Maya felt lighter than she had in days.
After what Eva did for Jonas—after they watched her cheat Death, even for a moment—it gave Maya something she hadn't dared feel since the vision.
Hope.
But it was short-lived.
9:12 AM – Eva's Apartment
Maya sat at the window, legs curled beneath her, watching birds cluster around the telephone wires. She could hear Jonas and Eva talking in the kitchen about "the new pattern," about who might be next now.
She tuned it out.
Maya didn't want to live counting minutes.
Didn't want to look over her shoulder for shadows that didn't have feet.
Didn't want to guess whether the wind brushing her cheek was air—or something reaching for her.
Instead, she stared at the birds.
One, two, three, four—
Suddenly, all the birds launched off the wires at once, flapping wildly.
Her breath caught.
Her fingers clutched the window ledge.
She had a feeling.
A pressure in her chest.
A taste of iron in her mouth.
"Eva…" she called, voice distant. "Eva, something's wrong."
10:01 AM – Outside
Eva wanted to keep Maya close. Walk with her. Talk her through it. If Death had returned to the pattern, there was no telling how fast it would strike.
Jonas drove.
Maya sat in the passenger seat.
Eva and Imani followed in another car.
They were heading toward a city tram station, trying to find a safe place, somewhere neutral and public.
But Maya kept glancing behind her. The reflection in the car mirror didn't look like hers. The shadows moved wrong. Like they knew her name.
They pulled up to the station.
Maya stepped out.
The world was too quiet.
A vendor's umbrella flapped violently in the wind even though no wind blew.
A drop of water hit her forehead.
She looked up.
Clear skies.
Another drop.
Then the taste of iron again.
"Maya—" Eva shouted.
Maya turned just as a high-pitched squeal shrieked overhead.
A suspended sign cracked loose.
It spun as it fell—
Maya dove back, just missing it.
But she landed on a sewer grate—
Her ankle twisted—
She screamed.
Eva was running toward her.
"Maya, don't move—!"
CLANG.
A train screeched through the underground tunnel below.
The vibrations loosened something.
From above, a hanging power line—hidden behind the billboard—snapped loose and swung downward like a pendulum.
Maya tried to crawl away, but her leg was caught in the grate.
ZAP.
Electricity shot down the wet line, arcing across the metal railings, through the grate—
Through Maya.
Her body convulsed.
Eva screamed.
Jonas turned away.
Smoke curled from Maya's fingertips.
And just like that—
The pattern had returned.
1:24 PM – Aftermath
The group sat in the alley behind a diner. No one spoke.
Imani held a blanket around her shoulders, tears falling silently.
Jonas stared at his palms like they weren't real.
Eva?
She just listened.
To the wind.
To the air around her.
And it was back.
That sound.
That hum beneath the surface of everything.
Death wasn't hiding anymore.
It was hunting again.
End of Chapter Seven