I'm not sleeping.
Four days since the Forsyth Street job and I've managed maybe six hours total. Every time I close my eyes I see handprints on that locked door. Hear children's voices saying thank you. Feel the shimmer rushing toward me like a wave.
And the shadows. The shadows move wrong now.
Not all the time. Just sometimes. Out of the corner of my eye, I'll see darkness shift when nothing cast it. Shapes that don't match their sources. My reflection lagging half a second behind my movements. Small things. Easy to dismiss as exhaustion or stress or my wolf eyes adjusting to low light.
Except I know better now. I know what I'm seeing is real.
Mika notices. Of course he notices. Tuesday morning I drop a plate because a shadow moved across the kitchen wall and I swear I saw fingers in it. The plate shatters and Mika comes running from his room, finds me standing in broken ceramic, hands shaking.
"What's wrong?" He's in his pajamas, hair sticking up, ears alert.
"Nothing. Dropped it. I'm fine."
"You've been weird all week." He's watching me too closely. Seeing too much. "You're jumpy. You look sick. Are you eating?"
"I'm eating."
"When's the last time you had a full meal?"
I don't remember. "Last night."
"Vedia—"
"I'm fine, Mika. Just tired. Too much work." I crouch to pick up the pieces and a shard cuts my finger. Blood wells up, bright red, and I watch it drip onto the white ceramic. For a second—just a second—the blood looks black. Viscous. Wrong.
I blink and it's red again. Normal. Human.
"Let me help." Mika crouches next to me, starts picking up pieces.
"I got it."
"You're bleeding."
"It's fine."
"It's not fine." He stands up, grabs the first aid kit from under the sink. "You're not fine. And don't lie to me about it."
I let him bandage my finger because arguing takes energy I don't have. His hands are gentle, careful. When did he get so responsible? When did I become the one who needs taking care of?
"You should see a doctor," he says quietly. "You look exhausted. Like... really exhausted. More than normal."
"Can't afford it."
"We have insurance—"
"That covers emergencies, not 'I'm tired.'" I flex my bandaged finger. "I'm okay. Just need to catch up on sleep."
He doesn't believe me. I can see it in his face. But he lets it go. Goes back to his room to get ready for school. Leaves me alone with the broken plate and the shadows that move wrong and the knowledge that I'm lying to him about everything.
Wednesday at Chen's Bodega, Samira takes one look at me and says, "Jesus Christ, you look like death."
"Thanks. You look great too."
"I'm serious, Vedia. When's the last time you slept? Ate? Did anything except work?" She's leaning over the counter, worry written all over her face. "Are you sick? Is it money? What's going on?"
"Nothing's going on."
"Bullshit." She comes around the counter, puts her hand on my forehead like checking for fever. "You're burning up. And you've lost weight. And your hands—" She grabs my wrist, looks at my gloves. I'm wearing the stained ones. Couldn't help it. The new ones feel wrong, blind, useless. "What are these stains?"
"Rust. Old pipes."
"They're up to your elbows now. That's not rust."
I pull my hand away. "I'm fine."
"You're not. And you're lying to me about it." She crosses her arms. "Is this about those cleaning jobs? That Cameron guy?"
My heart stutters. "What about him?"
"He came back. Yesterday. Looking for you specifically. Asked if I'd seen you, said he had 'premium opportunities' available." Her voice is careful. Worried. "I told him I haven't seen you in weeks. Vedia, what kind of cleaning are you doing?"
"Normal cleaning. Regular stuff."
"Don't lie to me."
"I'm not—"
"You're lying. You've been lying for weeks. And I don't know what's going on but you're scaring me." She puts her hand on mine again, over the gloves. "Please. Talk to me. Let me help."
I want to. God, I want to tell her everything. About the jobs, the gloves, the shimmer, the handprints, the voices. About how I'm seeing things I shouldn't see and how the stains are spreading and how I think something is happening to me and I don't know how to stop it.
But if I say it out loud it becomes real. And I need it to not be real.
"I'm just stressed," I say. "Too much work, not enough sleep. I'll be okay."
She doesn't believe me. But she lets me go with a hug and a promise to call if I need anything. I leave before she can see me crying.
Thursday morning, I get a normal job. Not from Cameron—from my regular cleaning app. Move-out clean in Murray Hill, nice building, two hundred dollars for three hours of work. The kind of job I used to take before everything got weird.
I need this. Need to prove to myself I can still do normal work. That I'm still just a cleaner, not whatever Cameron is trying to turn me into.
