Selena left the building later than she meant to.
The office had thinned out gradually, the way it always did toward evening, conversations tapering off into echoes and the hum of machines powering down. She'd lingered over nothing in particular, closing files that were already saved, rereading emails she'd already understood. It wasn't reluctance exactly, more a quiet resistance to transition, to the moment when the day ended, and she had to carry herself back into the open.
By the time she stepped into the elevator, the sense of normal she'd clung to all afternoon felt fragile. Not broken. Just… thin. The ride down was smooth, uneventful, but she spent it staring at the numbers as they descended, feeling the faint pressure behind her eyes pulse once, then fade. Nothing alarming. Just fatigue, she told herself. A long day, finally catching up. She squared her shoulders as the doors slid open, adjusted her grip on her bag, and stepped outside.
The city changed at night.
Not dramatically. Not all at once. It softened at the edges, light bleeding into shadow, sounds stretching farther than they should. The streets outside Rockwood Industries thinned as evening settled in, traffic dispersing into quieter routes, office lights blinking out one floor at a time.
Selena noticed it as she stepped outside. The air felt heavier. Cooler. The kind of night that pressed against skin instead of passing through it. She adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder and started toward the parking structure across the street. Her heels clicked against the pavement in a steady rhythm, the sound echoing faintly in the open space.
Normal, she told herself.
She had thought that word often today. Used it like an anchor. Like a promise. Her headache had returned briefly on the elevator ride down, just a flicker of pressure behind her eyes, gone as quickly as it came. Exhaustion, she'd decided. Long day. Too much screen time. Nothing else.
She found herself paying more attention to detail than usual. She noticed things that had been there forever, but somehow never caught her attention. Like the parking structure loomed ahead. It was concrete and shadowed, its entrance partially obscured by a row of trees lining the sidewalk. The streetlights, too. They flickered on one by one, casting long bands of orange light across the road.
Selena slowed as she reached the curb. She didn't know why. There was no sound. No movement. No visible threat. Just a faint, inexplicable resistance in her chest, like walking into wind she hadn't expected.
She stepped forward anyway.
The moment she crossed into the shadow cast by the trees, the world narrowed. It didn't announce itself. It simply… folded. The hum of the city dulled, stretching thin until it became background noise. The air thickened. Space compressed. Selena's focus snapped inward, then outward, locking onto everything at once.
Intent.
It hit her before sensation. Before sound. Not fear. Not present.
Intent.
Her heartbeat slowed. Time bent. She became aware of the man to her left a split second before he moved, not because she saw him, but because something in her mind reached for him. The angle of his shoulders. The tension in his arm. The subtle shift of weight that meant he was about to act.
Behind him, another shape resolved out of shadow. Three, her mind supplied calmly. No faces. No details yet. Just trajectories.
The first man's hand dipped toward his jacket. Selena moved before the thought finished forming. She stepped sideways, her heel pivoting on the concrete, bag swinging forward as her body turned. The space she'd occupied a moment earlier was filled with motion as the man drew his weapon.
The sound of the gun leaving the holster reached her late. The second man raised his arm. Selena was already moving. She ducked, dropped low, her knee hitting the pavement as she slid forward. The bag slipped from her shoulder, and she let it go, momentum carrying her past the line where the shot would be.
The gun fired. The sound cracked through the narrowed world, sharp and delayed. The bullet tore through empty space.
Selena was already gone.
She rose into motion, hands empty, body light, precise. Her foot connected with the first man's knee at exactly the angle that would collapse it without slowing her forward momentum. Bone gave way with a dull, distant sensation she registered without emotion.
He went down.
The third man's finger tightened on the trigger. Selena saw it happen. Not visually. Internally. The decision formed in his muscles before the shot existed. She twisted, her body flowing around the invisible line of fire, arm snapping out to strike his wrist before the recoil could register. The gun skidded across the pavement, spinning uselessly away.
Another shot rang out behind her. She felt it pass. Air displaced. Pressure shifted. Her shoulder brushed the wake of it as she dropped again, rolling across the concrete and coming up behind the second man. Her elbow drove into the base of his skull with controlled force. And then, the world returned to how it used to be.
Selena stood still, breathing evenly, chest rising and falling as though she'd simply crossed the street a little too quickly. Her hands trembled faintly now that the pressure had lifted. She looked down at the men on the ground. Three. Disarmed. Incapacitated. But still alive. She heaved a sigh of relief as she registered that without conscious thought.
Around her, the city resumed its rhythm. A car passed at the end of the block. Somewhere, a horn sounded. The parking structure hummed quietly, indifferent.
Selena straightened slowly.
Her heart began to race.
The aftermath hit harder than the moment itself. Sensation flooded back in all at once, cold air on her skin, the scrape on her knee, the ache in her wrist. Her head pulsed sharply, pain blooming behind her eyes as the ability receded.
She pressed her fingers briefly to her temple.
That wasn't normal.
The thought arrived fully formed this time.
She stepped back, scanning the street, the rooftops, the darkened windows. No movement. No immediate pursuit. Whoever had sent them hadn't planned on subtlety or survival. But she was sure of one thing. Someone wanted her dead.
She retrieved her bag, slung it back over her shoulder, and walked away from the parking structure without looking back. There was more to her than she remembered. As she would find the answers she was looking for.