1
The third time the bank clock said 19:38, my body flinched and my brain just went, figures.
Same red numbers.
Same date: 11 / 08.
Same dog arguing about direction with its owner.
Same kid dropping the same candy wrapper in the same little skid of plastic.
This time, I walked over and pinned the wrapper under my heel.
It crackled. Tiny difference, but mine.
My fingers still buzzed from the last reset, nerves remembering the moment something peeled me off Angel's bag.
"Message received," I muttered. "Hands off."
2
She appeared on schedule.
Corner, step, step, there she was again: bag strap digging into her shoulder, cram-school folder hugged to her side, hair clip slightly crooked, mouth tight as she checked her watch.
My legs wanted to go to her.
I stayed under the awning and watched her pass.
Everything in me screamed that letting her walk alone was a mistake. The last two attempts had been all about getting close, staying close, dragging the outcome away by force.
The loop had punished that.
It hadn't blinked when I told her she'd die. It hadn't blinked when I warned her the street was wrong. Words had slid off the surface of the night.
The leash only jerked when I did something that actually tugged on events: grabbing her, dragging the police toward the factory.
Knowledge: tolerated.
Impact: not.
"Fine," I said under my breath. "If she's the piece I can't move, I'll move something else."
3
Angel's back receded into the crowd.
I let her.
I waited until she was almost at the convenience store, counted down under my breath, then turned and took a different street in the same direction, three blocks over.
The city grid made it easy to run parallel lives.
At the corner near the store, I cut back in.
Angel came out right on cue, plastic bag in one hand, drink already open, mouth closing around the straw. The exact brand I'd watched her choose twice now.
Further along, a white van idled by the curb. Lights off, engine low, anonymous enough to vanish into any street.
I stayed on the opposite side of the road.
As she walked past the side street where it waited, the driver stared straight ahead. The passenger watched her, one elbow propped on the window ledge, cap pulled down, face half in shadow.
The van eased away from the curb and rolled after her.
I whispered the plate to myself as it passed my position: 32-74, region symbols I didn't know, numbers I kept.
4
I followed the van instead of her.
They tried to look casual. I tried to look like I wasn't following a kidnapping in progress.
Whenever they turned, I cut down a side road and picked them up from a different angle. Twice I almost lost them when other cars slid between us; twice I caught a glimpse of that white shape further ahead and pushed my legs harder.
The streets thinned.
Bright windows faded to a scattered few. Shops gave way to low office blocks, then to warehouses and fenced lots with stacks of pallets and nothing else.
The air cooled. The city smelled less like food and people, more like metal and damp concrete.
The factory yard opened ahead.
No fence, no tape, no stone. Just a wide stretch of rough ground and the building standing behind it, intact and ugly, with a company sign still clinging above the main doors.
The van took a side entrance.
I stopped outside the gate and slid behind a parked truck, using its bulk as cover.
5
The van rolled to a stop by a smaller door on the flank of the building.
A man came out to meet it. Taller than the rest, thick shoulders under a cheap jacket, hands in his pockets like he didn't expect to need them.
The van's side door slid open.
Two men jumped down first. I recognised one — the fake payphone caller from the street. The other was heavier, shaved head, weight balanced on the balls of his feet the way people stand when they're used to hitting and not being hit back.
Then they hauled her out.
Angel's feet skidded on the concrete. Her hands were roped together in front of her with something dark and thin. A strip of tape covered her mouth. Whatever she tried to say came out as muffled, furious noise.
Her hair had escaped the clip entirely. It stuck to her cheeks in damp strands.
She kicked.
Heavier guy cursed and wrenched her forward by the wrists. The tall man stepped in, said something short, and slapped her across the face.
Not enough to knock her down. Enough to set a line.
I saw the impact. My ears didn't get the sound. They'd already started doing that thing where important noises went far away at the worst possible moments.
I pressed my fingers harder into the truck's cold metal until the skin hurt.
Four men. One van. One entrance, second door from the corner. No security cameras that I could see. No guards on the gate.
Pieces. Positions.
They hustled her through the doorway. The metal swung shut behind them.
The yard fell quiet again, as if nothing had changed, though a girl who wasn't a memorial yet had just been carried into the night that would make her one.
6
Every muscle in my body wanted to charge the door.