The building is nice. Doorman, marble lobby, those expensive light fixtures that cost more than my rent. The kind of place where people have real money and real lives and don't need to work three jobs just to survive.
The doorman barely looks at me. Just waves me to the elevator with the bored disinterest of someone who sees cleaners every day and stopped thinking of them as people years ago. I'm used to it. Invisible labor. We keep the city running and nobody sees us.
Apartment 12F. Client left the key with the doorman. Instructions on the app are simple: "Move-out clean. Previous tenant left yesterday. Standard deep clean required."
I unlock the door and stop.
The apartment is perfect.
Not just clean—perfect. Spotless. The floors shine like they've just been buffed and waxed. The windows gleam without a single streak or fingerprint. The counters in the kitchen sparkle like they're brand new. There's no dust anywhere. No grime. No scuff marks on the baseboards. No water spots on the faucets. Nothing.
Even the air smells wrong. Not bad—too good. Artificial lemon covering something sharper underneath. Chemical clean. Sterile. Like a hospital room.
Someone cleaned this. Recently. Really, really well.
So why am I being paid to clean it again?
I walk through the apartment slowly. Living room: empty but perfect. Hardwood floors gleaming. Windows so clean they're almost invisible. Crown molding without a speck of dust. Walls freshly painted—I can still smell it faintly under the lemon air freshener.
Kitchen: pristine. Stainless steel appliances without fingerprints. White subway tile without a single stain. The grout between tiles is actually white, not the dingy gray grout always becomes. Even the inside of the oven is clean—I check, because nobody ever cleans the inside of the oven, but this one looks factory-new.
Bedroom: empty. Clean. Perfect. The carpet has vacuum lines. Fresh ones. Like someone vacuumed an hour ago.
Bathroom: gleaming. White tiles, chrome fixtures, mirror without a smudge. Everything sparkles. Everything shines. Everything is wrong.
My wolf instincts prickle. Something's wrong. But I've come this far, and two hundred dollars is two hundred dollars. Maybe the landlord is particular. Maybe they want it super-cleaned. Maybe the previous cleaning wasn't up to their standards. Maybe this is normal and I'm just paranoid because of the weird jobs I've been doing.
I set down my kit and start working. Pull out my supplies. Try to do this normally. Like a normal job. Normal cleaning. Nothing supernatural. Nothing scary.
The kitchen first. I wipe down counters that are already clean, just to have something to do. Check cabinets that are already empty and spotless—not just empty, but wiped down inside. Who wipes down the inside of cabinets for a move-out? I check the fridge. Also empty. Also cleaned. The gasket around the door—the rubber seal that always has gross buildup—is pristine.
Everything is perfect. Sterile. Like a hotel room that's been bleached within an inch of its life.
And that smell. Bleach. Industrial strength. Everywhere. The lemon air freshener can't cover it. My wolf nose picks it up immediately—bleach so strong it makes my sinuses burn. Under the fresh paint smell. Under the lemon. Underneath everything—bleach. Gallons of it. Used recently.
Someone cleaned this apartment with bleach. A lot of bleach. The kind of quantity you use when you're trying to remove something. Not dirt. Not cooking grease. Not coffee stains.
Evidence.
Blood.
Bodies.
The thought comes unbidden and I try to push it away but it sticks. This is what a crime scene looks like after someone cleans it. After someone spends hours scrubbing away evidence. After someone tries very, very hard to make sure nobody knows what happened here.
I should leave. Should walk out, keep the deposit if they gave one, chalk this up as weird and move on. My instincts are screaming at me. This place feels wrong. Dangerous. Like the Bowery but cleaner, more careful, better hidden. More professional.
But I need this to be normal. Need to prove I can do regular work without seeing things or freaking out or running away. Need to prove the last few weeks were just stress and exhaustion and I'm fine. I'm fine. Everything is fine.
I move to the bathroom. It's as perfect as the kitchen. White tiles without a single soap scum mark. Chrome fixtures polished to mirrors. Grout between tiles bright white. The toilet bowl is so clean it practically glows.
But the bleach smell is stronger here. Concentrated. Overpowering even to human noses, probably. To my wolf senses it's almost painful. Like someone spent hours in here. Scrubbing. Pouring bleach. Scrubbing more. Desperate to remove something.
The bathtub is the worst. White porcelain, clawfoot, the expensive kind that costs thousands of dollars. It gleams. Spotless. No water stains. No ring. No soap residue. Nothing. Someone scrubbed this tub until their hands bled.
I know it. Can feel it. This tub was the center of whatever happened here.
