Chapter 3 Mia

Mia

Eventually, I open my eyes.

He’s gone.

For one second, relief hits so hard I almost collapse.

Then my gaze drops.

The man is still at my feet.

Still twisted on the ground. Still lying in the dark red pool beneath him. Still dead.

A sound catches in my throat, sharp and broken, and I slap a hand over my mouth to keep it in.

I need my phone.

I look down at the ground where I dropped it, near the crack in the pavement, beside a puddle reflecting the thin strip of light above us.

It’s not there.

I drop to my knees, ignoring the blood, ignoring the way my dress rides up my thighs, ignoring the cold bite of the pavement against my skin. I search under a crumpled takeout bag, beside the dumpster, around the dead man’s outstretched hand.

Nothing.

My phone is gone.

He took it.

The killer took my phone.

Why?

The thought is so absurd, so horribly normal, that a hysterical laugh nearly breaks out of me. What, he figured he might as well rob me while he was here? Steal my phone after murdering someone like that made any kind of sense?

I push to my feet and run.

I don’t remember deciding to move. One second I am crouched in the alley beside a dead man. The next, I am stumbling toward the street, one hand scraping against the brick wall to keep myself upright.

My shoes slap the sidewalk wrong, too loud, too uneven. My lungs burn. My hands are slick, and I don’t know if it is sweat or blood or both. I can still feel the dead man’s fingers on my wrist. I can still hear that voice in my ear.

Pretty girl.

I choke on a sob and run faster.

When I finally see my car, parked exactly where I left it beneath a flickering streetlamp, I nearly sob with relief.

Keys.

I need my keys.

I dig through my purse, fingers shaking so badly I can’t feel anything. Lip gloss. Wallet. Receipt. Gum. Something falls out and clatters to the sidewalk, but I don’t care. I find the keys at the bottom and press the unlock button.

Nothing happens.

I press it again.

Nothing.

“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no.”

I step closer, holding the keys out like proximity might fix my useless fingers. The button slips under my thumb. I press lock instead.

The car chirps.

The sound makes me flinch so violently I almost drop the keys.

“Unlock,” I sob. “Come on. Come on.”

My vision blurs. My hands won’t stop shaking. I can’t get enough air. The street tilts beneath me, and suddenly I am not sure if he is behind me, if he followed me, if he is watching from some doorway with that knife still dripping in his hand.

I spin toward the street.

Empty.

But empty means nothing now.

The shadows could be anything.

Anyone.

I press my back to the car and slide down until I hit the curb.

The sob I have been holding in finally tears out of me.

I fold over my knees, keys clutched in one hand, the other pressed to my mouth. I can’t stop shaking. I can’t stop seeing the man’s arm drop to the pavement. I can’t stop hearing the killer tell me what he would do if I spoke.

Do not tell anyone.

But there’s a dead man in an alley.

A real man. Someone with a family. Someone with a name. Someone who used the last strength in his body to tell me to run.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

I don’t know how long I sit there.

Long enough for the sidewalk to leech cold through my bare legs. Long enough for the music from the clubs to fade behind the blood rushing in my ears. Long enough for the tears on my cheeks to dry, then start all over again.

“Hey.”

A voice cuts through the haze.

I jerk so hard my shoulder hits the car door.

Two guys are standing a few feet away, both around my age, maybe a little older. One has a takeout bag in his hand. The other has his phone already half-raised, his brow drawn with concern.

“Whoa,” the one with the bag says, lifting his hands. “Sorry. Sorry, we didn’t mean to scare you.”

I can’t speak.

The second guy steps closer, carefully, like I am an animal he might spook. “Are you okay?”

I shake my head.

No, I am not okay.

No, nothing is okay.

The guy’s eyes drop to my hands. Then to my dress. Then to the blood smeared over my wrist and forearm.

His face changes.

“Oh my God,” he says. “She’s bleeding.”

I look down.

For a second, I don’t understand what I’m seeing. Dark streaks across my skin. Under my nails. A smear near the hem of my dress where I must have touched myself without realizing.

It’s not mine.

I open my mouth to say it.

Then the warning slams back into me.

If you tell anyone, I will find you.

My mouth closes.

The guy with the takeout bag crouches in front of me, not too close. “Hey. Can you tell us what happened?”

I shake my head again.

His friend looks around the street, suddenly alert. “Did someone hurt you?”

“No,” I whisper.

My voice sounds shredded.

Both of them go still.

The crouching guy’s expression softens. “Okay. Okay, that’s good. That’s good. Are you hurt anywhere?”

I shake my head.

I want to tell them. I have to tell them.

But what if he finds out?

What if he somehow knows?

But someone is going to find the body. Maybe not tonight, but eventually. A worker taking out trash. A bartender leaving after close. Someone. And if I run, if I say nothing, if I pretend this did not happen, then that man stays alone in the dark because I was too afraid.

The thought makes something inside me crack.

I lift one shaking hand and point back the way I came.

“There’s...” My throat tightens. “There’s someone.”

The guys exchange a look.

“Someone what?” the one standing asks.

I swallow hard, but it feels like there is glass lodged in my throat.

“Someone died in the alley.”

Silence.

Not the alley’s silence. A different kind. Shocked. Disbelieving.

“What?” the standing guy says.

I point again, my arm trembling so badly I can barely keep it up. “Back there. In the alley. He’s... he’s on the ground. There’s so much blood.”

The crouching guy goes pale. “Okay.”

His friend stares at me. “Is this, like... did you see someone attack him?”

The killer’s voice slithers through my memory.

Pretty girl.

I start crying again.

“I don’t know,” I lie, and the lie comes out broken enough that it barely sounds like one.

The crouching guy takes off his jacket and drapes it over my shoulders.

Only then do I realize how exposed I am. My tiny black party dress. Bare arms. Bare legs. One strap sliding down my shoulder. I pull the jacket tighter around myself and start shaking harder, my teeth chattering so violently I can’t make them stop.

“You’re freezing,” he says, rubbing his hands carefully up and down my arms. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

Safe.

The word is so wrong I almost laugh.

His friend looks at him. “I’ll check.”

I want to beg him not to. I want to grab both of them and tell them to run, to leave, to never look into that alley. But the body is there. The man is there.

The guy jogs away, glancing back once before he disappears around the corner.

The one who stays with me keeps rubbing my arms through the jacket.

“What’s your name?” he asks gently.

I stare at the sidewalk.

He waits.

“Mia,” I whisper.

“Okay, Mia. I’m Tyler. My friend is Ben. We’re going to help, okay?”

I nod because he seems to need me to.

“Do you want to sit in the car?”

I clutch my keys tighter, then look at the door. “I couldn’t unlock it.”

“That’s okay. Don’t worry about that right now.”

I nod again.

Everything feels far away. Tyler’s voice. The streetlight. The cold metal of the car against my back. My own heartbeat.

Then footsteps slap against the sidewalk.

Fast.

Ben comes back around the corner.

His face is white.

Not pale. White.

The kind of white that says he saw exactly what I saw and will spend the rest of his life trying not to remember it.

Tyler stands halfway. “Ben?”

Ben swallows, looking from Tyler to me and back again.

Then he pulls out his phone with shaking hands.

“Call 911, bro,” he says, voice hollow. “She’s right.”