POV Mara
"Adrian Ricci," the voice came through the door, smooth and controlled. "We have a mutual friend."
The knife stayed in my hand even as relief flooded through me, mixing with something sharper—irritation that he'd tracked me here, want that he'd bothered to.
I cracked the door just enough to confirm it was really him, then opened it wider, letting him step into Sera's apartment like he belonged in every space I occupied.
Sera drifted closer from the living room, curiosity written across her face as she took in this man who'd appeared at her door looking for me—polished in his expensive suit, moving with that deliberate grace that marked him as dangerous to anyone who knew how to look.
"I apologize for the intrusion," Adrian said, old-world manners sliding into place even as his eyes found mine and hardened into something that wasn't an apology at all. "But when I discovered you'd left—"
"You were worried?" I cut him off, hearing the accusation beneath his politeness, the anger at my choice rather than concern for my safety.
"I was concerned about the unnecessary risks you were taking," he said, each word precise as a blade. "How did you get here?"
"Taxi," I said, the word coming out tight, defensive. "Paid with spare cards tied to offshore accounts I keep for emergencies."
"Of course you do," he murmured, and I couldn't tell if it was approval or resignation in his voice.
Sera's laugh broke through our standoff, bright and knowing. "Please, don't stop on my account. This is better than anything on Netflix. I've waited months to see Mara actually in orbit with someone, and here you both are, having your little domestic dispute in my entryway."
Sera seeing straight through to something I couldn't even name, this gravitational pull between us that felt like drowning and breathing at once. The exposure of it, being seen like this, made my skin feel too tight.
"How did you even find this address?" I asked, pivoting back to safer ground, to logistics and violations rather than the way my body had relaxed the moment I'd heard his voice through the door. "I never said it to you."
Adrian snorted, the sound almost amused. "In our world, it's harder to disappear than to locate someone. You texted from a number in that club, I traced the hop. Simple triangulation."
"That's stalking," Sera said cheerfully, and when we both turned to look at her, she waved us off with theatrical innocence. "Don't mind me, I'm just observing quietly. Pretend I'm not here."
It actually pulled a smile from Adrian, quick and genuine, and watching it transform his face made something loosen in my shoulders, made the knife in my hand feel suddenly ridiculous.
His phone chirped, sharp and insistent. He pulled it out, fingers moving across the screen with increasing urgency, and I watched his expression shift from focused to something close to alarmed.
"Fuck," he said under his breath, then looked up at me. "We need to go. Now."
"What? No, wait," Sera protested, her hostess instincts kicking in even as curiosity sharpened her voice. "I haven't even offered you coffee, or food, or—"
"Now, Mara," Adrian said, already moving toward the door, all pretense of politeness evaporating in the face of whatever that message contained.
I pressed the kitchen knife into Sera's hands before reaching for my shoes, needing her to have something, even if it was just the illusion of protection.
She took it with exaggerated solemnity, then tried an experimental wave through the air like some kind of suburban ninja, the gesture so absurdly Sera that a laugh escaped me—raw and unexpected, cutting through the tension.
Adrian paused at the door, actually turning back to watch her awkward flourish, and something shifted in his expression—the urgency cracking just enough to let humanity through.
"Good form," he said to Sera, completely serious. "Wrist straight, commitment to the motion. You'd surprise someone."
This unexpected gentleness toward my friend when every second mattered, when danger pressed against us from all sides.
He didn't have to do that—didn't have to see her, acknowledge her, make her feel less helpless in this moment where my world bled into hers.
But he did, and the gratitude that flooded through me was so intense it felt like drowning, like discovering I could want him for more than his body, more than his violence, more than the way he made me feel alive in all the wrong ways.
I shoved my feet into my shoes, body responding to the urgency that had returned to Adrian's movements, that trained response to danger that lived in my bones now.
He was out the door with that strange courtesy intact, leaving me suspended between two worlds—the one where Sera existed, safe and separate, and the one where Adrian and I hunted ghosts together.
I turned back to Sera, something cracking in my chest at the sight of her standing there, knife still clutched in her hand, looking like some beautiful, tragic parody of protection—my best friend trying to be dangerous for me, the blade trembling slightly in her artist's grip.
"I love you," I said, the words scraping out raw and necessary.
"Same," she said, eyes bright with tears she wouldn't let fall. "Be safe."
The door shut between us with a finality that felt like another small death, another piece of my old life sealed away.