I should leave. Should walk out right now. Should call the cops maybe, report that something feels wrong about this apartment. Except what would I say? "The apartment is too clean"? They'd laugh at me. Tell me to mind my own business. Tell me I'm wasting their time.
And maybe I am wrong. Maybe this is normal and I'm just paranoid. Maybe someone is just very particular about cleaning. Maybe I'm seeing things that aren't there because I've been doing too many weird jobs and my brain is looking for patterns where there are none.
I pull on my gloves. The stained ones. I tell myself it's because they're broken in, comfortable, familiar. But really it's because I need to see. Need to know. Need to prove to myself one way or the other if I'm crazy or if something really is wrong with this place.
The world shifts.
The bathroom—already too-clean, too-perfect—becomes something else through the gloves. The walls are covered in handprints. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Overlapping like someone put their hands everywhere, clawing, desperate. Some are clear and defined—I can count the fingers. Some are smeared, dragged down the walls. Some look like they were made with bloody fingers, the shimmer around them darker, more concentrated.
The mirror shows something that isn't my reflection. A shadow. Person-shaped but wrong. Too tall. Too thin. Watching me watch it. Its head tilts when mine doesn't. Its mouth moves when mine stays closed.
And the bathtub. The gleaming, spotless, recently-scrubbed bathtub. Through the gloves I see the outline. A body. Curled up. Arms wrapped around itself like trying to make itself smaller. Shimmer and wrongness so concentrated I can barely see the white porcelain underneath. The shape is human-sized. Female, maybe. Young.
Someone died here. Recently. In this bathtub. And someone cleaned it up before I arrived.
I'm not the first cleaner. I'm the second. The cover-up cleaner. The one who makes it look like nothing ever happened.
My hands start shaking. I back away from the tub, away from the mirror, away from the handprints. This is real. This is happening. I'm not imagining it. I'm not stressed or exhausted or having a breakdown.
I'm seeing something real.
Then I hear it.
Scritch scritch scritch.
Faint. Rhythmic. Like someone scrubbing. Frantically, desperately scrubbing.
I stop moving. Hold my breath. Listen.
Scritch scritch scritch.
It's coming from somewhere in the apartment. Not the bathroom. Somewhere else. I follow the sound into the hallway. It gets louder. Into the bedroom—empty, spotless, perfect. The sound is coming from the floor.
Under the floorboards.
Scritch scritch scritch.
Someone is under there. Someone is scrubbing. Someone is trying to clean something that won't come clean.
"Hello?" My voice cracks.
The scrubbing stops.
Silence.
Then it starts again. Faster now. More desperate. Scritch scritch scritch scritch scritch—
I run.
Don't grab my kit. Don't lock the door. Don't do anything except run. Down the hallway, down the stairs—not trusting the elevator, needing to move, needing to be anywhere except that apartment with its too-clean surfaces and hidden body and something scrubbing under the floorboards.
The doorman looks up when I burst through the lobby. "Miss? Are you—"
I don't stop. Push through the front door into the October afternoon. The air is cold and real and alive and I stand there gulping it down, trying not to throw up, trying not to scream.
My hands are shaking so bad I can barely pull off the gloves. I rip them off, shove them in my pocket. But I can still see it. The shimmer on my hands. Spreading from where the stains were. Crawling up my wrists, my forearms. Faint but visible. Like my skin is becoming translucent. Like I'm becoming part of whatever I'm seeing.
I stumble to the subway. Ride it home in a daze. Get to my apartment and lock myself in the bathroom. Turn on the shower as hot as it will go and scrub my hands. Use soap, then dish soap, then hand sanitizer, then straight rubbing alcohol.
The shimmer fades. Doesn't disappear. Just fades. Like it's sinking into my skin rather than washing away.
I stand there under the spray until the water runs cold. Until my skin is red and raw and burning. Until I can't tell if I'm shaking from cold or fear or the realization that I can't deny this anymore.
Something is happening to me.
The gloves are just a conduit. The real change is in me. And it's getting worse.
That night I sit in the living room after Mika goes to bed. Spread my supplies around me on the coffee table like tarot cards for a fortune I don't want to know. Salt—three boxes, barely used, the grains still white and pure. Bleach—two gallons, mostly full, the chemical smell faint through the plastic. The gloves—stained dark almost to the elbows now, the marks pulsing when I look at them directly. My phone—Cameron's messages filling the screen, each one a trap I'm walking into with my eyes open.
Job available. $600.
Premium opportunity. $700.
