Page 26 of The Endless Want

I smile, nod, ask the right questions, pretend I don’t see their eyes flick to my neckline whenever they think I’m not looking.

By the time I leave, I’m restless and annoyed. I figure I’ll stretch my legs with a stroll past a few windows. It’ll also allow me to make sure nobody is following me.

The city feels wrong the moment I step out of sight of the building where the meeting was held.

Not dangerous, not yet—just… slanted. As if the night is leaning toward me at an uncomfortable angle. The sky is bruised purple, streetlights flickering in irregular pulses. Somewhere distant, a siren wails, thin and tired, swallowed fast by the empty streets.

I walk, conscious of every sound—the scrape of a shoe sole behind me, the tick of cooling metal from a parked car, the hum of power lines overhead.

I try to convince myself the bad feeling is just nerves. But instincts never lie. Not in our world.

I flick a quick glance at the nearest shop window as I pass. My reflection is pale, tense, jaw set tight. Behind me, nothing. Just the shadow of a lamppost stretching long across the sidewalk.

I keep going.

At the next window, I check again—more discreetly this time, pretending to adjust the strap of my purse.

Still nothing.

But the skin between my shoulder blades prickles. That quiet, animal part of myself—the part I’ve tried to train but never perfected—starts whispering run, run, run.

I force myself not to. Running without proof makes you prey.

The third window is a hairline crack in the façade of a boutique. Easy to see through. Easy to catch movement in.

And I do.

Just a shift in mass. A subtle turn of a man’s shoulders. The quiet echo of steps perfectly matched to mine.

My breath stutters. My pace quickens—not so much that it looks like panic, but enough that my pulse trips over itself.

The alley is coming up on my right. Narrow. Dim. A dead zone for cameras. I brace, step past it⁠—

A hard hand snaps around my wrist. Another clamps over my mouth before I can scream.

I’m dragged backward so violently my heels scrape the concrete. My shoulder collides with brick, a shockwave of pain flaring down my arm. The cold wall steals the heat from me instantly.

“Quiet,” someone hisses—female, sharp, accented. She smells faintly of iron and cheap perfume. Her breath hits my ear, too close.

I try to scream anyway, but a palm smothers the sound. My heartbeat rises to a frantic drumbeat.

The second attacker—the man—wrenches my arm up behind my back. The angle is punishing, and cruel. A bolt of pain shoots down to my fingers. His grip is iron.

The alley swallows us whole.

I thrash on instinct, but they’re coordinated in a way that tells me they’ve done this dozens of times before. Maybe hundreds.

The woman shoves me harder into the wall. “Stop fighting.”

It’s the voice that confirms it. An accent like Nadia’s.

They’re not here to kidnap me. They’re here to stage something.

Fear twists cold inside my stomach. The man leans into me, breath hot and heavy against my cheek. “Pretty girl. No fuss. Come quietly.”

A wave of nausea rolls through me. His proximity. His entitlement. His confidence. Confidence only comes from believing they’ll get away with it.

And they won’t. Not unless I let them.