The city was loud where it wanted to be—honking taxis, impatient lovers, shattered dreams rattling in glass bottles—but it had its quiet corners too. Alleys tucked like secrets between buildings. Shadows stretching long and hungry. That's where I found him. Or rather, that's where I followed him.
Wrong move.
But I didn't know that yet.
I thought he was someone else.
The same silhouette. Same confident gait. Same undercurrent of danger in the way his coat shifted with each step, like it knew how to hide something sharp beneath the folds.
So I followed. High heels silent on the rain-slick pavement. Heart slow and measured, though something in my bones warned me—not him. Not quite.
Still, I trailed him past the edge of the noise, where the lights blurred and the people stopped pretending to be saints. Past a flickering sign that read "Exit" in blood-red neon.
Fitting.
The alley was narrow, the kind of place you only enter if you have something to prove—or something to run from.
I had both.
He stopped near the end, just under a rusted fire escape, half-lit by a trembling lamp overhead. I stepped forward, breath rising like smoke in the cold. That's when he turned.
And I realized.
It wasn't him.
Not even close.
The face that looked back at me wasn't the man from the ballroom. Not the one from the bar. It was someone else entirely. Someone I didn't know—yet somehow already feared.
His face was beautiful. That was the first sin. Not in a polished way. No. He was beautiful like broken glass—sharp, gleaming, and meant to cut. His eyes were too still, too focused. The kind of gaze that didn't just watch—it dissected.
I froze, one hand tightening around the clutch that held more secrets than cash.
He didn't speak.
Neither did I.
For a moment, the only sound between us was the slow drip of rain from the gutter. It should have felt awkward. It didn't. It felt like the air had turned to velvet and wrapped around my throat.
"You followed me," he said finally.
His voice was deep. Smooth. A little hoarse, like it had been dragged across gravel before reaching my ears.
"I thought you were someone else," I replied.
He tilted his head, and his lips curled—barely. "That line usually comes after the kiss."
"I'm not that careless."
"No. You're not." His eyes narrowed. "But you're curious. Curious enough to ignore your instincts."
I should've walked away. I should've turned around and let him disappear back into whatever hell he came from.
But I didn't.
Because something about him pulled at the part of me I pretend doesn't exist—the part that likes playing with fire just to see which of us burns first.
"I've seen you before," I said.
"No, you haven't."
"I have. That look in your eyes." I stepped closer, even though my skin was screaming at me to stop. "I've seen it in mirrors."
That made him laugh. Low. Unstable. Like something inside him was cracking at the edges.
And then I saw it.
The rush of madness.
It hit his face in a wave, like lightning flashing behind a calm sky. There, then gone—but I caught it. A flicker of something feral. Something that didn't belong in the body of a man.
He stepped forward and the shadows seemed to move with him. "What do you think you're looking at?" he asked, voice softer now, like velvet over a blade.
"Something dangerous," I answered truthfully.
He nodded. "Smart girl."
"But not dangerous enough to scare me off."
"Then maybe I should try harder."
He moved so fast I didn't see it coming.
One second, he was ten feet away. The next, he was in front of me, hand braced against the brick wall behind my head. Not touching me. Not yet. But close enough to smell—cigarettes, rain, and something chemical underneath, like gasoline.
"Are you afraid now?" he asked.
I kept my voice steady. "Not yet."
He smiled. And for the first time, it reached his eyes—but not in a comforting way.
In a hungry way.
"I know what you are," he said. "You wear red like it's war paint. Lie like it's language. Smile like it's a dare. You walk into rooms and wait for someone to follow, just so you can catch them in the trap."
"And?"
"I'm not the mouse," he said. "I'm the other snake."
We were too close. Breathing the same storm. He was all sharp angles and unreadable danger, like something created for chaos alone. I could feel the madness humming beneath his skin like static.
"You're not what I thought," I murmured.
"And what did you think I was?"
"A man I could use."
"And now?"
"Now I'm not sure if I should kiss you or kill you."
His grin widened. "Why not both?"
There was something terrifying in how calm he was. How still. Like violence was his default and everything else was performance.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"I don't matter. What matters is why you came here."
"I told you. I thought you were someone else."
He leaned in, voice a breath against my ear. "And what would you have done if I was him?"
"Killed him," I said.
He pulled back enough to look me in the eye. "Then I'm glad I'm not."
I should've left. I should've walked away and let the night swallow this mistake.
But some mistakes are worth making.
And some monsters don't come with horns—they come with eyes that burn like secrets and hands that know where to press to make you fall apart.
"I have a feeling I'll be seeing you again," I whispered.
"You will."
"Why?"
"Because," he said, stepping back into the dark, voice dissolving like smoke, "you saw the madness. And you didn't flinch."
Then he was gone.
Just like that.
And I stood there in the alley, heart pounding, lips cold, blood singing with something I didn't dare name.
I had followed the wrong man into the dark.
But maybe it wasn't a mistake after all.
Maybe it was fate.
Because now I couldn't stop thinking about him.
And that meant the real danger hadn't even begun yet.