High-value assignment. $800.
Each one higher than the last. Each one in the Bowery. Each one with instructions that get weirder and more specific. "Bring iron filings." "Do not speak to anyone inside." "Count the doors before entering." Instructions that make sense if you know what you're doing. Instructions that would sound insane to anyone normal.
I've been ignoring them. Trying to. Taking normal jobs instead. But normal jobs show me things now too. Bodies in bathtubs. Scrubbing sounds from under floors. Handprints on walls that shouldn't be there. The supernatural is bleeding into the normal or maybe I'm seeing what was always there and nobody else could see. Maybe the whole city is haunted and cleaners just clean up the evidence and nobody talks about it.
Maybe that's been the job all along.
I can't do this anymore. Can't clean apartments and ignore what I'm seeing. Can't pretend this is regular work when I know it's something else. Can't lie to Mika and Samira and myself about what's happening to me. Can't keep wearing these gloves and watching the stains spread and pretending it's going to be okay.
But I also can't stop. Rent is due in eight days and I'm still a hundred and sixty dollars short. Mika needs new winter clothes—his coat from last year doesn't fit anymore and it's getting cold, really cold, the kind of October that means brutal winter ahead. The electricity bill is late again and they've threatened to shut it off before. We need groceries. Need toilet paper. Need laundry detergent. Need a hundred small things that cost money we don't have.
Normal jobs pay two hundred for three hours. Cameron's jobs pay eight hundred for one night. The math is simple. Brutal, but simple.
I look at my hands. The shimmer is visible even in regular light now. Faint but there, like I'm partially transparent. Like I'm becoming something else. The stains started on the gloves. Now they're on my skin. What's next? My arms? My chest? My heart?
What happens when the shimmer reaches my heart? Do I die? Do I become something that's not alive but not dead? Do I turn into one of the things I'm cleaning up?
What am I becoming?
My phone buzzes. Makes me jump even though I've been staring at it, waiting for it. New message from Cameron. The number I've been ignoring for three days even though ignoring it feels like holding back the tide.
Special assignment available. Higher pay than previous jobs. Time-sensitive.
I should delete it. Block the number. Throw my phone in the river and never clean another apartment in my life. Get a normal job. Retail, food service, anything that doesn't involve supernatural crime scenes and shimmer spreading up my arms. Walk away from all of this before it's too late.
But it might already be too late. The shimmer is spreading whether I work or not. And if I'm going to be transforming anyway, slowly becoming whatever Cameron is turning me into, I might as well get paid for it. Might as well make sure Mika has food and heat and a roof over his head while I still can.
I open the message.
Location: Fulton Street Hotel, Room 4B.
Task: Standard cleansing. Tenant may be present. Do not engage.
Pay: $800
Special instructions: Bring salt. You'll need it. Arrive after dark.
Additional note: This is a test. Pass it and more opportunities open up.
A test. This whole time has been leading to this. The weird jobs. The increasing strangeness. The escalating pay. Cameron has been training me. Preparing me. Testing my limits, seeing how much I can see, how much I can handle, how far I'll go for money.
And I've passed every test by just showing up and doing the work and taking the money and trying not to think too hard about what I'm really doing.
Now comes the real test. The one that determines if I'm worth keeping or if I get disposed of like the cleaner who did the Murray Hill apartment before me. The one who scrubbed so hard the bleach smell probably never came out of their clothes. The one who saw what I saw and cleaned it anyway and probably got paid and probably went home and probably thought they were done.
But you're never done. I understand that now. Once you start seeing, you can't stop. Once the stains start spreading, they don't go back. Once Cameron has your number, they don't let go.
I should say no. Should tell Cameron to fuck off and find someone else to do their supernatural dirty work. Should quit cleaning entirely and figure out some other way to make money. Welfare, food stamps, whatever it takes. Pride isn't worth my life. Pride isn't worth whatever I'm becoming.
Instead my fingers type: What kind of test?
The response is immediate, like Cameron was waiting for me to ask: The kind that shows us if you're worth keeping.
Worth keeping. Like I'm livestock. Like I'm a tool they're evaluating for usefulness. Like I'm not a person, just a resource they're investing in to see if I pay off.
Maybe that's exactly what I am now. Maybe once you start seeing through the gloves, once the shimmer starts spreading, you stop being human and start being something else. Something useful. Something worth keeping if you're strong enough and worth disposing of if you're not.
I stare at the message. At the $800 payment. At the address in the Bowery. At the note that says "arrive after dark" like that's not a massive red flag, like people in horror movies don't die when they go to creepy hotels after dark.
