The thought of returning to class was draining. By the time she reached the main walkway, the campus had resumed its artificial rhythm. Conversations were too loud; laughter was a jagged mask for unease. News of Lila Hart's death was already distorting into a ghost story.
Mara moved through the crowd like a blade. Her mind was fixed on a single, cold truth: The bathroom was the conclusion, not the starting point. She had been studying the period at the end of a sentence. Now, she needed the first word.
You're catching up, the Voice hummed.
Mara ignored it. She turned toward the Annex, the skeletal, older part of the campus, where the buildings were grey with neglect and the pathways were choked with unclipped weeds. Students didn't come here without a reason.
She had the best reason of all.
The hallway from her vision replayed behind her eyelids: Narrow. Dim. A flickering light that pulsed like a dying heart.
The Science Annex stood apart, its brickwork stained by decades of rain. The windows were thin, peering out like narrow eyes. Mara stepped inside, and the air immediately changed. It was heavier here, saturated with the smell of dust and ancient chemicals.
A ceiling light at the far end of the hall flickered. Three short flashes. A pause. One long.
Focus.
"On what?" Mara whispered.
She followed the pulse of the light. Her footsteps were heavy, echoing off the linoleum in a way she didn't like. It sounded like someone was walking with her.
She stopped at an unmarked door halfway down the hall.
"This is it," she murmured.
Yes.
"This is where she turned."
No, the Voice corrected, its tone sharpening. This is where she hesitated.
Mara's hand hovered over the handle. "That's not the same thing."
It is when hesitation is a death sentence.
Mara gripped the cold brass and turned. The world didn't just tilt; it frayed. The hallway bent at an impossible angle as she stepped through the threshold, dragging the past into the present.
The room was a graveyard of old lab equipment. Dust sat thick on beakers and rusted scales. But her eyes went straight to the floor, a scuff mark, long and jagged. Something had been dragged here.
Mara crouched, her fingers hovering an inch above the floor. "Lila."
Look up.
Mara obeyed. On the far wall hung a lab mirror. It wasn't shattered, but it was cracked in the same pattern as the bathroom mirror.
"It happened here first," Mara realised. "She was brought here."
Or she came willingly, the Voice suggested.
"No." Mara's gaze sharpened. "She ran. She ran from something and ended up trapped in this room."
She stood slowly, her mind connecting the dots. Lila had been attacked here, then moved to the bathroom to stage a "cleaner" death.
"She said she didn't tell anyone," Mara whispered, recalling the vision. "If she kept the secret, why was she followed?"
Silence. A heavy, suffocating silence.
"You're not telling me everything," Mara snarled.
You don't need everything.
"That isn't your decision!"
It is if it keeps you alive.
Mara stilled. The Voice had never sounded protective before. It usually sounded hungry. "Alive from what?"
There was no answer. That was worse.
Mara turned to leave, her movements hurried, fuelled by a sudden, jagged spike of adrenaline. She stepped back into the hallway and froze.
A figure stood at the far end of the hall.
Tall. Still. A void in the shape of a person. It was the exact silhouette from her vision.
The figure shifted, taking a slow, deliberate step toward her. The Voice in her head hissed: Careful.
Mara didn't back down. She took a step forward instead. "You shouldn't be here."
The figure tilted its head. This time, the voice wasn't in her head. It was real. Rasping. "And you were in a place you shouldn't have seen."
"You followed her," Mara said, her fingers curling into fists. "You're the reason she ran."
The tension in the hallway grew so thick it felt like physical pressure.
"Did I?" the figure asked. It wasn't a denial. It was a taunt.
"You were there before the bathroom," Mara pressed. "And after."
"You see more than you should, Mara Kline."
Mara's lips curved into a cold, proud line. "I'm starting to."
The figure seemed to consider this, its posture shifting from predatory to... interested. Then, the sound of real footsteps echoed from behind Mara—solid, heavy, and fast.
The figure didn't run. It didn't hide. It simply wasn't there anymore. One blink, and the hallway was empty.
"Coward," Mara hissed.
"Hey!"
Mara turned. The man from the records office was stroking toward her, his dark coat billowing. His expression was no longer curious; it was focused. Lethal.
"I thought I'd find you here," he said.
"You're following me."
"I'm paying attention," he countered, stopping a few feet away. "There's a difference."
His eyes flicked past her to the unmarked door. "You find anything interesting?"
Mara looked at him, then back at the empty hallway. "Yes. And no."
He raised an eyebrow. "That's not helpful."
"She didn't die where they found her," Mara said.
The man's expression didn't flicker. "I know."
Mara's eyes narrowed. "You've been here before. You knew this was the primary scene, and you didn't say anything."
"Neither did you," he reminded her.
It wasn't a truce. It was an alignment of two people with different motives but the same target.
"She ran," Mara said.
He nodded. "We think so, too."
"Think?" Mara challenged.
He didn't answer. Instead, he stepped closer, his shadow falling over her. "Who do you think she was running from, Mara?"
Mara looked at the spot where the void-man had stood. Then she looked the detective in the eye.
"I don't think," she said quietly. "I know."
And somewhere, just beyond the edge of the light, the game tightened its grip.