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I'm already halfway down the stairs when I hear him collapse.
The sound is wet and heavy, like a bag of something broken hitting concrete. My hand's still gripping the phone so hard my knuckles ache. The dispatcher's voice is a tinny buzz in my ear, asking for my address, asking if I can see the caller, asking questions I can't answer because my brain is stuck on one thing.
He knew where I live.
He knew Littlebird.
I hit the bottom step and my bare feet slap cold tile. The apartment door is right there, chipped green paint and a lock that sticks. I installed a chain last year after some junkie tried three doors on our floor in one night. I never thought I'd be the one opening it for a stranger at 2 a.m.
"Ma'am, are you still there?"
I press the phone to my shoulder. "Yeah. I'm—I'm going outside."
"Do not approach the caller if you feel unsafe."
Too late. My hand's already on the deadbolt.
I twist it. The chain rattles when I slide it free. I crack the door and the hallway air rolls in, thick and sour like old garbage and something else. Copper. Blood.
He's crumpled against the far wall, maybe ten feet from my door. His back is to the yellowed paint, head tipped forward, one arm wrapped around his ribs. Dark hoodie. Dark jeans. Dark everything, except for the blood seeping between his fingers and the pale edge of his jaw.
And he's looking right at me.
"Mara."
My name. Not my full name, not the clipped tone the dispatchers use or the bored drawl of my landlord. Just Mara, like he's said it a thousand times.
I should slam the door. I should run back upstairs and lock myself in the bathroom until the cops show. Instead I'm stepping into the hall, phone still pressed to my ear, and the dispatcher is saying something about staying on the line.
"Who are you?" My voice comes out thin.
He tries to straighten up and his breath hisses through his teeth. "Need you to listen."
"You need a hospital."
"No hospitals." He shifts and his hand slips. More blood, spreading across his shirt in a bloom that makes my stomach twist. "No cops."
"Then you called the wrong number."
"I called you." His eyes are pale, gray or maybe blue, hard to tell under the fluorescent flicker. "Elise said you'd help."
The floor drops.
Elise.
He just said her name.
"She's dead," I hear myself say. It sounds far away, like someone else is talking. "She's been dead for three years."
"I know." He drags his free hand across his mouth, smearing red. "She told me anyway."
That doesn't make sense. Nothing about this makes sense. The dispatcher is still talking, a wasp buzz I can't focus on, and this man is bleeding out in my hallway and saying my dead sister's name like it's a password.
"Ma'am, I'm showing units five minutes from your location—"
I pull the phone away and hang up.
The silence after is so loud it hurts.
"That was stupid," the man says. His mouth twitches, not quite a smile. "They'll come anyway."
"Good." I cross my arms, then uncross them because I don't know what to do with my hands. "You can explain to them why you're stalking me."
"Not stalking. Delivering."
"Delivering what?"
He reaches into his pocket, slow, and I tense. If he pulls a gun I'll scream. If he pulls a knife I'll run. He pulls out something small and dark, cupped in his palm, and holds it toward me.
"This."
I don't move.
"Take it," he says. His voice is rough, fraying at the edges. "Before they get here."
"I'm not taking anything from you."
"Mara." There it is again, my name in his mouth like he owns it. "Littlebird. She said you'd be stubborn."
My throat closes.
Littlebird. The nickname Elise made up when I was six and followed her everywhere, chirping questions. She never told anyone. Not our parents, not her friends, not the police who asked a thousand questions after she disappeared.
I'm moving before I decide to. Three steps and I'm close enough to see the thing in his palm. It's a shard, maybe two inches long, black and smooth like glass but wrong. It doesn't reflect the hallway light. It swallows it.
"What is that?"
"Proof," he says. "That she was right."
I reach for it. My fingers brush his palm and the shard is hot, so hot I almost jerk back, but he closes his hand over mine and presses it into my skin.
It burns.
Not fire burn, not blister burn. Cold burn, the kind that sinks into bone and spreads. I gasp and try to pull away but his grip is iron.
"Let go—"
"Listen." His face is close now, close enough I can see the sweat on his temples, the blood on his teeth. "They're coming for this. For you. You have to keep it safe."
"I don't want it—"
"Doesn't matter." He lets go and I stumble back, the shard clutched in my fist. It's cooling now, settling into my palm like it belongs there. "You're already in."
"In what?"
He opens his mouth to answer.
Then every light in the building dies.
The fluorescents cut out with a electric snap. The exit sign at the end of the hall goes dark. Even the glow from under Mrs. Chen's door two apartments down vanishes, and the sudden black is so complete I can't see my own hand.
I hear him move. Fabric sliding against the wall, a grunt of pain.
"What's happening?" I whisper.
"They're here."
"Who's here?"
Something knocks on my door.
Not the hallway side. The inside.
Three slow, deliberate knocks, like someone's standing in my locked apartment, waiting to be let out.
The shard in my palm starts to burn again.