When I awoke, the room was too quiet. Not peaceful, but vacant. The silence that settles after a funeral. Heavy, hollow, wrong.

  The air still smelled faintly of her perfume, clinging to the bedsheets like fingerprints—smoke and spice. I sat up slowly, silk whispering against my skin, as dim morning light carved long shadows across the hardwood floor. My body ached, but not from exhaustion. A hollow, pulled-out ache, like something had been scraped away from inside and was now irretrievable.

  Lucena. That was her name. It sounded exotic and old, like it belonged to a different era, plucked from a history book written in ink and blood.

  I reached for the nightstand, where the wineglass from last night stood empty, save for a thick crimson residue clinging to the sides. It wasn’t the sharp bitterness of merlot. It was something warmer. Something that stirred hunger I didn’t understand.

  There was a note tucked beneath the glass, her handwriting elegant and effortless:

  “I hope the night left a mark on you. I’ll see you again tonight, right? — L.”

  I sat there for a long time, naked in more ways than one. The weight of her absence felt heavier than her presence ever had.

  Sunlight glared against the drawn curtains, too bright, too honest. It made the room feel wrong, like it was gasping for breath. I reached for my shirt—neatly folded on a chair, not where I’d thrown it the night before—but my hand stopped halfway. My gaze fell to the wineglass again. At the single drop that remained, pooled at the bottom like a whispered secret.

  I didn’t think.

  I just drank it.

  Class that day was a blur. I couldn’t focus. Not in class, not in the library, not even in the coffee shop where I usually drowned my anxiety in espresso and case law. My body was there, taking notes, nodding, even laughing at jokes, but my mind was somewhere else entirely.

  “I’ll see you again tonight, right?”

  I kept rolling her words around in my head like loose marbles.

  Did I even want to see her again?

  Last night had been a mistake. A fling. Bad wine, worse decisions. I told myself the same thing while looking in the mirror: “You’re fine.”

  The mirror didn’t agree.

  My eyes were bloodshot. My skin was pale. And I couldn’t shake the phantom sensation of her nails dragging down my spine, or the taste of that wine. It was all sharp and vivid and wrong.

  I blamed stress. Law school was brutal. Everyone cracked eventually.

  But this wasn’t cracking.

  This was splitting.

  The world felt distant now. Blurred. Voices were too loud. Heartbeats thundered against my ears. Food tasted like ash. Coffee turned my stomach. Everything familiar had become alien.

  And then there was the shadow.

  It started around midday. Just a flicker at the corner of my vision, Like someone following half a step behind. I’d whip my head around, heart racing, only to find nothing there. Yet the sensation never left. By late afternoon, my rational mind was at war with the part of me that knew better.

  I wasn’t just exhausted.

  I was spiraling. Hungry, but not for food, not even for sex or sleep.

  It was raw and vital, something I couldn’t name.

  I skipped the study group. Took the long way home through alleyways slick with rain. I craved danger. I craved anything to fill the yawning void Lucena had left inside me.

  She had peeled me open and poured something in.

  And I could feel it fermenting under my skin.

  I was leaving the university grounds when I heard a familiar voice call out to me.

  “My boy!” the voice called from behind me. firm, but not unkind.

  I froze mid-step. I didn’t have to turn to know who it was. Professor Mallory. Ancient Law and Precedent. The one professor who had seen more in me than just another exhausted student clawing at a diploma. He once told me I was wasting my talent in criminal law and could achieve so much more. It felt nice to hear.

  I turned slowly, trying to keep the pained expression off my face as he closed the distance. “Hey, Professor.”

  He frowned, deep lines creasing his weathered face. A frown on his face was like seeing Bob Ross frown. It just didn’t feel right. His tweed jacket was the same one he always wore, with worn leather patches at the elbows. He clutched a thin folder under one arm, but he focused his full attention on me, sharp as a scalpel.

  Stepping closer to inspect me, he said bluntly, “You look terrible, son.” You look like you haven’t eaten in days and haven’t slept in just as long. I’ve seen this before. Burnout is serious, and you are too intelligent to pretend it doesn’t affect you.”

  I tried for a laugh. It came out brittle and dry. “Law school, right? Comes with the territory. These pro-bonos are kicking my ass.”

  He didn’t smile. His gray eyes searched mine, looking for something I wasn’t ready to show. Maybe something I couldn’t hide.

