I wake up choking on the taste of someone else's life.
It's not just nausea; it's a full-on chemical war in my throat. My cheek is glued to a floor that's too cold, too gritty, and definitely not mine. My mouth tastes like I've been sucking on a rusty nail. Metal. Sour. Blood. I try to swallow, but my throat feels like it's been lined with sandpaper.
This isn't my room. The ceiling is a map of cracks I don't recognize, and the air... god, it's thick. It's the smell of damp earth and some cheap, suffocating incense trying—and failing—to hide the scent of something rotting.
I push up. My hands are shaking like they're vibrating on a different frequency. These aren't my hands. They're smaller, the skin rough and mapped with tiny scars, dirt packed under the nails like I've been digging for my life.
"Chuzhoye telo."
The word slices through my mind, sharp and wrong. I don't remember learning it. My mouth just knows how to say it. It's a jagged piece of a puzzle that doesn't fit in my head. My stomach decides that's the final straw. I scramble, bile burning its way up, and barely manage to roll before I heave onto the floor. It's hot, acidic, and makes my ribs feel like they're being squeezed in a vice.
"Get up."
The voice isn't a thought. It's a brick thrown through the silence. Male. Flat. The kind of voice that's used to giving orders to people who are already halfway to the gallows.
I freeze, a string of spit still hanging from my lip. My heart isn't just beating; it's trying to punch its way out of my sternum. I've only been in this skin for three minutes, but every nerve ending I own is screaming: Danger. Predator. Move.
"Lin Yue," the voice says. "Open the door."
Lin Yue. The name sits in my chest like a lead weight. It's not mine, but the body knows it. The body flinches.
I scramble up, grabbing the table for leverage. The wood groans. The whole room tilts forty-five degrees to the left, and for a second, I'm sure I'm going to black out. I don't. Instead, a memory slams into me—messy, vivid, and uninvited.
Yesterday. The sun was a blinding eye in the sky. A man was standing too close, smelling of sweat and cheap tobacco. His face was flushed, and his hands... his fingers were twitching at his sides, rhythmically, like he was practicing how to grab my throat and losing his nerve every time.
"I like you," he'd said. He smiled, and I saw a bit of food stuck between his teeth.
My knees buckle. He's dead. I don't know how I know, but the realization is oily and dark, lodged deep in my gut.
He confessed yesterday. He's a corpse today.
Fck.*
A fist hammers against the door. The wood shudders, dust raining down from the doorframe.
"Lin Yue," the voice—Gu Chen—says. "This isn't a request."
I move on pure, panicked instinct. I wipe my mouth with a sleeve that smells like old laundry and try to smooth my hair. I catch a glimpse of myself in a cracked mirror and almost lose my breakfast again.
The girl staring back is a ghost. Pale, haunted, with eyes so dark they look like holes poked in a sheet of paper. And there, at the base of her throat—a bruise. A nasty, yellowish-purple bloom.
I pull the latch.
Gu Chen doesn't just enter; he colonizes the room. He's tall, built like a fortress, his uniform so crisp it looks like it could cut you. He doesn't look at the mess on the floor. He doesn't look at the villagers whispering like crows outside. He looks at me—specifically, at the bruise on my neck—with a gaze so clinical it feels like a scalpel.
"Where were you this morning?"
No "hello," no "sorry about your dead friend." Just a verbal knife to the throat.
My tongue feels like a slab of dry meat. Behind him, I can see the local vultures craning their necks. Gu Chen ignores them entirely, his presence turning the room into an interrogation cell. He could ruin me, I realize. He could say a single word and these people would tear me apart, and he wouldn't even blink.
"He was found by the river," Gu Chen says. "Dead."
The word hangs there, heavy and suffocating.
"I asked you a question," he prods. He takes a step forward, forcing me to retreat until my back hits the table.
"I was here," I say. My voice is thin, but it doesn't shake. Small wins. "Alone?"
"Yes."
A lie. Or maybe the truth? I don't even know who "I" am yet. The room feels like it's shrinking. Gu Chen smells like lye soap and cold steel.
"Do you know Zhang Wei?"
Zhang Wei. The guy with the twitchy fingers and the food in his teeth.
"No," I blur out.
The silence that follows is deafening. Gu Chen's eyes narrow, just a fraction. He's not waiting for an explanation; he's watching the way my pulse jumps in my neck.
"Interesting," he says, his voice dropping an octave. "Because he told half the village he was going to ask you something important yesterday. Several people saw you together."
The vultures outside start whispering. The sound is like dry leaves skittering on a grave.
"I don't remember," I snap. God, I'm digging my own hole. I can feel the sweat prickling at my hairline.
"What did he ask you, Lin Yue?" Gu Chen is a step away now. Close enough that I can see the flecks of amber in his eyes. They aren't warm. They are the eyes of a man who calculates the cost of a life before he takes it.
"Nothing," I say, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm. "He just... talked."
"Zhang Wei didn't die by accident," Gu Chen says, his voice a low vibration. "He didn't just trip."
"He fell!" one of the villagers yells from the porch. "Slipped on the rocks!"
Gu Chen doesn't even turn around. He doesn't acknowledge the man exists. "People slip and bruise their knees. They don't usually snap their necks like dry kindling."
My stomach lurches. Snap. I can almost hear the sound.
Gu Chen looks away, his gaze drifting to the window. From here, the river is just a dull, grey line cutting through the mud. "He died less than an hour after he spoke to you."
It's not an accusation. It's a death warrant.
"I don't know what you want from me!" I snap, the hysteria finally bubbling over.
Gu Chen turns back, his expression unreadable. He reaches out, not to touch me, but to move a stray hair away from the bruise on my neck with the tip of his glove. The leather is cold. "I want the truth."
I let out a sharp, jagged laugh. "I told you. I don't know him."
He studies me for a long, agonizing beat. Then, he nods once.
"Fine," he says. "Then you won't mind if we keep a guard posted. For your safety, of course."
The "safety" part is a blatant lie. It's a cage. He's marking me as his own personal project.
He turns to leave, but stops at the threshold. He doesn't look back. "One more thing, Lin Yue. Zhang Wei wasn't the first."
The air in the room goes dead.
"What?" I whisper.
"Two months ago. A different man. Same story, same 'accident.' You were the last person he spoke to, as well."
He leaves before I can find my voice. The door doesn't just close; it seals me in.
I collapse onto a wooden stool, my legs finally giving up. My head is spinning with fragments of this girl's life. Whispers in the market. Mothers dragging their kids away when she walked by. The word they spat at her heels like a curse.
Omen.
I press my palms into my eyes until I see stars. I need to run. But where? If I run, I'm a murderer. If I stay, I'm a target.
A shadow flickers across the window.
I look up, my breath hitching. A young man is standing there. He's familiar—one of the village boys. He looks nervous, his eyes darting around before landing on me with a terrifying, desperate softness.
"Lin Yue," he whispers through the glass. "Are you okay?"
My heart drops into my shoes. No. Please, no.
He leans closer, his eyes bright with a hunger that makes my skin crawl.
"I heard about Zhang Wei," he says, pressing his palm against the pane. "I just wanted you to know... I've always liked you."
He's the third.