They didn't stop running until her lungs burned.
The alley spat them out onto a deserted street slick with rain and silence. Neon lights buzzed overhead, flickering like nervous eyes. The man finally slowed, dragging her behind a delivery truck and pressing a finger to his lips.
She nodded, chest heaving, heart still racing from the echo of shattering glass and the sound she couldn't forget—
The gunshot that missed.
Sirens wailed somewhere far too close.
"Who were they?" she whispered.
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he listened—head tilted, eyes scanning the dark like he expected it to move. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and steady.
"People who don't exist on paper," he said. "Just like me."
Her laugh came out sharp and breathless. "You expect me to accept that?"
"No," he replied. "I expect you to stay alive."
She yanked her wrist from his grip. "You dragged me into this!"
"You stepped into it," he corrected. "The moment you opened that file."
Her phone vibrated again.
She froze.
Slowly, she pulled it out.
UNKNOWN: You should've listened.
The message disappeared before she could reply.
Her stomach twisted. "They know where I am."
He swore under his breath. "They know where you live too."
That did it.
"What?" Her voice cracked. "You said I wasn't supposed to die tonight. That doesn't sound reassuring."
He met her gaze, something grim and apologetic crossing his face. "It wasn't a promise. It was an instruction that changed."
Before she could demand more, the sound of an engine rolled down the street—slow, deliberate. Headlights swept across the parked cars.
He moved instantly.
"Trust me," he said, already pulling her along.
"I don't even know your name!"
"Good," he shot back. "Names get people killed."
They slipped through a side door into an abandoned laundromat. Dust hung thick in the air. Broken machines lined the walls like rusted corpses. He locked the door behind them and cut the lights.
Darkness swallowed them.
Her breathing sounded too loud.
"This is insane," she whispered.
"Yes," he agreed. "But it's consistent."
She turned on her phone flashlight despite his glare. "Consistent with what?"
"With a clean-up."
Her pulse jumped. "A clean-up of who?"
He stepped closer, his face half-lit, eyes darker now. "Of you."
The words landed hard.
"My apartment," she said suddenly. "You said they know where I live."
"They were there before we ran," he confirmed. "You just didn't see them."
Cold fear slid down her spine. "My research—"
"Gone," he finished. "Anything linking you to the file."
She sucked in a breath. "Then why am I still breathing?"
He hesitated.
That hesitation terrified her more than the gun.
"Because," he said carefully, "someone upstairs hasn't decided what you're worth yet."
She stared at him. "Upstairs where?"
He reached into his coat and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Old. Creased. Burned at the edges. He handed it to her.
It was a printout.
Her printout.
A page from the case file she'd been working on.
Except one line had been added in red ink, handwritten and unmistakable.
SECONDARY SUBJECT: PENDING
Her hands shook. "That's me."
"Yes."
"You told me the file decides who breathes."
"It does," he said. "And you just got upgraded."
Outside, tires screeched. Doors slammed. Voices carried through the broken windows.
"They found us," she whispered.
He moved again, urgency snapping into place. "We can't stay."
"Where do we go?"
He looked at her, eyes sharp. "Somewhere you were never supposed to remember."
She frowned. "What does that mean?"
He didn't answer.
They slipped out the back into the rain just as flashlights cut through the front windows.
As they ran, something itched at the back of her mind—an image, a sound, a memory clawing its way up.
Firelight.
Screaming.
A man shouting her name.
She stumbled.
He caught her instantly. "You're remembering," he said, not a question.
She looked up at him, breath ragged. "I've seen you before."
His grip tightened.
"Before you died," she whispered.
He closed his eyes briefly, like a man bracing for impact.
"Yes," he said. "And that's the problem."
Sirens screamed closer now, overlapping, chaotic.
Because the truth she was chasing wasn't new.
It had been erased.
And the shadows hadn't followed her by accident.
They had been waiting for her to remember.