Maria Reyes
The smell hit me first. Old, wet earth and something rotten. Mold, thick and cloying, rising from the cracked leather seats beneath me. I was crammed into the back of this dead car, a rusty old sedan abandoned in a forgotten corner of a crumbling car park. The rusty metal walls of the sedan felt like a coffin.
Then, the sound ripped through the suffocating quiet – my phone. A shrill, alien shriek that made my whole body jerk. I fumbled wildly in my pocket, hands slick with sweat, trembling so hard I almost dropped it. Darian. His name flashed on the screen. He called back. Hope, sharp and sudden, wary with the raw panic that hit me.
"Darian!" My voice came out a ragged gasp, barely a whisper. "I’m past the estate gate, the old car park. I have a feeling someone’s following m
