Pike and 12th didn’t look dangerous at first glance.
It was just another frayed corner of the city—liquor store with flickering neon, a laundromat that never seemed to close, a bus stop with a cracked plastic shelter and a bench scarred by names carved with keys.
But danger didn’t always announce itself.
Sometimes it slipped into familiar places and waited.
Jayla hugged her jacket tighter around herself as she checked the time on her phone: 7:58 p.m.
She’d come early on purpose. She hated the idea of them seeing her hurry, of reading desperation in her body language. So she’d walked slow, cataloguing every exit as she went—alley there, side street there, open bodega door across the way with two bored clerks inside.
Her heart still hammered.
She kept hearing Cameron’s last message in
