Chapter 4 The Return of Hunger

I try to run.

Book a train. Munich to Zurich. Zurich to nowhere.

I pack fast-essentials only. Clothes, passport, burner phone, cash I've been saving in an envelope marked "groceries." I leave behind the books, the fake diploma, the carefully crafted life.

It was never real anyway.

I pressed my forehead to the window as the train rolled out, trying to steady my breath. Trees blurred past. Concrete turned to fields. My chest wouldn't stop tightening.

No one had followed me.

I should have felt safer.

But I didn't.

Because he didn't need to chase me.

I'd already brought him with me.

I fell asleep somewhere between Munich and Ulm.

And that's when the dream came.

It was his mouth first.

Hot. Certain. Right against my throat.

Then his hands-roaming, rough, claiming me like I was still his.

I moaned before I even saw him.

"Miss me, little dove?" he murmured, voice slick with danger.

I tried to push him away, but my hands betrayed me. I clung to him instead, fingers digging into his shoulders, needing more.

"I hate you," I whispered.

He laughed. "Your body doesn't."

He dropped to his knees, dragged my panties down with his teeth.

"I should leave," I gasped.

"You will," he promised, lips brushing the inside of my thigh. "But not until you remember what you gave me."

I came hard.

In the dream.

In the train seat.

When I woke, I was damp between the legs, my nails dug into the seat cushion, and the man across from me was looking away, flushed.

Shame wrapped around my throat like a chain.

I clenched my fists.

I hated that he still had this kind of hold over me.

Even from the dark.

I got off in Stuttgart and switched trains again. Then again in Mannheim.

It didn't matter where I landed.

All I could think was: He knows.

Not just where I am.

But who I am.

How I breathe. How I break. How I fall apart when he touches me-even in memory.

By the time I checked into a cheap motel on the outskirts of Frankfurt, I couldn't remember the last time I'd eaten. My head throbbed. My heart hadn't slowed once.

I locked the door. Locked it again.

Then I sat on the edge of the bed, still in my hoodie, gripping the edge of the mattress like I was afraid it might swallow me.

I couldn't stop thinking about his face.

Not the cruel one.

The one he wore when he kissed me gently after hurting me.

Like violence was a form of devotion.

I fell asleep with the TV on.

The volume is low.

The fear is high.

The second dream hit harder.

It wasn't a memory. It was something new.

Me, naked on a cold marble table. Him above me, wearing a suit, not touching-just watching.

"Look at you," he said, almost softly. "Still pretending you got away."

I couldn't move.

Couldn't speak.

He pulled a silk scarf from his pocket-navy blue, the same color he wore the first night he took me-and tied it around my wrists.

"You can't outrun hunger, Elena. Especially when you fed it yourself."

I woke up with a scream caught in my throat.

It was barely past 2 a.m.

I was drenched in sweat, shivering, and aching between my legs like my body still hadn't caught up with reality.

I got up. Washed my face. Sat on the bathroom floor with my back against the door.

Then I heard it.

A sound.

Just a whisper. A whisper of paper against tile.

I stood. Slowly.

Opened the bathroom door.

And there it was.

Another note.

Slipped under the motel room door while I was dreaming of him.

Typed. Plain white paper.

No signature. No address.

Just a single sentence, written in his unmistakable scrawl.

"Run again. I'll find you slower this time."

I dropped it like it burned.

My whole body went cold.

The front door was still locked.

There was no sound outside.

Just the TV murmuring softly in the other room.

I walked back, picked up the note with shaking fingers, and read it again.

At Sunrise, I go back to Munich.

Then I whispered out loud what I'd been trying not to admit since the day the lily showed up.

"It was always him."