Rain slicked the alley, glossing the brick like it had a secret to tell. Puddles mirrored the neon, fractured shards of green and pink shaking with every drop. Footsteps echoed somewhere behind me, uneven, deliberate. I tightened my coat and muttered, "If misfortune were currency, I'd be a billionaire. In misery. Naturally."
A loose sign rattled above, clanging metal against wet iron. I paused, tracing the edges of familiar streets with my eyes, counting coincidences like bullets in a chamber. Missed trains, wrong turns, failed jobs… none of it random. The universe wasn't cruel; it was organized. Mildly entertained, but organized.
Click… drip… scrape…
Shadows shifted across a wall too quick to be a flickering streetlight. Rook? Or one of the others? My pulse ticked faster. "Fantastic. The stalking portion of tonight's show begins," I muttered, stepping over a puddle that had formed a miniature lake at my feet.
I leaned against a graffiti-stained wall, noticing the patterns in the wet bricks. Someone had been here before me. Someone who understood timing, observation… me. I let a dry laugh escape. "And here I was worried about being lonely. Ha. Company comes in the form of organized chaos and subtle threats. Perfect."
A metallic scrape trash can tipping? Or a message left for me. I turned, eyes narrowing, and my coat rustled as the wind teased the alley. The smell of damp concrete mixed with old smoke, familiar and unnerving.
A faint emblem glimmered on a lamppost, orange against the wet black paint. My lips twisted. "Oh look. My fan club leaves breadcrumbs now. How sweet. Always knew I'd be famous for something."
The puddles hissed under my boots as I moved toward the street, rain pattering across my shoulders, mixing with the distant wail of a siren. I didn't know what waited ahead, but I did know this: luck wasn't mine, and maybe it never had been. It belonged to someone or something else.
And that realization… well, it made me grin. Bitterly. Sarcastically. Humanly.
"Bring it on," I muttered, disappearing into the wet neon night.