The rain came down in sheets, carving silver paths along the cracked asphalt of Easton Street. Floodlights from a crashed sedan blinked through the storm, the smell of burning fuel clinging to the night.
Adrian Vale stood beneath the flickering streetlight, coat collar pulled up, a faint tremor in his jaw. He had stopped here only because of the noise — a metallic scream that cut through the rain — but something about the scene made his pulse tighten.
The car had rolled twice before stopping against a lamppost. Steam hissed through a torn hood. He stepped closer, eyes scanning instinctively — reflexes from his old life as a crisis negotiator. He reached through the shattered window, found the ignition cold, and — strangely — the seat empty.
Whoever had been inside was gone.
Adrian's gaze dropped to the pavement. A set of bare footprints led from the wreck to the narrow alleyway beside a boarded café. The trail shimmered under the rain — fresh. Without thinking, he followed.
When he saw her, she was half-collapsed against a wall, long hair plastered to her face, blood trickling down one arm. The alley smelled of rust and soaked paper.
"Hey!" Adrian called out, approaching slowly. "Are you hurt?"
She flinched, gripping a bent piece of metal like a weapon. Up close, she looked… wrong. Not panicked — *alert*. Like someone assessing him as a threat.
"I can call an ambulance," he said carefully. "You were in that crash?"
Her eyes locked onto his — gray-green, unnervingly steady. "Don't call anyone," she whispered.
Lightning flashed, and for a heartbeat he saw her fully: barefoot, bruised, dressed in a torn black jacket, a thin silver chain around her neck. On it hung a small drive, flashing faint blue.
"Look," he said, raising his hands. "I just want to help."
She hesitated, then sagged against the wall as if the fight drained out of her. "If you want to help," she murmured, "take this."
She held out the phone. Its cracked screen flickered — showing only one message.
**You were supposed to die, Mara.**
Adrian froze. The name. *Mara.* He knew it.
A child's voice from years ago cut through his memory — a hostage screaming that same name before gunfire drowned it.
Not possible, he thought. That girl died in a warehouse fire five years ago.
Mara looked up. "Please. Don't leave me here."
He didn't know why he believed her, or what impulse made him take her hand and lead her through the rain toward his car. But as they slipped into the shadows, a camera lens glimmered from across the street — recording every second.
***
At his apartment, flickers of tension settled between them like invisible smoke. Mara sat shivering on his couch, wrapped in a towel. The neon outside painted faint blue across her skin.
"You're lucky," Adrian said, setting down a mug of tea. "The paramedics would've taken you straight to the ER."
"I said no hospitals."
He studied her. "Then at least tell me what's going on."
"I don't know," she said softly. "All I remember is driving. Then headlights in my mirror. Then... nothing. When I woke up, the car was upside down."
"You sure you don't need—"
She looked up sharply. "You don't believe me."
Adrian considered lying, but chose honesty. "No. People don't walk away from that kind of crash without blood or help waiting."
Something flickered in her eyes. Fear. Or guilt. "Maybe I wasn't supposed to."
When she said it, the tone in her voice was distant — detached — like someone reading from a script she barely understood.
He leaned forward. "Who sent that message?"
"I don't know," she said again — but the hesitation was too long.
Her phone beeped once, curling the air with quiet menace. The screen flashed a single word: **RUN.**
Adrian looked toward the window — movement across the street. A silhouette in the rain. Whoever it was, they were watching.
"Stay here," he ordered, reaching instinctively for the handgun he kept locked in the desk drawer. The weight felt unfamiliar in his grip — a tool from the life he'd buried.
Outside, the neighborhood was eerily quiet except for rain hammering the dumpsters and neon humming over the convenience store. The silhouette was gone. Only the faint outline of wet boot prints trailed from the sidewalk to his stairwell.
Back inside, Mara was gone.
He heard the balcony door slam — turned — saw her running into the rain again. He chased after her across the empty street until she stopped abruptly beneath the same busted lamp where they had first met.
"You shouldn't have followed me," she said. Her voice had changed — steadier now, sharper. "You have no idea what this is."
"Then explain it to me."
She swallowed, trembling. "I was supposed to hand over something tonight — data. Proof of what they built. They were never going to let me leave."
"Who's *they*?"
"You're standing in one of their safe zones, Adrian."
His stomach lurched. "How do you know my name?"
Mara's breath hitched. She didn't answer.
Moments later, a car door slammed down the block. A man stepped out, umbrella tilted low, phone glowing blue against his face. For one second, as lightning cracked, Adrian swore he saw *his own reflection* in that man's features — identical jawline, same scar near the temple.
Then the stranger turned and disappeared into a passing van.
Mara gripped his wrist. "If they've found me, they've found you. You have to decide right now — fight this, or disappear."
He stared at her, rain dripping along his lashes, certainty unraveling. The world around him — the safety, the normalcy — felt like paper melting under floodwater.
"Disappear?" he echoed. "You think that's possible?"
"Yes," she said. "Because you already did."
She pressed something cold into his hand — the small flash drive from her necklace. Then she met his eyes with weary intensity. "Don't plug it in. Not unless you're ready to remember."
Before he could speak, headlights flared down the street. Black SUVs. Multiple.
Mara whispered, "They've found us."
Then she was gone again, swallowed by the storm.
Adrian remained under the flickering light, staring at the drive in his palm, the message burning in his head:
**You were supposed to die.**
And for the first time in five years, he wondered if he actually had.