The morning after the darkness moved, the city felt wrong.
Maybe it was just me—my nerves frayed, my senses stretched too thin—but even the air outside seemed heavier. Cars passed slower. The sky hung lower. People walked like something invisible pressed down on their shoulders.
Something was shifting.
Something approaching.
Something inevitable.
I felt it with every step I took.
I hadn't meant to leave the house. Every instinct begged me to stay inside, lock the doors, hide under the blankets like a child terrified of the boogeyman.
But karma had crawled into my apartment.
It had whispered to me.
It had shown me its intent.
Staying inside wouldn't save me.
Hiding wouldn't stop anything.
So I walked.
By noon, my legs took me to a street I hadn't planned to visit—Maple Junction, an old part of town filled with boarded shops, cracked pavement, and ghosts of childhood corners I didn't want to remember.
But that's where my phone buzzed.
A text.
Unknown number.
Three words that made my stomach twist:
"He's next. Hurry."
A location followed. An abandoned warehouse on the outskirts.
My breath stuttered.
My mind froze.
Not Kian.
Not yet.
Someone else.
Someone from the past.
Someone who had played a role in what happened to me at sixteen.
Only a few people fit that list.
My hands trembled as I dialed the number, but it didn't ring. It didn't exist.
Karma didn't need a phone.
Still, I went.
The warehouse was a forgotten skeleton of metal and dust. The windows were shattered; the roof sagged like the building itself was tired. The air smelled of rust, old oil, and something sweet—too sweet. Like rotten flowers.
As I approached, I noticed a figure pacing near the entrance.
Tall. Broad shoulders. A face I hadn't seen in years.
Lucas.
My chest tightened.
He used to hang around Kian back then—quiet, observant, always at his side. He wasn't as cruel as Kian, not as mocking as Daniel, but he hadn't stopped anything either. He had watched. He had laughed sometimes. That was enough.
My heartbeat quickened.
He noticed me and froze. His eyes widened slightly before he forced a smile I didn't believe.
"Elizabeth? Wow, it's been—"
"Why am I here?" I cut him off, voice harsher than I intended.
He shifted uncomfortably. "I… needed to talk to someone. And I heard you were looking into what happened to Daniel and—"
But the words stuck in his throat.
Because the air changed.
The light dimmed even though clouds covered the sun. A cold gust rolled across the dirt, sweeping through the broken doorway behind him. My skin prickled. My breath fogged in the air.
Lucas shivered and glanced over his shoulder.
"You feel that?" he asked.
I didn't answer.
The shadows inside the warehouse stretched unnaturally along the floor, reaching toward him like dark fingers. The wind groaned through the broken beams overhead, carrying a faint whisper—not loud, not distinct, but unmistakable.
Karma had arrived.
"Lucas," I said quietly, "we need to leave."
He frowned. "Why? I just need to tell you something. Something about Kian."
"Kian isn't the problem right now," I whispered. "You are."
He blinked. "What?"
But before I could explain, a loud clang echoed from inside the building—the sound of metal hitting concrete. Lucas jumped back.
"What the hell was that?"
The shadows rippled.
The air hummed.
Something was shifting inside. Moving.
Lucas backed toward the door, but as soon as his foot touched the threshold, the heavy metal door behind him slammed shut on its own.
Hard.
He yelped and stumbled forward, nearly tripping. Panic filled his eyes as he looked between me and the sealed entrance.
"What's going on?" he demanded. "Why won't the door open?"
He pulled at the handle, but it wouldn't budge.
"Lucas." My voice trembled. "Listen to me—whatever follows Kian… whatever killed Daniel… it's here."
He froze.
"Here?" His voice lowered to a whisper.
"Yes," I said. "And it's not here for me."
He swallowed, jaw clenching.
And then, for the first time, I saw fear in him.
"What does it want?" he asked.
"Balance."
He shook his head violently. "I didn't do anything. I was just—"
But the whispering rose. This time, clearer.
"Liar."
Lucas paled.
I stepped back instinctively. The warehouse groaned again as something moved along the ceiling—an impossibly large shadow gliding without form or sound.
Lucas stumbled backward until his spine hit the wall.
"Elizabeth—don't leave me," he pleaded. "Please."
And then the ceiling lights—long dead, cracked and rusted—flickered.
Dimly.
Weakly.
But they flickered.
And in the brief pulse of illumination, I saw it.
A figure made of nothing but shifting darkness, looming on the rafters above Lucas, almost spider-like in its posture. Its limbs were long, its form tall and incomplete, as if it hadn't finished deciding what shape to wear.
It wasn't human.
It never had been.
Karma.
It dropped from the ceiling without a sound.
Lucas screamed and ducked, his hands flailing as he tried to crawl away. He tripped over a rusted metal beam, falling hard onto his back. His breathing turned frantic, uneven.
"No—no, please—Elizabeth—help me!"
And I wanted to.
God, I wanted to.
But my legs refused to move.
My lungs refused to breathe.
I was stone.
Frozen as I watched the shadow descend and coil around him like smoke with weight.
Lucas clawed at the ground, fingers scraping the concrete until they bled.
"I'm sorry!" he cried. "I didn't mean it—I didn't want to hurt you—it was Kian, it was always Kian—please—I'm sorry—"
The shadow pulsed.
The lights flickered violently.
Then everything went silent.
For one horrible second, the world stood still.
Then Lucas's body jerked upward as if yanked by invisible hands. His feet left the floor. His arms hung limp at his sides. His head snapped back, mouth open in a silent scream.
The darkness wrapped around his throat.
He kicked.
He thrashed.
He gasped for air that wouldn't come.
His eyes bulged, bloodshot.
And then—slowly—the shadows bent his body backward in a symbolic arch, forming the same twisted posture I had once been forced into when Kian pinned me against the stairwell wall at sixteen.
A grotesque reenactment.
A memory made manifest.
Karma wasn't just punishing him.
It was mirroring the hurt he'd enabled.
Lucas let out one last strangled cry.
His body dropped.
The warehouse floor vibrated.
Dust rose.
And he didn't move again.
I covered my mouth, tears burning my eyes.
Slowly, the shadow—still pulsing with cold—turned toward me. Not threatening. Not hungry.
Just watching.
Acknowledging.
Then it dissolved into the cracks between the floorboards like smoke pulled by a vacuum, leaving the air empty, silent, and shaking with aftershocks.
Lucas was dead.
The second death.
The second warning.
I forced myself to breathe.
To move.
To exist despite the horror.
As I stumbled backward toward the exit, the heavy door creaked open by itself. The cold air outside hit my face hard, like the slap of reality.
I stepped out, trembling.
Karma wasn't finished.
Not with me.
Not with him.
Not with the past we all shared.
Two down.
One left.
And Kian—wherever he was—felt the pressure tightening around his neck already.
I knew it.
I felt it.
Because somewhere in the distance, a whisper drifted through the wind.
"Soon."