  “Whatever’s happening... it’s not just coursework,” he murmured, voice low enough that no one passing by would overhear. “I’ve been monitoring how you are performing in the courtroom and the only asses being kicked are the prosecution when you enter the deposition. You’re better than this ghost you’re walking around as. You know that, don’t you?”

  I swallowed hard, my throat dry as sandpaper. “I’m fine, Professor. Its just a rough patch.”

  He nodded, but I could tell he didn’t believe me. Not for a second. He reached into his jacket pocket and pressed a worn business card into my hand.

  “My home number,” he said, almost pleading. “Not the university one. You call me if you need anything. Even if you just need someone to listen. Ive seen too many students crash and burn when they’re on the accelerated study path like you are. Please, boy. Dont burn out before your star has had the chance to shine.”

  The sincerity in his voice almost undid me. For a heartbeat, I thought about telling him everything. About the nights that weren’t really nights anymore. About the hunger eating me alive from the inside out. I couldn’t even cry anymore. I didn’t feel like I had any fluids left in my body.

  Instead, I shoved the card into my pocket and lied through my teeth. “Thanks, Professor. I’ll be okay. I just need to get through this, then ill be ok. If I really hit rock bottom, you’ll be the first person I call.”

  He nodded once, reluctantly. Like he knew the lie but accepted it anyway, because he couldn’t force me to take the help.

  “Don’t let it eat you alive, my boy,” he whispered. “The law is a cruel and indifferent beast. You need to tame it, lest it drag you through the dirt and destroy you. You have my number. Please don’t hesitate to call me for even the slightest reason.” Then he turned and walked away, checking over his shoulder a few times before rounding the corner, leaving me standing alone in the hallway with the weight of the world pressing down on my shoulders.

  I didn’t even notice my hands were shaking so violently until I stepped outside into the cool night air.

  When I finally got home, the hallways felt wrong too. The shadows stretched too far. The lightbulb overhead buzzed and sputtered like it might pop. Even my reflection seemed wrong, it was too still, as if it were hesitating a second too long before copying my movements.

  My mother came rushing into the hall, worry etched deep into her face.

  “Mijo... what’s wrong? You look sick. You’re never this late without calling ahead. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Mama. Law school. Just stress, that’s all. I’m gonna call off work and head to bed early, alright? Don’t worry about me.”

  The conversation felt like it was happening a mile away, from the bottom of a well. Our voices both echoed unnaturally despite being right there.

  I forced a smile. Kissed the top of her head. Hugged her tight.

  Then dragged myself upstairs, my body heavy as stone.

  I had just begun undressing when the knock came.

  Three slow raps.

  Not at my door.

  At my window.

  On the second floor.

  My blood ran cold. I couldn’t tell you how I knew, but I did. It was her.

  I pulled the curtains aside, but no one was there.

  Instead, an envelope rested on the windowsill.

  Parchment paper. Old-fashioned and crisp to the touch.

  I tore it open with trembling fingers.

  “Midnight. Be ready to put your money where your mouth is.”

  Her handwriting, unmistakable.

  I didn’t want to go.

  I couldn’t.

  And yet... the thought of her burned away every shred of doubt, every ache, every logical protest.

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  The thought of her was intoxicating.

  And I was already drunk.

  I lay back on my bed as the room spilled around me. I ignored the tugging in my chest that was getting stronger by the minute. I laughed almost deliriously as the thought entered my mind.

  “Is this the invisible rope the mimes are always going on about?”

  The laughter got harder and harder until I was almost gasping for breath, laughing into my pillows not to worry my mom, as that tugging sensation only got bigger and bigger. The harder the invisible rope yanked me, the harder I laughed, until…

  “You came.” She stated without looking at me. There was something almost tender in her voice, like disappointment wrapped in velvet.

  My thoughts screamed inside my skull.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “Why am I here?”

  “HOW did I get here?”

  I had no recollection of what happened between getting the note and arriving here. My skull, where memories should have been, was empty. A hard skip. Like the film playing on the projector in my head had been cut, and the ends rejoined. Checking my watch revealed I had somehow lost over 24 hours, just gone into the void.

  She turned, slow and deliberate, and tossed something toward me. It hit the rooftop with a metallic clatter that echoed through the night. My stomach twisted. A knife. Heavy. Dull-bladed. Old.

  “It’s not ceremonial, if that’s what you’re wondering. That one’s done actual work.”

