The water had stopped running ten minutes ago, but it still dripped. A slow, deliberate rhythm from the rusted faucet — like the room was keeping time with Seth Karlsson's heartbeat. The smell of iron hung heavy in the air, mixing with the faint sting of bleach that hadn't yet erased the evidence.
He stood over the tub, sleeves rolled up, hands trembling not from guilt — that had long left him — but from exhaustion. He wondered what she was up to. Probably watching a comfort movie. The man in the tub was still, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling like he'd just seen God and found him disappointing.
Seth tilted his head, studying his handiwork. "You should've kept quiet, my friend" he murmured, voice calm, detached. He was good at this now — too good. Every move planned, every mistake scrubbed away before it could turn into a trail. But even precision couldn't stop the creeping unease that came after. The silence always did it — the sound of his own breathing in the aftermath.
He reached for the plug and watched the pink water swirl down the drain, carrying away what little proof was left. When the last bubble vanished, so did his patience for this town. Too many curious faces. Too many questions.
He peeled off his gloves and tossed them into the trash bag beside the tub. His reflection in the mirror caught his eye — sharp jawline, pale skin, a man who could easily pass for anyone else. That was the point. Seth Karlsson was a name that changed with the wind. Tomorrow it will be something new.
He wiped his face, slicked his hair back, and walked out of the bathroom like he hadn't just ended a life in it. He grabbed his glasses from the sink counter-top. The apartment was dark, half-packed, smelling faintly of rain and smoke. On the table sat a half-finished cup of coffee and a sunflower, wilting in a glass jar. He first saw it in her garden. He took it a few days ago when she was at work. She certainly takes her work seriously, bringing it home and growing a garden in her back yard.
He smiled faintly. "Maybe I'll find some in the next place. Perhaps south," he whispered.
By dawn, Seth was gone. The apartment was empty except for the sunflower, its yellow petals scattered across the floor like tiny, dying suns.
Out on the highway, he drove toward nowhere, the radio humming softly beneath the sound of the rain. A new town, a new name, a clean start — at least until the blood started calling again.
— —
The town was called Clare View Point, though it looked more like a place the world had forgotten to finish. It sits on the edge of nowhere — a town that shouldn't exist, but somehow refuses to die. Nestled between two rivers that never quite meet, it's a place perpetually caught in a kind of stillness, as if time drags its feet here. The locals say the fog rolls in at dusk and never really leaves. A single streetlight blinked at the end of the road, its glow spilling over cracked asphalt and dust. Seth parked his car outside a diner that hummed with neon and rain.
"The Beehive," the sign read — flickering like it couldn't quite decide whether to stay alive.
Inside, the air smelled of coffee and fried things, the kind of scent that clung to loneliness. Seth slid into a corner booth, where the vinyl was torn and the world felt safely distant. He ordered black coffee from a waitress who didn't bother smiling — his favorite kind of place.
That's when he saw her.
She sat at the counter, one leg crossed over the other, a half-eaten slice of pie in front of her and a sunflower pin glinting in her hair. Her eyes caught the light — something wild in them, like she was both waiting and running at the same time. She was reading a book.
Their gazes met. A brief, electric flicker.
''You will meet someone who will make you want to stay, but staying will feel like burning. You'll tell yourself you can handle fire-'' he says.
''-because love has always been a beautiful kind of pain.'' she says looking up. Is he referencing the book she's reading?
He smirked, ordered another coffee, and sat beside her. The waitress gave him a look that said don't make trouble. He didn't. Trouble had a way of finding him anyway.
''The pie taste the same… like extremely sweet cherries,'' she chuckled and took another bite.
"So," she said, tapping her spoon against her cup. "Why Clare View Point? Most people only end up here by mistake."
"Maybe I'm running from something," he said. She doesn't know that he knows this town rather well. Her garden is familiar to him.
"Or toward it." What strange man, she thought.
He studied her and tilted his head. "You sound like someone who knows the difference."
"Maybe I do," she replied, her eyes flicking to the window. Outside, rain slicked the glass, turning the world into a watercolor of headlights and shadows. "I've learned that what chases you tends to follow, even when you bury it deep."
There was a pause — not an awkward one, but a heavy kind, full of things neither dared to name.
She turned toward him then, smiling softly. "I'm Seraphine."
He knows.
"Seth."
Her gaze dropped to his hand, a faint trace of red beneath his nails he hadn't quite scrubbed clean. She noticed — he saw it in the small tilt of her head — but said nothing.
Instead, she reached for the sugar, stirred her coffee, and said, "You ever notice how sunflowers always turn toward the light, even when it hurts them?"
He looked at her, the sunflower pin, the faint scar along her wrist. "Ah yes… you must like sunflowers, since there's a pin in your hair'' he pointed to her head.
Her smile deepened — slow, knowing, dangerous. "They are bright flowers. Maybe that's why I like them."
Outside, the rain eased. Inside, the diner grew quiet. The clock ticked. The coffee steamed between them, untouched.
When she finally stood to leave, she slipped a napkin onto his table. Her handwriting was neat, deliberate. The name of a motel. A room number. 219.
"See you around, Seth Karlsson," she said, her voice almost teasing — like she already knew him. He never mentioned his surname
And then she was gone, her sunflower pin catching the light as the door chimed behind her.
Seth sat there for a long while, the napkin beneath his fingertips, the taste of her words still in his mouth.
A chance meeting, maybe. But something about it felt inevitable — magnetic — wrong in all the right ways.