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The fluorescent lights in the convenience store flickered at 2:47 AM, and I knew something was about to go sideways.
Call it instinct. Call it too many graveyard shifts turning my brain into mush. But that buzz-click-buzz pattern? It only happened on weird nights. Nights when someone tried to shoplift frozen pizzas down their pants, or when Marco had to chase off coyotes sniffing around the dumpster, or—my personal favorite—when that guy came in claiming aliens stole his wallet and could he please have a Slim Jim on credit.
I leaned against the counter, my phone playing some true crime podcast at low volume. The host was going on about mysterious disappearances in rural Nevada. Real comforting content for a girl alone in a desert town at three in the morning.
"Great job, Layla," I muttered. "Really setting the mood."
The door chime didn't ring. No customers for the past hour. Just me, four walls of chips and energy drinks, and that flickering light doing its best horror movie impression. I should've been doing inventory. Should've been restocking the cooler. Instead I was eating my way through a bag of sour gummy worms and wondering if my life had peaked at twenty-four.
Probably.
My phone buzzed. Text from Marco: *Taking tomorrow off. You good to cover?*
I typed back: *When am I not good to cover?*
Three dots appeared, then disappeared. No response. Typical Marco. The man communicated in sentence fragments and cryptic silences. But he paid on time and didn't ask stupid questions like "why do you look so tired" when I showed up for the overnight shift. So. Manager of the year.
I tossed the empty gummy worm bag and checked the time. 2:51 AM. Four more hours until daylight. Six more hours until I could go home, face-plant into my bed, and pretend I had a normal sleep schedule.
The lights flickered again.
I glanced up at the ceiling. "Stop it."
They flickered a third time, and the podcast cut out.
My phone screen went black. Not dead—it was at sixty percent a second ago. Just... off. I pressed the power button. Nothing. Held it down. Still nothing.
"Oh, come on."
Then I heard it. A crash from out back. Metal on asphalt. Like someone knocked over a trash can.
Probably a coyote. Or a raccoon. Or some drunk idiot who thought the alley was a great place to piss.
I should've stayed inside. Should've locked the door and waited for whatever it was to leave. But I'd grown up in this town. I'd seen worse than some animal digging through garbage. And if it *was* a person, I'd rather scare them off now than deal with them trying the front door later.
I grabbed the aluminum bat Marco kept under the counter—his idea of security—and pushed through the back door.
The desert air hit me like a cold slap. November in this town was all temperature extremes. Burning hot during the day, freezing at night. I should've brought my jacket. Too late now.
The dumpster sat in its usual spot, lid half-open. A black trash bag had spilled across the asphalt. No coyote. No raccoon. No drunk idiot.
Just a woman.
She was crumpled against the brick wall like someone had dropped her there. Dark hair falling across her face. Ripped jeans. A leather jacket that looked way too expensive for this part of town. One hand pressed against her ribs, the other splayed out on the ground.
I tightened my grip on the bat. "Hey. You okay?"
No response.
I stepped closer. Her chest was moving. Breathing, at least. But her skin looked pale even in the shitty alley lighting, and there was something on her jacket. Something dark and wet.
Blood.
Fantastic.
"Hey," I said again, louder this time. "Can you hear me?"
She didn't move. Didn't even twitch.
I crouched down, keeping the bat in one hand, and reached out to check her pulse. Her wrist was cold. Too cold. But there—faint, but there—a heartbeat.
Okay. Not dead. That was good. That was something I could work with.
I pulled out my phone. Still black. Still useless.
"Of course," I hissed. "Of course you die *now*."
I looked back at the woman. She was maybe late twenties, early thirties. Pretty, in a sharp-edged kind of way. High cheekbones. Strong jawline. The kind of face that belonged in a perfume ad, not bleeding out behind a convenience store in the middle of nowhere.
Leave her. Call 911 from the landline inside. Let someone else deal with this.
That was the smart move. The safe move.
But I'd seen the way ambulances took their time getting out here. Forty minutes on a good night. Longer if they were busy. And something about the way she was curled up, hand pressed to her ribs like she was trying to hold herself together—
I sighed. "I'm going to regret this."
I hooked one arm under her shoulders and tried to lift her. She was heavier than she looked. Dead weight. No, not dead. *Unconscious* weight. Better.
It took three tries and a lot of swearing, but I managed to half-drag, half-carry her to my car parked around the side. A beat-up Honda Civic that rattled like it had bronchitis but still ran. Mostly.
I shoved her into the passenger seat, buckled her in—because even mysterious bleeding women needed seatbelts—and jogged back inside to lock up. Flipped the sign to CLOSED. Marco would understand. Probably. Maybe.
I didn't let myself think about it. Just got in the driver's seat, cranked the engine, and pulled out onto the empty road.
My apartment was ten minutes away. The hospital was thirty. And I still didn't know if this woman needed stitches or a morgue.
She stirred halfway there. A low groan, then her head lolled toward me.
"Easy," I said, eyes on the road. "You're safe. I'm taking you—"
"Inez."
My foot hit the brake so hard the Civic screeched. We jerked forward. The seatbelt caught her, and she hissed in pain.
I stared at her. "What did you just say?"
Her eyes cracked open. Dark. Almost black. Unfocused but aware.
"Inez," she repeated, voice rough. "She sent me."
No.
No. That wasn't possible.
"My mother's dead," I said flatly. "She's been dead for three years."
The woman blinked slowly, like she was dragging herself up from the bottom of a lake. "I know."
Two words. Quiet. Certain.
My hands tightened on the steering wheel. My heart was doing something ugly in my chest. "Who the hell are you?"
She tried to sit up straighter and winced. "Kira. My name's Kira."
"Great. Awesome. Kira." I forced myself to breathe. "How do you know my mother's name?"
Kira's gaze slid past me, out the window. Her expression shifted. Not fear. Something else. Something worse.
"Drive," she said.
"Excuse me?"
"Drive. Now."
I glanced in the rearview mirror.
At first I thought it was a dog. Something low to the ground, moving fast.
But dogs didn't move like that. Didn't crawl with too many legs. Didn't leave black smears on the asphalt behind them like ink bleeding through paper.
It was fifty feet back. Then thirty. Then twenty.
"Drive!" Kira shouted.
I slammed my foot on the gas.
The Civic lurched forward, engine whining. I didn't look back. Didn't let myself.
But in the mirror, just for a second, I saw it.
A shape. Black. Wrong. Crawling after us like it had all the time in the world.
And it was smiling.