  I didn’t pick it up. I just stared at it, as if proximity alone would bloody my hands. My heart thundered louder and louder in my ears, but her voice sliced through the noise like a scalpel.

  She stepped closer, her heels crunching over gravel. Her presence was overwhelming, like gravity had multiplied tenfold. She smelled of wet iron and bourbon. Something forbidden.

  “Downstairs,” she added pointedly, nodding toward the service door behind her. “You’ll find a man tied up in the boiler room. He’s not innocent. But I’m not asking for justice.”

  Her eyes pinned me where I stood. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move, couldn’t scream. The silence between us was suffocating. I couldn’t find any words. Could barely even breathe.

  “I’m asking what kind of animal you really are.”

  “What kind of animal...?”

  “What the FUCK is going on?”

  “I should walk out. Right now. Just turn and go. So why aren’t I?”

  My throat was dry. I licked my lips, forcing myself to ask:

  “What did he do?”

  She smirked faintly, like I was a child asking how the car goes vroom or why the sky is blue.

  “Does it matter?”

  She circled me, slow and predatory, like a vulture spiraling a dying creature in the desert.

  Her voice dropped to a near whisper.

  “Do you want to know what this is about, darling? It’s not the kill. It’s the choice. Do you still think you get to be who you were? If you bury all that hunger deep enough, are you sure it won’t leak through your skin? That ends tonight.”

  She let her hand glide across my face. The lightest of touches, but it burned through my body like the strongest drug I’d ever known. The sensation put me on cloud nine as I pushed my face into her hand. I almost didn’t notice how black her eyes had become. Like polished glass.

  “Take the knife and slit his fucking throat. No speeches. No justice. Just the sound of your soul breaking, clean and true.”

  I swallowed hard. My voice, when it came, was hoarse.

  “And if I don’t?”

  She leaned in close, lips grazing my ear. The sensation made every hair on my body stand on end.

  “Then you’ll never see me again.”

  Panic ripped through me. I didn’t know why, not really, but the thought of her vanishing hit me harder than anything else tonight. It was the most effective threat I’ve felt and I couldn’t say why.

  She pulled back just enough to whisper,

  “But you’ll feel me. In every breath. In every mirror you can’t quite look at. Because I’ll still be there... in the part of you that knows what you are.”

  She turned and walked toward the far edge of the rooftop, arms folding over her chest as if the conversation was already over.

  The wind howled around us as I stared down at the knife before taking it and heading for the door.

  The air inside was hot, stale, and stank faintly of copper. A single bulb flickered overhead, casting everything in a sickly yellow haze. It looked like the perfect place for a slasher to jump out and kill me in a horror movie. It wasn’t until I saw my eyes reflected on the knife I realized which role I’d be playing in that scenario.

  Slumped against a boiler pipe, he had his wrists, ankles, and knees bound, and a burlap sack over his head.

  I paced back and forth for several agonizing minutes as I pondered why the hell I was even entertaining this as an idea. What the fuck was wrong with me? We’re talking about killing a man. This isn’t just some casual hazing prank, this is a class A felony. Murder in the first degree. Why the actual FUCK am I even considering doing this?

  Her face drifted through my mind against my will, and I thought of the touch of her hand on my skin, the mere memory of the sensation enough to make my eyes roll back into my skull. It wasn’t until the memory had passed that I realized I had taken the hood off the man’s face.

  Recognition flickered across his battered face as he saw me, just as it flickered across mine as I saw him.

  Professor Mallory.

  The only one who ever believed in me. We had just spoken earlier in the day. Was it the same day? Time was blending together, like a manic episode played on a scratched DVD. He thought I could go as far as federal lawmaking. Other than my mom, he was literally the only other person who gave a shit.

  Now Mallory’s face was twisted as he stared at me through one eye, the other almost entirely swollen shut and bleeding. Horror, pity, disappointment. Each look cut through me like a hot knife, the burning pain in my chest almost too much to bear.

  I staggered back, breath catching in my chest. As I steadied myself on a nearby pipe, I rocked my head and tried to clear my head.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  Lucena hadn’t lied. But she hadn’t told the whole truth, either. That was the trick. Why am I even CONSIDERING this?

  Mallory looked at me sheepishly; someone had clearly beaten him within an inch of his life before I arrived.

  “My boy… What… what have you gotten yourself into?”

  “I… I dont… I dont know…”

  He winced when he tried to struggle against his bindings, and some more blood fell on the floor, pooling under him.

