Killian

It happened in a back alley behind a grimy bar downtown — the kind of place where the neon flickers like it’s gasping for life and shadows cling to the pavement like oil.

She was wearing a black jacket and boots too clean for this part of the city. Her hair was down in loose waves, She didn’t belong here. But she came anyway.

He saw the men first — two of them — lurking near the dumpsters, pretending to smoke, pretending to wait. He've seen their kind. The type that smells vulnerability like wolves smell blood. They cornered her the second she stepped out the bar's back exit.

She didn’t scream right away. She fight. God, she fought. Knees, elbows, a voice that cracked with fury when she said, “Get your f**king hands off me.” And he felt something he hadn’t felt in years. Heat. Not rage. Not hate. But need. To step in. To be the weapon she deserved.

So he did.

The bottle he used wasn’t his. It was theirs.

He shattered it on the edge of a brick wall, and the sound cut through the alley like thunder.

One turned. He buried the glass in his throat. The second tried to run. He didn’t get far. He don't kill for pleasure. But that night? He didn’t regret it.

When it was done, she was pressed against the wall, breathing like she'd been drowning. Her eyes were wild — the kind that look through you, like you're a ghost.

She didn’t say thank you. Didn’t ask who I was. Just stared. Her lip was split. Her fingers clenched into fists, still ready to fight.

He stepped close, slowly, and she flinched. So he stopped.

Then, without a word, he took off his jacket — black, heavy, warm — and draped it over her shoulders. Her scent hit him then. Rain. Ink. Salt. And the faintest trace of orange peel.

He should’ve walked away. But he stepped in closer. Touched her wrist. The pulse there was frantic.

“You need to go,” he said, voice low. Gravel-slick. Controlled. And then she ran. Not out of fear of him. But because she knew if she stayed, she’d ask for more. And if she asked… I would’ve given her everything.

---

He Never Sees Her Again. That was 96 days ago.

He haven’t seen her since. Not in person. But he found her. Of course he did.

He replayed security footage from every bar, every alley, every traffic camera within five blocks. Traced her face, pixel by pixel, until he found her. A tattoo artist? Interesting.

He has memorized every line she’s ever inked on someone’s skin.

He know the exact time her lights go out each night. He know she reads dark poetry and has three pairs of the same boots.

But she doesn’t know him. Not yet.

She calls him the shadow in the alley. The stranger with glass on his hands and fire in his eyes.

To her, it was just one night.

To him? It was the night he was born again. In obsession.