We didn't move right away.
The street was empty where the shadow had stood. No body. No blood. Just thin mist curling against broken stone, as if the world had already decided nothing important had happened here.
Claire's hand was still on my arm.
Not to steady me.
To make sure I was still there.
I tried to look at the place where the shadow had fallen, but my eyes slid away from it. My head felt wrong—too light, like something had been removed and the space hadn't collapsed yet.
"You saw something," she said.
Her voice was careful. Measured. The way you speak when you don't know which word might make a wound open.
"I think I did," I said.
The truth sat just out of reach.
Not hidden.
Not blurred.
Gone.
Her fingers tightened. "You went still. For a moment I thought—"
"That I'd let it take me?"
She didn't answer.
Which was answer enough.
We moved off the street after that. Not far. Just far enough that the buildings closed in again and the fog thickened into something familiar. The pressure around my legs eased slightly, as if it was satisfied with what had happened.
That thought made my stomach turn.
We stopped near a collapsed stairwell where the concrete had folded into itself like a broken spine. The space was half-sheltered, half-exposed. A place that didn't belong to anyone anymore.
My legs lowered me against the wall.
Not because I chose to sit.
Because the fog allowed it.
Claire knelt in front of me again. She didn't reach for her supplies right away. She just watched me, eyes moving over my face like she was looking for something that wasn't there before.
"You knew him," she said.
I shook my head. "I don't remember."
"You fought him like you did."
I leaned back against the cold stone. My chest felt wrong.
Not wounded.
Not weak.
Hollow.
"There was something there," I said. "When he looked at me."
"What?"
"Expectation."
Claire's gaze dropped to the street behind us. "He used to look at us like that," she said quietly. "Like he was waiting for permission to stop pretending."
Silence filled the space between us.
Not empty silence.
Loaded.
She unwrapped the cloth at my side and began to clean the wound again even though the bleeding had slowed. Her hands weren't as steady this time. The water trembled in the small glass vial.
"You didn't hesitate," she said.
"I didn't know why I was swinging."
She met my eyes. "That's what scares me."
The fog pressed closer to my legs, faint and patient.
Not forcing.
Listening.
"I don't think it wants me to remember," I said.
Her jaw tightened. "Then it wants something else."
"What?"
She hesitated. "For you to keep moving."
The words landed harder than she meant them to.
Because that was what it always did.
When I couldn't think, it moved me.
When I hesitated, it decided.
When I tried to remember, it took something away.
I looked down at my hands.
They didn't shake.
They should have.
"I did something wrong," I said.
Claire tied the cloth too tight and had to loosen it again. "You did something necessary."
Those two truths didn't touch.
They sat beside each other like strangers.
I closed my eyes and tried again.
The shadow.
The fight.
The way it had looked at me.
There was only the echo of motion.
A swing.
A step.
A strike.
No reason.
No face.
No voice.
Just the certainty that whatever had happened before had ended the same way.
With my blade.
My stomach twisted. "It wasn't the first time."
Claire froze. "What?"
"I don't remember doing it before," I said. "But my body did. The street did. The fog did."
She lowered herself onto the step beside me.
"You're saying you've killed him before."
I nodded.
Her hands curled into the cloth. "Then why didn't I know?"
"I don't know."
Her eyes closed for a moment. When she opened them, they were brighter.
"Maybe because it didn't want you to."
The fog shifted slightly, like it was adjusting its weight.
Claire watched it.
Then she looked back at me. "When he changed… when he came back wrong the first time… I thought he was sick. I thought he was scared."
I said nothing.
"I thought if I stayed near him, I could fix it." Her voice thinned. "I thought if I watched him closely enough, I'd see what was happening."
Her gaze dropped to her hands. "I didn't."
The space between us filled with something heavier than silence.
Regret.
"I don't know what it took from you this time," she said.
The fog pressed closer to my legs, faint and patient.
"But it didn't take more of you."
I swallowed.
"Which means whatever you lost… it wasn't flesh."
Her eyes lifted to mine.
"It was something it thought you could survive without."
The thought made me cold.
We stayed there longer than we should have.
Not resting.
Just… not walking.
Eventually, the light shifted enough that the street beyond the stairwell brightened into something like morning. The fog pulled back slightly, as if it had grown bored of watching us sit still.
Claire stood first.
"We keep moving," she said.
Not because it was safe.
Because staying would mean thinking.
She waited until my legs rose beneath me before turning away. That small pause told me more than her words had.
When we walked again, she didn't go ahead of me.
She stayed beside me.
Close enough that our shoulders almost touched.
Not leaning.
Not comforting.
Just… there.
Behind us, the fog followed at a careful distance.
Not wrapped around us.
Not hiding.
Watching.
And I walked with the knowledge that something inside me had been broken and repaired at the same time.
That I had done something unforgivable.
And something necessary.
That the fog had decided which part of that truth I was allowed to keep.
I just didn't know which part I was supposed to mourn.
(Next Chapter: The Hidden Crime)