Death was standing over the driver of the black Mazda.

  Amelia saw it clearly.

  And it wasn’t looking at him.

  It was looking at her.

  She didn’t scream. She didn’t run.

  She tightened her grip on the steering wheel instead.

  Only seconds earlier, the same car had swerved violently across both lanes before slamming into the crash barriers with a screech of twisted metal.

  Amelia yanked the handbrake and stopped sideways across the road—less than a meter from the wreck.

  For a long moment, she stared straight ahead.

  Her heart hammered against her ribs.

  So little had separated her from dying.

  Strangely, it felt like the worst possible moment to die—despite the fact that death had once been her silent wish during the darkest years of her life.

  The thought snapped something back into place.

  She turned on the hazard lights and stepped out.

  The air felt wrong.

  Thicker.

  Charged.

  “Damn it…” she whispered.

  The scent hit her again—strange, metallic, almost electric. She had never smelled anything like it before. And yet she knew, with disturbing certainty, what it would look like if it had a shape.

  Death.

  It stood beside the driver’s door.

  It did not seem cruel.

  It did not seem kind.

  It simply was.

  And it was waiting.

  “No,” she whispered hoarsely.

  When her hand touched the Mazda’s handle, pain detonated inside her chest—sharp, brutal, perfectly precise.

  Not fear.

  Not panic.

  Pain.

  As if something inside her had just been torn open.

  She ignored it.

  Inside the sun-heated car sat a man in his sixties, elegantly dressed. His lips were already turning blue. His hand clutched his left arm with desperate force.

  “Entschuldigung,” he breathed, his eyes already clouding.

  The pain in her chest intensified.

  Perfectly in sync with the failing rhythm of his heart.

  She dialed emergency services with trembling fingers.

  Another car pulled over.

  “What happened?” a tall, gray-haired man asked, stepping out. “I’m a doctor.”

  “Heart attack,” Amelia forced out. “An ambulance is coming.”

  The doctor moved fast.

  He dragged the now-unconscious man onto the asphalt and began CPR.

  Thirty compressions.

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  Her chest tightened.

  Thirty more.

  The pressure increased.

  Exactly in rhythm.

  Not after.

  Not before.

  With him.

  She staggered backward, gripping the hood of her Maserati to remain upright.

  “Damn it—breathe,” the doctor snapped.

  She obeyed.

  Barely.

  The world dimmed.

  And then—

  It stopped.

  The crushing pain vanished as abruptly as it had come.

  The doctor sat back, exhausted.

  “He’ll live,” he said quietly.

  Amelia stared.

  The presence beside the Mazda was gone.

  Or perhaps—

  It had stepped back.

  “You’re from Poznań?” the doctor asked gently. “Are you traveling far?”

  “Far,” she answered.

  Her voice broke.

  She didn’t know what frightened her more:

  How close she had come to dying—

  Or the certainty that something had just looked at her…

  And decided to wait.

  The doctor stepped closer.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  She nodded too quickly.

  “I’m… fine.”

  It was a lie.

  She was still listening.

  Not to him.

  To her own chest.

  To make sure it was beating in its own rhythm again.

  When the doctor reached for her wrist, instinct overrode reason. She pulled back almost violently.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  He didn’t look offended—only concerned.

  “You need to take a break. In this state, you won’t make it far.”

  Far.

  The word echoed strangely.

  She didn’t even know why she was going back.

  Only that whatever she had been running from had caught up with her.

  The rescue helicopter roared overhead.

  Wind flattened her hair against her face.

  For a moment, she felt it again.

  That subtle pressure.

  Not pain.

  Awareness.

  As if something unseen was still standing somewhere nearby.

  Watching.

  Measuring.

  Waiting.

  The doctor moved away to assist the paramedics.

  The unconscious man was stabilized, lifted, secured.

  Alive.

  Relief should have come.

  It didn’t.

  The realization hit her so suddenly she almost choked.

  What is wrong with me?

  The presence felt further now.

  But not gone.

  The doctor turned back to her once more.

  “Please don’t leave,” he said quietly.

  Not commanding.

  Almost pleading.

  For a split second she considered staying.

  But staying meant answering questions.

  Staying meant being examined.

  Touched.

  Observed.

  And something inside her recoiled violently at that idea.

  The world narrowed.

  Sound dulled.

  Movement felt distant.

  As if she were watching everything from slightly outside her own body.

  Without fully deciding to, she walked back to her car.

  Closed the door.

  Started the engine.

  In the rearview mirror she saw the doctor notice.

  Saw confusion cross his face.

  Saw him lift his hands in disbelief.

  And then she drove away.

  Only when the accident disappeared behind a bend in the road did the tremor begin.

  It started in her fingers.

  Then spread through her arms.

  Her chest tightened—not in sync with anyone else this time.

  This was hers.

  “What just happened?” she whispered.

  No answer came.

  But deep beneath the fading adrenaline, beneath the rational explanations her mind was trying to assemble, something else settled quietly into place.

  A certainty.

  Whatever had touched her on that road…

  Had not mistaken her for someone else.

  And it had not left by accident.

  It had stepped back.

  Because it wanted to see what she would do next.