Chapter 3 Shadows With Teeth

Agent Miller isn't answering his phone.

That alone tells me I'm already too late.

He was the one who promised I'd be safe. Who looked me in the eyes and said, "If he comes near you again, we'll bury him." Strong words for a man now missing from my call log.

I will try again. Straight to voicemail.

I don't leave a message.

I check the back door. Twice. Then all the windows. I tape the blinds shut in the kitchen. Lock my bedroom door like that'll help if someone really wants in.

Still, I feel like prey.

Like the scent of fear is leaking from my pores.

Maya calls as I'm reheating soup I won't eat. Her voice is light, too light. "You sound weird. Are you sick?"

"I'm fine."

"You're lying."

I press my forehead to the fridge. "He found me."

Silence.

Then: "You don't know that."

"A white lily showed up on my doorstep. No note. Just the flower. You think that's random?"

Maya sighs. "Elena..."

"You think it's paranoia."

"I think trauma rewires us. I think you've spent five years in a box of your own making, and any noise outside feels like a bomb."

"But it was a bomb."

She doesn't argue.

I listen to her breathing. Then I ask, "You told anyone where I am?"

"No. I wouldn't."

She hesitates. Just for a beat. But I hear it.

"Maya."

"No. I swear."

But her voice is thinner now. Tight.

She always did hide things in the pause.

After we hang up, I sit in silence. The kind that scratches at the walls. I try to read, but I can't concentrate.

I make tea. I forgot it on the counter.

I think about Agent Miller's silence and Maya's hesitation and the way that flower looked so fresh-like it'd been placed there minutes before I opened the door.

And I remember the last time he touched me.

Not the soft kind of touch. Not the movie version of love.

The brutal kind.

He didn't say my name.

He didn't whisper sweet things.

He bent me over his desk, tore my blouse down the middle, and ruined me while I sobbed into his shirt.

He forced me to look at myself in the mirror as he took me.

"Watch what you gave away," he snarled.

And when it was over, when I was broken and used and breathless-he didn't laugh.

He kissed my spine like it was a vow.

A seal.

A brand.

And I let him.

Every second of it.

Even when I hated him. Especially then.

I bled in the shower.

I threw away everything that smelled like him.

And still, years later, I wake up tasting him on my tongue.

I went to bed that night with a knife under my pillow. Not because I think it'll stop him.

Because I want to die trying.

The dreams come, same as always. No face. Just fingers. Pressure. Pain dressed up as passion. My body arches without consent. My voice betrays me in the end.

I wake up sweating.

Sheets tangled. Heart racing.

His name stuck to my throat like honey and venom.

The next morning, I walk to work slower than usual. Eyes flicking to every corner. Every alley. I cross the street when a black car rolls past, just in case.

At the language center, Mrs. Freidrich waves me in. I pretend to smile. Pretend I'm not unraveling in real time.

"Are you alright, Elena?"

"Didn't sleep well."

"Ah. Nightmares?"

She doesn't mean anything by it. But I nod.

My student today is a woman in her forties learning English for her new job. She's kind. Focused. She tells me about her children, her ex-husband, her second chance.

I nod, correct her grammar, give her praise when she gets it right.

But inside I'm screaming.

How do people move on like this?

How do they live in sunlight while I'm still clawing at shadows?

I take a walk after class. Not by choice, but because the walls of my apartment feel tighter now. Like they know something's coming.

At the corner near the bookstore, I see a man in a long coat.

Dark hair. Tall.

I freeze.

He turns-and it's not him.

Just a stranger.

I feel stupid. I feel sick.

Back home, the flower is wilted.

I threw it away.

But the damage is done.

That night, I pulled out the folder. The one I buried in the back of the closet under winter coats and broken pieces of my old life. The one with his name on every page.

I stare at it for a long time. Then I opened it.

I remember every line I fed the FBI. Every truth I spilled.

My testimony burned his empire to ash.

Or at least that's what they told me.

But ash still bites when the wind shifts.

I close the folder. Toss it back into the closet.

I have everything for them.

Names. Routes. Codes. Accounts.

So why do I feel like I'm the one who never escaped?