But people in horror movies don't have rent due in eight days. Don't have sixteen-year-old brothers depending on them. Don't have electricity bills threatening disconnect and landlords threatening eviction and the constant grinding pressure of never having enough money no matter how hard they work.
People in horror movies have choices. I don't.
Rent is due in eight days.
Mika needs winter clothes.
The electricity bill is late.
I'm already changing. Already infected with whatever this is. Already seeing things I can't unsee.
Might as well get paid for it.
I type: When?
Tomorrow night. 9 PM. Don't be late.
I put the phone down. Look at the gloves. The salt. The bleach. The supplies of someone who cleans supernatural crime scenes and doesn't even realize that's what she's doing. Except I do realize it now. I can't pretend anymore. Can't tell myself this is normal work. Can't rationalize what I'm seeing.
Tomorrow night I walk into the Fulton Street Hotel and clean Room 4B while the tenant watches. Tomorrow night I pass Cameron's test or fail it. Tomorrow night I find out what happens to cleaners who are "worth keeping" and what happens to ones who aren't.
Tomorrow night I stop pretending this is normal work and admit what I really am.
Whatever that is.
I pick up the gloves. The stains pulse under my touch. Alive. Hungry. Growing. I should throw them away. Should burn them. Should bury them in the backyard of a church and never look at them again.
Instead I pack them in my kit. Add extra salt. Extra sage from the bag Mrs. Kowalski gave me. A bottle of holy water I bought from a bodega that caters to Catholics who still believe in the old protections.
I'm going into the Bowery after dark to clean a room with a tenant I'm not supposed to talk to. And I'm bringing supplies for supernatural defense because I know—I absolutely know—I'm going to need them.
Twenty years old and I'm about to walk into a haunted hotel because I need eight hundred dollars more than I need my safety.
Mom would be ashamed.
Or maybe she'd understand. She did this work too. Had the Gift too. Used salt circles and sage bundles and worried about things in dark places. Maybe this is what she was protecting me from. Maybe this is what killed her and I'm just following in her footsteps.
Maybe there's no escape. Maybe this has always been where I was heading and the only choice is how fast I get there.
I look at my phone one more time. Cameron's message glowing in the dark.
Tomorrow night. 9 PM. Don't be late.
I won't be.
I need the money too much to be late.
I don't sleep that night. Just lie on my couch-bed staring at the ceiling, watching shadows move wrong, feeling the shimmer pulse under my skin like a second heartbeat.
Mika gets up at 6 AM for school. Finds me still awake.
"You didn't sleep."
"Couldn't."
"Vedia—"
"I'm fine."
"You keep saying that. It keeps being a lie." He sits on the coffee table across from me. His ears are flat with worry. "What's going on? Really. Don't tell me nothing. Don't tell me you're fine. Something is wrong and you won't tell me what."
I should tell him. Should explain about Cameron and the jobs and the gloves and the shimmer. Should warn him that something is happening to me and I don't know how to stop it. Should give him the chance to protect himself if I can't protect him anymore.
But if I tell him he'll try to help. And helping me means putting himself in danger. And I'd rather he hate me for lying than follow me into whatever darkness I'm heading toward.
"I'm just stressed about money," I say. "It's nothing."
"It's not nothing. You look sick. You're not eating. You're not sleeping. And your hands—" He grabs my wrist before I can pull away. The gloves are off. He can see the shimmer. Faint but visible in the morning light. "What is this?"
"Skin condition. It's fine."
"That's not a skin condition. That's—" He stops. Stares. "It's moving."
It is. The shimmer pulses under my skin like something alive. Like it has a heartbeat separate from mine.
"It's nothing," I say.
"Don't lie to me!" His voice breaks. "Please. Vedia. Something is wrong and you're lying to me about it and I can't help if you won't tell me what's happening."
I pull my wrist away. "You can't help. This is my problem."
"We're family. Your problems are my problems."
"Not this one." I stand up, go to the kitchen. Put distance between us. "You have school. Go. I'll be fine."
"Will you?"
I don't answer. Can't answer. Because I don't know.
He leaves for school without saying goodbye. I hear his door slam. Hear his footsteps on the stairs. Hear the building door close behind him.
And I'm alone with my kit and my gloves and the knowledge that tonight I walk into the Bowery and everything changes.
Whatever I am after tomorrow, I won't be the same person I was yesterday.
I just hope there's enough of me left to still protect Mika when this is over.
If there's anything left at all.