He leaned back into the velvet sofa, the fabric cool and soft as ocean mist.
For the first time since the tragedy, someone didn't treat him like a lunatic.
The doctor had listened—really listened—even as his story trespassed the borders of the believable.
With a silent nod, Liam Thomas scheduled another appointment.
At the door, Dr. Miroslava Novak pressed his forearm gently—a brief but deliberate gesture.
"Don't drown in guilt that others hand you," she murmured. "Observe. Write. Resist.
Truth always hungers for witnesses."
Liam nodded faintly, her words lodging somewhere deep, and stepped out of her office with a smile that barely existed. His next stop was Miranda's workplace.
The sunset set fire to the tower's glass façade, gilding the office corridors in molten gold—a fragile calm before the inevitable fracture. The marble floors reflected a mosaic of amber light. Liam waited near the elevator, breathing the sterile blend of disinfectant and burnt coffee.
When the doors slid open, Miranda Hale emerged behind her supervisor—file pressed to her chest, heels striking like metronomes.
Tailored suit, flawless makeup, her golden hair braided with surgical precision.
"Hey," Liam greeted, raising a hand, managing a ghost of a smile.
"Hey," she replied, not slowing her stride. He leaned in to kiss her; she turned her cheek, offering it with a faint grimace.
"Had onion rings," she murmured, avoiding his eyes. "You wouldn't want to risk it."
Her tone was light, playful even, but her gaze was too careful, her avoidance too deliberate.
They rode down in silence, her heels echoing against the sterile floor—a rhythm of distance. Inside the car, the hum of the engine wasn't enough to thaw the air between them.
He placed a hand on her leg. She shifted away with a weary sigh.
"Can we talk?" he asked.
"I'm exhausted, Jake," she said softly, eyes glued to her phone. "My head's in a thousand places."
"Do you still love me?"
The words came raw and unarmored—a plea disguised as courage. He hadn't meant to ask, but her silence, that invisible wall growing between them, forced the question into existence. Each second, she didn't answer felt like a blade turning inside him.
Miranda's lips pressed into a line. Her eyes traced the condensation on the windshield.
"It's not a good time for that kind of question," she whispered.
His heart clenched. Outside, the orange dusk was fading into cold gray.
He started the car, steering onto the highway. The radio droned.
"The police continue to investigate the death of Mason Fraser…" the announcer said in a velvet voice.
Liam slammed the button. Static. Then a burst of electric guitar.
Miranda didn't look up.
When he dropped her off, her goodbye was lukewarm—barely human. The door closed with a hollow thud.
He sat for a full minute, staring at the row of mailboxes, counting his own heartbeats until they tripped over each other. Then he drove off with no destination—just motion, like a man trying to outrun his own reflection.
A dense fog swallowed Vancouver as he crossed the bridge. Moisture clung to the air, cold enough to bite through bone. In the distance, a train whistle wove through the hum of electric cables, the city whispering its prophecies in static tones.
Streetlights painted spectral halos across the mist.
Liam pulled over by the railing, killed the engine, and the silence descended like a damp cloth.
Only the river below, and a faraway siren.
He rested his forehead against the steering wheel. The leather smelled of ozone and despair.
Behind closed eyes, Mason's trembling hands replayed in flashes—the blood pooling, the life fading like music swallowed by silence. And then, her. Anna Viktorie.
Her face, painted in red. Beautiful and terrible.
He could feel her gaze still clinging to the back of his neck.
A chill crawled down his spine.
"Maybe I'm losing my mind," he whispered. "Maybe it's all delirium."
But the sting of stitches said otherwise.
Instinct prickled the back of his neck. He raised his head.
At the far end of the bridge, half-buried in mist and the weak gleam of advertisements, a figure stood—a woman, long hair, dark coat. Visible for only an instant before melting into the fog.
Ice coiled down his spine. He blinked—nothing. Just concrete, railings, and vapor.
Still, his pulse quickened. Someone was watching. He could feel it.
His phone buzzed—a routine bank alert. He ignored it, turned the key, and the engine roared.
In the rearview mirror, for a heartbeat, he thought he saw them—two faint, glacial eyes gleaming in the dark.
But when he looked again, there was only night.
Anna Viktorie watched his car disappear, her eyes glowing faintly like distant stars. Hunger, yes—but not only hunger. Calculation. Curiosity.
A game had begun.
As the brake lights vanished into the fog, she whispered his name—barely a breath,
"Liam…"
The wind carried her voice downriver, blending it with the murmur of dark waters.
And somewhere in the city, the door that Miroslava had warned him about opened just a little wider,
letting through a whisper of ancient darkness.