Chapter 4
She’d been running a counter-investigation on me this whole time!
My hands started shaking uncontrollably, the mouse cursor jittering wildly across the screen. Why? If she knew I was the one "saving" her, why not just ask me? Why play the victim—acting terrified, disgusted, even threatening to move out? Did she think I was just some psycho stalker, trying to gather evidence this way to lock me up? No. That wasn't it. My eyes locked onto the last video file in the folder. The timestamp was from this afternoon. Just two hours before I broke her leg. In the video, Lily was sitting in the corner of a local diner, speaking softly into her phone’s front-facing camera. "He’s losing it. The gas explosion, the elevator, the car wreck... to prove he can 'save' me, he keeps escalating his interventions. If I keep playing the passive victim, sooner or later he’ll kill me just to 'save' me for good." Her eyes in the video were chillingly calm. "So, I need to give him an endgame. A bait that will force him to fully expose himself—and let me turn the tables and kill him." She picked up a blueprint from the table and waved it in front of the lens. "The abandoned chemical plant on the East Side. I’ve already sent him the map and made sure he saw that 'death prophecy' photo. Tomorrow night at eleven, he’ll show up in that black hoodie, armed with a knife, playing the self-righteous hero coming to 'save' me." "And I’ll be waiting for him."
The video ended. I slumped back in my chair, feeling like all the blood had been instantly drained from my body. She wasn't running from the Grim Reaper. She was hunting *me*. I lunged at the computer, frantically digging through her recently downloaded local files. In the "Maps & Navigation" cache, I found a high-res satellite image of the abandoned chemical plant on the East Side. The map was zoomed in to the max, densely marked with over a dozen points using a red digital pen. "Building One, blind spot, ideal for an ambush." "Blast Furnace Two, structurally compromised, can trigger a collapse." "Chemical waste pool, ten feet deep, no guardrails, optimal body dump site." And right in the center of the map, next to a red crosshair marked "Tomorrow 11 PM," was a tiny note: "The moment he thinks he's the savior is when the closed causal loop snaps shut."
A gust of night wind slammed the poorly latched window open, making the utility bills on the desk rattle loudly. I looked down at my hands—scrubbed raw, yet still carrying the faint, metallic tang of blood. I broke her leg to stop her from going to the chemical plant. But what if... she never actually planned to go in the first place? What if breaking her leg was exactly what forced her into the hospital, giving her the perfect alibi or some unpredictable excuse, seamlessly luring me into the slaughterhouse she’d so meticulously set up? I whipped my head around, staring at the black hoodie draped over the back of my chair. The red text on the inner lining now looked like a mocking eye: "Put it on, and you become him." Was I really saving her, or was I, step by step, piecing together the perfect chain of events for her to kill me? Right then, my phone screen lit up. It was an iMessage from Lily. [My leg hurts so bad. Cole, can you come to the chemical plant tomorrow night and give me a ride home?]
Staring at the iMessage on the screen, I didn't reply.
Her leg was broken. How could she possibly go to the chemical plant tomorrow night? Unless... she never planned to wait until tomorrow.
I kept my eyes glued to the binoculars. Time ticked by, the motion-sensor lights in the hallway flickering off and on. At 3:00 AM, the hospital room door cracked open.
Lily stepped out.
She had a pair of crutches tucked under her arms, the thick cast on her right leg looking incredibly cumbersome under the harsh, pale lights. With every step, a fine sheen of cold sweat broke out on her forehead, but she was moving at an abnormally fast pace.
Was she trying to get herself killed? Her broken tibia had been set less than four hours ago. This kind of strenuous movement would cause a secondary displacement; the bone fragments could even pierce her blood vessels!
I grabbed my jacket and bolted downstairs.
She hobbled into an Uber. I unlocked a Lime e-bike, tailing the car's red taillights from a distance. The night wind slashed at my face like knives, but my brain was running in overdrive.
Where was she going? To the cops to file a report? Or to meet the accomplice helping her orchestrate this?
As the Uber merged onto the Eastside expressway, the robotic female voice of the GPS echoed through the spyware I’d planted on her phone: "Turn right at the next intersection. Destination: the abandoned chemical plant on the East Side."
My heart skipped a violent beat.
The chemical plant! Her leg was broken, so why the hell was she going to that death trap tonight? Was she really willing to risk her life just to lure me in?
About a mile out from the plant, I took a shortcut and ditched the bike early. Climbing over the rusted chain-link fence, I circled around to the abandoned rear gate of the facility.
The air was thick with the pungent stench of ammonia and the metallic reek of rust. Moonlight was shredded by heavy clouds, scattering in fragments across the overgrown concrete. A dead silence surrounded me, broken only by the distant, mournful howling of the wind through the blast furnaces.
I pressed myself against the peeling corrugated iron of the rear gate, peering inside through a two-inch gap.
One look, and my blood ran cold.
Standing at the edge of the second-floor platform in Building Two was a frail silhouette.
Lily.
She didn't turn on a flashlight, just stood there quietly at the unguarded edge. The night wind whipped her white dress, the moonlight tracing the pale profile of her face. Beneath her feet lay the ten-foot-deep, foul-smelling abandoned chemical waste pool.
This framing... this positioning...
My pupils contracted violently. This was the exact scene from that "death prophecy" photo! Even the arc of her hair blowing in the wind was identical to the picture!
Was she recreating her own death scene?
Just then, Lily pulled out her phone. The eerie glow of the screen illuminated the lower half of her face as she dialed a number.
The night wind carried her voice to my ears in broken fragments.
"Yeah, I'm here." Her voice was surprisingly calm, even carrying a hint of bizarre delight. "He hasn't shown up yet, but I know he will."
Who was she talking to? The accomplice in the shadows helping her close the net?
I swallowed hard and pulled the black hoodie from my backpack. The plant was freezing at night, and the matte inner lining of this jacket absorbed light—it was my favorite stealth gear when I was "protecting" her from the shadows. I had to get close to her and pull her back before she jumped or got pushed by her accomplice.