I could picture it too vividly: sprinting across the yard, smashing through, catching them off-guard. Maybe getting one good punch in before I ended up on the floor or, more realistically, back under the bank clock.
The invisible weight that had slammed into me last loop sat just out of reach, waiting for an excuse.
If I ran in now, it would tear me out of this minute before I made it halfway.
Then I'd know nothing more than I knew standing here, fingers numb, heart pounding.
I turned away from the building.
The street outside looked bizarrely normal. A cyclist went past with grocery bags hanging from the handlebars. A vending machine glowed beside a rusting lamppost. Somewhere nearby a dog barked once and then shut up, like it had changed its mind.
That was one set of pieces mapped.
Time to test the rest.
7
The police box closest to the industrial district perched on a corner like it was a bit embarrassed to be there.
By the time I shoved the door open, my hoodie was sticking to my back and I could taste metal in my mouth from running.
Inside, harsh light, a desk, a few plastic chairs, a bulletin board with notices curling at the edges. The smell of old paper and fresh cleaner.
A uniformed officer looked up from a stack of forms.
"Evening," he said. "What's going on?"
"A girl's been taken," I said. "Right now. Four men, white van, plate three-two-seven-four, no company name. They've got her tied up and they just dragged her into a factory on the east side."
It tumbled out tangled. I hauled it back into order.
He held up a hand.
"Slow down," he said. "Take a breath. Start again."
I dragged air in, steady this time, and gave him the short version properly: location, route, number of men, entrance.
His shoulders straightened. He reached for a notepad.
"About how old is she?" he asked.
"My age," I said. "Maybe a bit younger. Uniform skirt, cram-school folder. If you wait until morning you'll hear about her from her parents instead."
His pen paused on the page.
"Name?" he said.
I hesitated for half a second.
"Mine or hers?" I asked.
"Yours first," he said.
"Demon Kurozawa," I said.
He stared like I'd thrown a brick at his sense of normal.
"…you saying that with a straight face?" he asked.
"I've had practice," I said.
Behind him, another officer looked up from a coffee and turned his chair slightly. His gaze moved from my face to the clock on the wall, then back.
"What school?" the first man asked.
"Private," I said.
"Which private?" he pressed.
"One that doesn't matter if you don't get moving," I snapped, temper slipping. "They're hurting her right now. I've seen where they took her. If you go there now, you can stop it ever being a case file."
The second officer stood.
"That plant's barely ten minutes from here by car," he said. "We can at least go take a look."
He grabbed a ring of keys from a hook.
The air in the room changed.
8
The pressure started behind my eyes, then spread.
It wasn't fear. That sat lower, in my chest. This was something else — the sense of a massive hand starting to close.
The clock above the desk doubled, numbers sliding over each other. The minute hand juddered, then spun once around the face far too fast and snapped back to where it had been when I first walked under the bank awning hours ago: 19:38 burned into memory.
The second officer halted mid-step, keys in hand.
I clutched the edge of the desk.
My fingers found wood. My brain watched them slip.
The room's fluorescent buzz thinned to nothing.
"Hey," the nearer officer said. His voice came from very far away. "Are you feeling—"
The question never finished.
The walls peeled back like someone had hooked them and pulled.
Dust hit my throat, dry and familiar.
The whole scene let go of me.
9
I was back under the bank.
Red digits above the glass doors: 19:38.
Same swirling wrapper. Same dog dragging the same man. Same students heading past, already halfway into the punchline of a joke I'd heard twice before.
My chest still rose and fell like I'd sprinted. My palms hurt where I'd dug nails in.
So that was another rule, then.
I could carry knowledge alone. I could watch. I could even nudge Angel a little with words that wouldn't convince anyone important.
The moment I tried to invite the rest of the world onto the board, something flipped it.
"Just us," I said quietly. "Got it."
The night didn't argue.
Around the corner, Angel came into view again.
Bag. Folder. Watch check. That little annoyed bend to her mouth.
Every loop so far had given me something:
First had shoved me into the chair with her.
Second had shown me the street abduction.
Third had walked me to the factory door.
Fourth had taught me what happened when I tried to hand the problem to adults.
The day was patient.
I could learn patience too.
My legs ached, my head throbbed dully, but I stepped out from under the awning anyway.
"Angel," I called, for the fourth time that same evening, and moved to meet her again.