Mara's POV
Mara stared at those seven words until the screen went dark.
I know what happened to you. Run.
Her thumb hovered over the reply button. Every logical part of her brain was firing at once. Nobody knew. Nobody could know. She had just woken up three months in the past twenty minutes ago. There was no one on earth who could know what happened to her — because technically, it hadn't happened yet.
She turned the phone face-down on the table.
The shower turned on in the bathroom.
She had maybe eight minutes.
She stood up so fast the chair scraped the floor, and moved.
She went straight to the filing cabinet in the small home office — the one Daniel always called her "doctor brain corner" like it was a joke, like being organized was something slightly embarrassing. She pulled open the bottom drawer. Hanging files, color-coded, labeled in her handwriting. She flipped through them fast.
Insurance. Lease. Bank statements. Medical licenses.
There.
A manila folder labeled Personal — Legal. She pulled it out and opened it on the desk. Inside was everything she needed — her own documents, her own accounts, records that were hers alone. She had built this quiet paper trail two years into their marriage, not because she suspected Daniel of anything specific, just because she was a doctor who had seen enough emergencies to know that preparedness wasn't paranoia.
She had prepared for everything except her husband deciding she deserved to die.
She took out her phone — different from the one with the mystery text, her work phone, the one Daniel didn't know the passcode to — and called the first number in her contacts under Legal.
It rang twice.
"Chen?" The voice was groggy. Her college friend Maya, now a family law attorney. "It's not even eight in the morning."
"I need to file for divorce today," Mara said. "How fast can you move?"
A pause. The sound of Maya sitting up. "Mara. What happened?"
"Nothing yet," Mara said. "That's the point."
Another pause, longer this time. Maya knew her well enough to understand that sentence. "I can have paperwork drawn up by noon. Are you safe?"
The shower was still running.
"For now," Mara said. "I'll call you back."
She hung up. Tucked the folder under her arm. Walked back to the kitchen table and sat down exactly where she'd been, coffee in front of her, notepad open, like she hadn't moved.
Six seconds later the shower turned off.
She picked up her pen and kept writing.
She heard the bathroom door open. Heard his footsteps crossing the bedroom. Heard the small sounds of a man who had no idea his life was about to change — the clink of his watch, the spray of deodorant, the soft thud of a drawer closing.
Then he appeared in the kitchen doorway.
She looked up.
She had loved this face once. That was the worst part — she hadn't been pretending. She had genuinely loved him, genuinely believed in the version of him he showed her in the beginning, the charming, warm, funny man who brought her soup when she worked night shifts and learned her coffee order by heart.
But she knew now what she hadn't known then. That version was a costume. What lived underneath it was smaller and colder and very, very careful.
"You're writing a lot," he said, nodding at her notepad. He smiled. Easy. Relaxed.
"Making plans," she said.
He moved to the coffee pot. Poured himself a cup. Leaned against the counter the way he always did, comfortable in the space, comfortable in the life they'd built. She watched him the way she used to watch patients in the ER — looking for the signs underneath the surface. The small tells.
"Daniel," she said. "I want a divorce."
He laughed.
It was a short laugh, surprised and dismissive, the kind you make when someone says something that couldn't possibly be serious. He turned to look at her with this expression — half smile, half confusion — and she watched his eyes.
There it was.
The thing she could never see before. His eyes got small. Just slightly. Just for a half second before the smile took over his whole face again. A quick, darting smallness — like something inside him had flinched and was trying to hide it.
She filed that away.
"Mara." His voice was warm and careful. He set his coffee down and moved toward her. "Hey. Talk to me. Did something happen? Did you have a bad dream?"
"No," she said. "I've been thinking about this for a while."
"You were fine last night." He crouched in front of her chair so they were eye level. This was a move she recognized — he did it when he wanted to seem non-threatening. Gentle. Safe. "You were completely fine. We had dinner, we watched that show you like, you fell asleep on the couch—"
"Daniel."
"—and now you're sitting here at seven in the morning telling me you want a divorce? Mara, that doesn't—"
"I've already called a lawyer," she said.
His face changed.
The warm, confused expression didn't disappear all at once — it sort of cracked at the edges. Like a mask that had been hit too hard. For just a moment she could see the calculation running behind his eyes. Processing. Adjusting.
Then he stood up and reached for her.
"Hey," he said softly, putting his hands on her shoulders. "Come here. You're exhausted. You've been overworked, you've been stressed, let me just—"
She stood up and stepped back in one smooth motion.
His hands dropped.
She looked at him. Her hands were at her sides. Completely still.
She watched him look at her hands. She could tell he noticed — the steadiness of them threw him. He expected shaking. Tears, maybe. The Mara he thought he knew would have been crying by now.
"I'm not having a breakdown," she said quietly. "I'm not exhausted. I'm not confused. I know exactly what I'm doing."
He stared at her.
Something moved across his face that she hadn't expected to see this early — not the charm, not the warmth, not even the calculation.
Fear.
Just a flash of it. There and gone.
"Okay," he said slowly. His voice had changed. Quieter. Watching her. "Okay, Mara. If that's what you want, we can — we can talk about this."
"We don't need to talk," she said. She picked up her folder, her notepad, her work phone. "The paperwork will come to your email by noon."
She walked to the door.
"Mara." His voice stopped her. Not soft this time. Something else underneath it. "How long have you been planning this?"
She didn't turn around.
"Long enough," she said.
She opened the door and walked out.
In the elevator, she finally exhaled. She leaned against the wall and pressed her hand to her chest and felt her own heartbeat — fast, but steady. She was okay. She had done the hardest part.
Her personal phone buzzed in her pocket.
The unknown number again.
This time it wasn't a text.
It was a photo.
Her apartment door. Taken from the hallway. Time-stamped four minutes ago — while she was still inside.
Someone had been standing right outside her door.