NEW YORK CITY
"Run,Ava,run!" Those were the only words that screamed through her mind as she ran as fast as her legs could while footsteps thundered behind her.
She ran through the rain,which soaked through her coat as she sprinted down the narrow street with her breath tearing from her chest and her lungs burning with every step. The city lights blurred, neon smearing into useless color as fear sharpened her senses knowing they were close.
"Stop!" a man shouted behind her but yet she didn't look back.
Her shoe slipped on the wet pavement which made her barely catch herself before crashing to the ground as pain sliced through her ankle. She stumbled forward as her heart slammed so violently that it felt like it might burst.
"Don't panic,don't slow down." She repeated in her mind as she stood up and continued running.
She veered sharply into an alley, trash bins and shadows closing in around her. Her chest heaved as she ran blindly with rain masking her tears as her pulse roared so loudly that she could barely hear the footsteps anymore.
She burst out onto the main road just as headlights flared.
A bus screeched to a stop and without thinking she leapt forward, nearly collapsing as the doors hissed open. The driver cursed, but she was already inside, stumbling down the aisle as the doors slammed shut behind her.
The bus lurched forward as she collapsed into a seat near the middle, shaking so hard she could barely breathe.
Through the fogged glass, she saw two men standing at the curb with rain dripping from their coats and faces hidden beneath shadows and streetlight glare. One lifted his head slowly and looked straight at her before the bus pulled away and only then did Ava realize her hands were numb.
Her phone vibrated which made her stare at the screen as dread coiled tight in her stomach.
UNKNOWN NUMBER:
You shouldn't have run.
You are running out of places to hide.
The world tilted around her which caught her breath as the familiar cold seeped into her veins—the same cold she'd felt the night everything went wrong.She slipped the phone into her pocket. She didn't cry because all she could tell herself was that crying wasted oxygen, and oxygen was survival. She counted the stops instead as her eyes flicked to every reflection, every movement and every shadow that might follow her off the bus.
When her stop came, she waited for three more stops,then two and only when she was sure no one rose with her did she pull the cord.
The bus hissed to a stop beneath a flickering streetlamp as rain poured harder now, muting the city and turning everything distant and unreal. Ava stepped down slowly, scanning left, right, behind while her body stayed coiled, ready to sprint at the slightest wrong movement.
Four blocks and that's all that separated her from the detective.
She walked through the street with her head lowered as she blended into the shadow because each reflection made her flinch.
Her right hand stayed inside her coat while her fingers wrapped tightly around the note hidden in her pocket. The weight of it felt heavier than it should as proof compressed into something small enough to die for.
Two men laughed near a parked car which made her pulse spike but she didn't stop walking.
By the time she reached the old brick building on Hawthorne Street, her nerves screamed like live wires.
Cross Investigations
Private Detective,No miracles, only truth.
The sign was plain and easy to overlook and that's exactly what she needed.
Ava climbed the stairs quickly, pausing only long enough to listen at the door. She knocked once, then again harder this time and the door opened.
The man who filled the doorway was tall, solid and unmistakably dangerous in the quiet way of someone who didn't need to prove it. He had dark hair, sharp eyes and a controlled and alert posture. His gaze swept over Ava in one assessing glance as he held a cigaret
te—torn sleeve, mud-streaked boots and the tension coiled tight in her frame.
"Yes?" he said.
"I need help."