Maryanne slung her pack over her shoulder. "Let's go," she said. Her voice carried the quiet steel of someone who had faced unimaginable horror and refused to bend.
And for the first time in years, she allowed herself one small, sharp thrill of hope: together, they might survive.
The mall hummed with the false comfort of fluorescent lights and rock music. Shoppers drifted through aisles, weighed down with bags, the air heavy with the smell of pretzels and perfume. It was the kind of place where teenagers came to feel normal, to pretend the world was ordinary.
For Marietta and Anne Faith, the illusion barely held. Their eyes caught on shadows others ignored, on the stillness behind moving crowds. The veil beneath reality itself. They walked together, close, a practiced rhythm of watching each other's backs.
Maryanne had allowed the trip reluctantly. "One hour," she said, checking their wards and charms before they left. "And stay together. No exceptions."
Anne Faith trailed her fingers across the polished railings, murmuring, "So many echoes here. So much sorrow and jealousy hidden beneath glass."
Marietta rolled her eyes. "You just read too much into things, Anne Faith." But even she couldn't ignore the static, androgynous people crawling across her skin, A cold tide rising somewhere just beyond sight.
They noticed him near the bookstore. His shoes gleamed as though polished minutes ago, but his hands were raw, callused as if he's been moving body bags all day. Yet there was something wrong in the symmetry of him, like a painting where the eyes follow you no matter where you stand. His hair was neat, his smile polite, but his gaze lingered too long, too steady to be normal.
He stepped forward as if he'd been waiting, twiddling his thumbs at different paces. "You must be Maryanne's girls." His voice was calm, cultured even, yet threaded with something sharp—like a needle disposal.
The sisters froze. He shouldn't have known their names.
Marietta swallowed hard. "Do we know you?"
The names Dan... Dan tilted his head slightly, a predator's subtle amusement flickering in his eyes. "Names travel. Stories travel. Especially stories about bloodlines, and prophecies." He leaned closer, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial murmur. "Never trust a man with a pig farm, girls. Pigs... they feast on the dead. And those who keep them—well, they've made peace with slop."
Anne Faith stiffened, her knuckles whitening around her satchel of charms. His words didn't sound like nonsense to her. They carried weight, layered meaning.
Dan straightened, smiling faintly. "But don't worry. I'm not here to harm you." His smile sharpened. "Quite the opposite. I've been waiting. Watching. You're more important than you think girls, one might say your appointed." Remember girls, do not mistake me for a god, I'm what your silence taught me to be.
Marietta felt the air shift—the same cold pull she'd sensed in the kitchen. The tension sharper now, honed into a human form, staring deep into their souls. She whispered to her sister, "It feels like he shouldn't know us, but he does..."
Dan's gaze snapped to her instantly, as though he'd heard the thought rather than the words. "Ah. Sensitive, aren't you?" He stepped back, folding his hands behind him with unsettling composure, every movement deliberate.
Shoppers bustled around them, oblivious. To everyone else, Dan was just a man standing too close. But to Marietta and Anne Faith, he was something else entirely. Someone who was a mystery, someone who was present, but still away.
"I'll be seeing you again," Dan said softly, almost tender. Then his expression hardened, just for a moment—the mask slipping enough to reveal a flash of fury, of obsession. "You'll come to me in time. It's in your nature to seek me out."
"Whatever you say, our mom warned us about creeps like you," Anne Faith said.
Dan stiffens.
Like me... are you sure little girl? Seems to me you're talking about yourself, smug aren't you? Marietta and Anne Faith both stiffen into a serious posture. "Weirdo get away from us with your constant finger tapping, your fake act is a horror show. "Marietta shoves Dan away slightly.
Dan tenses up then releases his body calmly, as he is shoved.
Dan said, "Be that way... me a weirdo? You're kidding... right?" His tone changed, his eyes flicker a hunger for flesh, as he squares his shoulders. And in a maniacal tone, he whispered "Still doesn't change the art of the flesh; knowing that it squirms."
Dan wink's, and then he was gone. Swallowed into the crowd, like a shark swallowing a baby whale, leaving only the faintest trace of saltwater in the air.
The sisters stood frozen in the press of shoppers, both trembling unable to comprehend what they witnessed.
Anne Faith finally whispered, "He knows us. He's tied to the covenant."
Marietta clenched her fists; eyes still fixed on where he'd stood. "No. He's worse. He wants us."
And in that moment, both of them understood: their safe drills and wards hadn't prepared them for someone like Dan. Someone who wasn't just an enemy. Someone who was hungry for them personally.