with her purse, her hands still shaking.I bag her items carefully, and she takes the bag.

“Thank you,” she whispers, then she turns and hurries out.

I watch through the just-cleaned windows as she gets into her car.As she pulls away, I think about names—how they carry weight, how they become targets, how knowing someone’s name gives you so much power over them.

I wonder if she’ll be back.

And if she does, I wonder whose name I’ll be adding to my list.

22

Red Hands

Hercar’slockdoesn’tfight me, and I easily slide into her back seat and breathe in deeply.

The air carries molecules of her—skin cells, exhaled breath, faint perfume that has settled into the fabric.A scent that is earthy and honest.

I lower myself below the window line, arranging my limbs to become part of the shadows.Patience has always been my sacrament.Time means nothing when you are waiting for something holy.

From here, I can watch her house.The windows glow amber with the mid-day sun.She moves behind them, though I cannot see her just yet.Sera Vale.A name she chose, not the one she was given.A disguise worn over bone.

I know her routine better than she knows it herself, better than the man in the white van who often prowls by her house.In approximately seven minutes, she will exit to go to her job at Gas N’ Go.She will pause on the porch—three seconds while she adjusts her bag, four more while she sorts her keys.Then twenty-two steps to reach this car in the gravel drive.

I flex my hands in my lap.These hands have unveiled so many women.Released them from their lying skin.My fingertips tingle with the memory of warm blood, how it feels when it first emerges, hopeful and bright, before it understands it is leaving home forever.

Will I open her throat?Perhaps.The neck is sacred geography—voice, breath, and pulse all gathered in one vulnerable passage.But Sera may require something more elaborate.Something worthy of her complexity.

In the quiet of her car, I imagine her body going limp as the sedative takes hold.How her eyes will widen first in recognition, then narrow with the betrayal of consciousness.Will she fight?The others did.But fighting only hastens revelation.

My heartbeat remains steady and controlled, unlike the frantic percussion of my previous subjects.This is what separates us because I am the knife, not the flesh.

The door opens.

She emerges, keys already separated from the others on her ring.Her bag hangs from her shoulder, weighted with whatever secrets she carries.Her black hair falls across her face, and she pushes it back with nonchalance.

She doesn’t know I am here.Doesn’t feel my gaze caressing the back of her neck.Doesn’t sense how close transformation waits.

One foot descends the first step.Then the second.She doesn’t walk like prey, even though she is.

I do not move.Do not breathe.My body becomes the stillness between heartbeats.

She walks toward the car.Toward me.Each footfall bringing her closer to her real self—the one hiding beneath her skin, waiting to be freed.

And with each step closer, she is already mine.