  My hands shook as I raised the knife. My vision blurred, and I tried with everything I had to focus.

  “I could walk away.”

  ”I should cut him free. Someone needs to save him. I need to save him.”

  “She’s not God. She’s not even real.”

  But my skin burned like her influence had sunk into my bones, like she was rising inside me like smoke burning me from the inside out.

  My lips moved silently as I tried to plead with him. I don’t want to. I can’t.

  But her words thundered in my mind:

  “You’ll never see me again.”

  The knife grew heavier in my hand. The surrounding silence crushed my lungs. I didn’t want to do this.

  “She said he wasn’t innocent.”

  I always suspected Mallory had some dirt on him. It’s like Keanu Reeves right? No one is that nice, right?

  How many necks had he stepped on to get where he was?

  I shook my head. Looked down at the knife again. Felt the weight of it. The weight of this choice. My breathing quickened. My heart pounded in my ears. The room closed in around me. I can’t think. I can’t fucking breathe. I need help. I need air.

  Three days ago, my biggest worry was finishing my pro-bono work. Now I was standing here,

  holding his life in my hands.

  The shadow flickered at the edge of my vision again.

  “What kind of animal are you?”

  My grip tightened on the handle of the blade. The only sounds in the room were the sounds of the leather of the blade’s handle stretching against my hand, and my heart screaming at me not to do it. If only I had listened.

  For a moment, the only sensation I could feel was my heartbeat. Then, for just a moment, it stopped, giving way to pure and unfettered silence. At that moment, my hand moved on its own.

  The act was quick. But not clean.

  The blade caught on bone. Blood sprayed forward, hot and furious, across my hands. Mallory choked on his own breath with a gargling, pleading noise. It might have been a cry, or a curse upon my name. In his last moments, he stared into my eyes, and I saw only forgiveness. It made me nauseous. Slowly, the life faded from his eyes and he finally went still.

  I dropped the knife with a clatter against the concrete floor and staggered backward, breathing hard.

  He was gone.

  I looked around frantically, wild and desperate for something, anything, to staunch the bleeding, to fix this. To undo what had been done, as if I hadn’t been the one to drive the blade into him. As if I wasn’t the one with his blood literally on my hands.

  Terror filled every atom of me. I was crying. Panicking. I backed up into the wall and slowly slid down until I was sitting in Mallory’s blood. Id killed a man. Someone I knew… one of the few people who gave a shit about me.

  But when I turned back, it was too late.

  He was dead.

  And I killed him.

  “Why? Why?? FUCKING WHY?”

  I let the rage bubble up inside me and throw a loose brick against the wall opposite me. It crashed loudly against the concrete wall, crumbling into dust. I didn’t even throw it that hard.

  I sat there for a long while as the blood dried on my hand. Maybe id rot and die right there. Maybe Id wake up and this will all have been some fucked up nightmare. That has to be it right? I don’t remember even coming here. I was in my bed last I remember. But as I look down at the blood on my hands… That doesn’t feel fake. The feeling of the blade catching on his bone… didn’t feel fake. His corpse sitting in front of me… that isn’t fake.

  The door up the stairs slowly creaks open.

  She was waiting on the rooftop when I returned. Her face unreadable. She offered no congratulations, no gloating.

  She simply touched my face, wiping the blood from my cheek with a gloved thumb before pulling my lips into a kiss that almost made everything worth it, her tongue flicking out to lick a few drops of his blood from my lips.

  “There,” she hissed. “Now no one will ever mistake you for a man again.”

  She pressed something into my hand. Then she left.

  No promises. No threats. She didn’t need them. She owned me now. Shackled my soul so tightly I could feel the weight of it in every breath.

  If I even had a soul left.

  I looked down at the object she’d left me. A glass vial. Small. Filled with crimson liquid, glowing faintly under the city lights.

  I wanted to throw it from the rooftop. Smash it into a thousand pieces.

  Instead, somehow, I felt the glass touch my lips.

  The moment the deep red liquid slid down my throat, everything faded.

  The pain.

  The guilt.

  The horror.

  All distant memories, dissolving like sugar in water.

  The taste was indescribable. Sweet and violent. Like drowning in something beautiful. When I opened my eyes, I was home. In bed.

  Still dark outside.

  Had it been an hour? A day?

  I chuckled to myself, wondering if it had all been some kind of fever dream, or nightmare brought on by stress.

  The only proof it had happened was the crimson-stained vial still clutched in my shaking hand.