The scream never made it past my lips.
One moment I was hurrying through the narrow alley behind the university library, earbuds blasting lo-fi beats, hoodie pulled tight against the biting November wind, my mind tangled in the half-finished essay waiting on my laptop. The next, I was frozen in the shadows, eyes wide as a man in a tailored black coat pressed a gun to another man’s forehead and pulled the trigger.
The muffled pop echoed in my chest like a second, violent heartbeat. Blood sprayed across the wet pavement in a glistening arc. The victim dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. The shooter didn’t even blink. He simply lowered the weapon, calm as death itself, and wiped a single red speck from his cuff with a gloved thumb.
I should have run. I should have screamed. Instea
