The Alpha Mafioso's Prey

Chapter 3: Under the Full Moon

 Aurora woke with the setting sun. Lengthening shadows flickered across the wall from the trees outside like skeletal hands reaching up in warning.

Blinking groggily, Aurora slapped around her bed until she hit her phone and checked the time, wincing and squinting as the screen flicked on. Above a dozen missed calls and two dozen missed texts from Lauren, there was the time: 7:37.

She dropped her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes, the clutches of sleep wrapping her like vice.

Then she jerked awake, the full significance of the time hitting her. 7:37. An hour past her alarm. Twenty-three minutes before she was supposed to be on a California-bound bus.

"Shit!" She tapped her phone again, checking her alarm. Had she slept through it? Snoozed it fifty times? Why was she--

It said 6:00 a.m. Ten hours and twenty-three minutes from now.

"Shit," she muttered again, running a hand through her hair. She gave herself a second to collect herself, pressing her hands into her forehead. Stupid. But there wasn't time to fret. She jumped up, running to splash water on her face, then stuffed her laptop in her backpack and swung it on. She was out of the apartment in seconds and on the street in a minute.

The station was twenty minutes away, maybe eighteen if she sprinted. Shrugging her backpack higher on her back, she set off at a dead run, attracting puzzled stares and angry shouts alike as she cut through the throngs.

Night fell on the city quickly, painting everything in hues of purple and blue until lamps and too much neon banished the dark away. It all blurred around her, and her desperate breathing muffled the sounds of the city as she fled.

Aurora almost skidded to a stop at a red crosswalk before looking both ways and continuing out on the street. A horn blared, and she skitted to the side, throwing her head in the direction of the honk.

"Turn your lights on, asshole!" she shouted at the driver of the dark sedan, who cursed at her in return. Shaking her head with a scowl, she ran onward.

She found herself in familiar territory a minute later. Foreign characters peppered the signs, and pork-scented steam filled the air along with the sizzling of oil. Everything came to her in detail, as though in slow motion--the young man with combed-back hair shouting into his phone, the sound of a million distinct footsteps on pavement, soft coos of pigeons. Everything. Her mother's gift had kicked in, activated by her desperate flight.

Most of all, she noticed the crucifix's weight in her pocket. It anchored her, a burning cold that would never fade.

Another red crosswalk. She came to a full stop this time, hopping from foot to foot so she wouldn't go stiff. Aurora looked around once, twice, thrice, making sure no more assholes with dark cars and no lights would come blasting around the corner at twenty over the limit.

No cars, but a familiar bald head on a familiar thuggish build.

Her hopping ceased. The edges of her vision grew dark, tunneling on Fabricio, who strode forward, his shoulders hunched and his hand grasping something in his pocket.

Not my business.

The crosswalk was red.

The bus leaves in less than fifteen minutes.

The crosswalk flashed white. Walk. Twenty seconds. Safety was forward.

This city will not be my grave.

Aurora leapt forward, barely dodging a car as she crossed the street to her right, heart thundering with fear and exertion.

Once she was across the street, she slowed, matching Fabricio's swift walk. She couldn't see him, but she didn't need to--she could hear his shoes clicking against cement, his lungs grabbing air with the rasp of too many cigarettes, and his clothes chafing against themselves. Every little sound and movement came together to weave a bright red beacon screaming here I am.